This article contains major spoilers for “Squid Game” season 2.
Towards the beginning of the “bigger and better” second season of “Squid Game,” we meet a woman sleeping in her car in the parking lot of an amusement park. She works as a costumed mascot in the park, raising money to pay a broker to help her locate her missing daughter. Her name is Kang No-eul (Park Gyu-young), and she’s originally from North Korea. Given her desperation to find her daughter and the fact she’s living in her car, this makes her exactly the type of person one of the Squid Game recruiters would seek out for their annual bloodbath. A mysterious figure offers her a recruitment card one day, and she quits her job on the spot. As she leaves, she sees the young, sickly daughter of a caricature artist at the amusement park being taken away in an ambulance.
The little girl is a big fan of No-eul’s mascot, so she goes to visit her in the hospital where she overhears the girl’s father talking with a doctor who tells him that the girl needs an expensive experimental procedure. From this moment, it’s implied to the audience that No-eul will be one of the players in the game, likely splitting her potential winnings between finding her daughter (even if the broker thinks her daughter is dead) and helping to save this little girl.
But there’s a twist. No-eul is not being recruited to play the games, she’s been recruited to be one of the pink guards, given the number 011. Not that there’s such a thing as “one of the good ones” when it comes to “Squid Game” guards, but 011 proves to be unlike her colleagues very quickly.
For one thing, she is actively trying to put an end to one of the most disgusting storylines returning from the first season that left us with many questions — organ harvesting.
A refresher on the Squid Game organ harvesting
Back in season 1, a disgraced doctor who entered the games as Player 111 was secretly working with a small group of guards to harvest the organs of dead players to sell on the black market. The guards would give him information on upcoming games and better food rations if he helped retrieve the organs, but this meant he was still going to have to compete for his life despite having this massive advantage. However, his participation would not be enough to save him. When the Front Man, one of the mysterious figures running the games, finds out about the organ harvesting ring, he kills Player 111 for violating the game’s rule of equality.
However, the organ harvesting ring is a pretty well-oiled machine by the time we see it. After the doctor harvests the organs, they are sealed in protective backpacks that are taken by two guards with professional diving training to leave the island through a series of tunnels into the ocean. They rendezvous with a boat waiting for them at a specific time to get the organs off the island and available for purchase. With the amount of moving parts, people outside of the games, and precision necessary to ensure the organs are still viable by the time they hit the market, there’s no way this is a new side hustle. The guards of Squid Game have clearly been doing this for a while, and it wouldn’t be surprising to think that one of the recruiters was also in on it, as they’d always need a doctor on hand to help pull it off.
The difficulty, however, is that organs are incredibly fragile. In professional medical settings, doctors typically retrieve organs within 2-5 minutes of a patient passing away. Hearts and lungs are only viable under best conditions for about 4-6 hours, while the liver, pancreas, and intestines can survive around 8 hours. Kidneys have a longer time of viability at 24-48 hours, but corneas (yes, they offer eye donation) can last up to 14 days. This means harvesting from patients who die instantly on the field can prove difficult, because the time between death and being removed from the playing field is too long for viability.
Harvesting from players close to death would be best for business.
No-eul is punished for trying to prevent organ harvesting
Season 2 confirms the organ harvesting is still in full swing, although it appears the Front Man is unaware of its continuation. During the Red Light, Green Light game in season 2, a player is shot in the leg, a clear attempt by some of the guards to use him later for organ harvesting. However, No-eul eventually unleashes a kill shot on the man, making him unusable for their plans. The guards in on the organ harvesting ring are trying to figure out who is messing up their plans, and when they’ve narrowed it down to 011, they force her to meet with The Officer, another shady manager running the show (he seems to be one level down from the Front Man).
He warns her to quit interfering, but No-eul refuses. She views her mercy killings as a part of her job description (she’s right), but those involved with the organ ring aren’t having it. Unfortunately, this results in No-eul being attacked and assaulted in her guard’s chambers by the other guards. As of the end of “Squid Game” season 2, No-eul is still alive, but at this point, she no longer interfering, likely out of fear after having been attacked.
The games have not been completed at the end of the season so there’s no telling where she will end up in season 3. But as it stands, organ theft is still happening and players are being kept alive to suffer so they can be harvested for profit.
“Squid Game” season 2 is now available to stream on Netflix.
