Hell

"**Hell**" (지옥 *Ji-ok*?) is the second episode of the first season of the television series *Squid Game*.

This episode includes the voting scene.

## Summary

*Split on whether to continue or quit, the group holds a vote. But their realities in the outside world may prove to be just as unforgiving as the game.*

**—Official Netflix synopsis**
## Plot

After the first game, all the surviving contestants are brought back to the dormitory. The guards enter and congratulate the players for winning the first game, stating that 255 players were eliminated. At this, several players beg to be let go from the games, promising that they will pay off their debts. A guard clarifies that the point of the games are not to punish the players for their debts, but to give them a second chance.

After being reminded that players who refuse to participate will be killed, Cho Sang-woo invokes the third clause of the consent form that says the game can be ended if the majority vote to leave. The guards agree to the voting but show the cash prize first, with a gigantic transparent piggy bank being lowered from the ceiling that begins to be filled up with stacks of cash totaling ₩25 billion. They reveal that each contestant is worth ₩100 million and that the total prize pot will be ₩45.6 billion. The guards further explain that the players can make a choice between leaving or staying, and set up a voting machine with two buttons - a circle to continue and an X to leave. If they leave, they don't get any of the prize money.

Seong Gi-hun is the first to vote, and votes not to continue, as do many others. The vote remains neck-and-neck all throughout, as some players want to end the games but others are desperate to win the prize money, such as Sang-woo and some others, even a woman from earlier who begged to be spared. A fight nearly breaks out as the contestants who want to leave get angry with those who want to continue, necessitating intervention from the guards. The counter-argument to leaving is that their lives outside of the game aren't going to improve; at least in the games, they have a chance to get the money. It's Player 001, the old man with the brain tumor, who gets to cast the deciding vote and break the 100-100 tie. He selects to quit the game.

With that, everyone is dropped off back on the mainland, with the promise that if a majority of people want to continue the games after a few days, the games will be restarted. Gi-hun is dumped with the pickpocket who stole his money. Sang-woo is dropped off with Player 199, who saved Gi-hun in the first game, and 199 asks Sang-woo if he can borrow his phone to make a call. Sang-woo agrees to this, but his phone is dead, so he goes to a nearby convenience store with player 199 to buy a phone charger and some ramen. When he charges his phone, he finds a torrent of messages from the authorities. He nevertheless gives player 199 ramen and cash for a bus ride back home, who proceeds to thank him profusely.

Gi-hun immediately goes to a police station and tries to report the game. However, the officers think his story sounds too ridiculous to be true, to the point that they not only refuse to believe him but also mistake him for a crazy person. It's not helped when the business card he gives as proof of the games is redirected to a wrong number, then a disconnected line. Detective Hwang Jun-ho, who has been searching for his missing brother, finds an invitation card in his apartment which was from the game, leading him to suspect Gi-hun is telling the truth.

Gi-hun, not finding his mother at home, searches for her on the street and bumps into Sang-woo, who is afraid to meet his mother, so he watches her from afar while she organizes her fish store. Sang-woo confesses that he has debts totaling ₩6 billion due to a series of bad investments in futures and had put his mother's store up as collateral in one of those dealings, and he can't pay any of it back. Soon after, Gi-hun receives a call from the Emergency Medical Center that his mother has been diagnosed with severe diabetes and may need to get her feet amputated. At night, despite the doctors' advice and Gi-hun's pleas, she leaves the hospital and refuses treatment, reminding Gi-hun that he had cancelled all their health insurance and drained what little savings they had to get more money to fuel his gambling addiction, hence why they can't afford her getting the treatment and hospitalization to recover. Racked with guilt, Gi-hun swears that he'll make things right and get the money.

The pickpocket, Sae-byeok, visits her little brother Kang Cheol, who is staying in a children's home as she can't afford a bigger place for them both to stay in. Cheol complains to his sister that the other children pick on him, and tells her that she abandoned him at the orphanage. Sae-byeok consoles her brother, promising him that she will get him out of the orphanage and rescue their mother out of North Korea. She visits the broker she hired, only to find out the deed has absconded with her money.

Meanwhile, Player 199, named Ali, returns to the factory that he works at, and confronts his boss about his pay. His boss refuses to pay him, saying that he doesn't have the money. However, Ali sees him putting an envelope full of cash into his pocket. Ali continues to beg his boss for the money, but Ali's boss becomes annoyed at his persistence and curses at him, starting a fight in which Ali accidentally pushes his boss into a machine when reaching for the envelope, crushing his boss's fingers and causing him to drop the envelope. Ali is horrified at this, but nevertheless snatches the envelope off the floor and runs away.

Sang-woo speaks to his mother over the phone, lying to her that he is on a business trip. After ending the call, Sang-woo's mother is talking up her son's success to a client when two police officers approach her and inform her that Sang-woo has a warrant out for his arrest, being charged with forgery, embezzlement, and other crimes related to fraud, much to her shock and disbelief. Meanwhile, Sang-woo is lying in a bathtub in his apartment, inhaling toxic fumes from charcoal in an attempt to commit suicide. He is interrupted by someone ringing his doorbell, and when he answers it, he finds a business card to enter in the games again.

Ali returns home, his wife alarmed at how he's covered in blood and wondering how he suddenly got a stack of money. Ali only tells her to buy tickets for the first plane back to their home in Pakistan for her and their child, assuring her that he loves her and he'll join them once he gets his job done.

Gi-hun desperately tries to find a way to get the money necessary to save his mother. After being unable to convince a friend to give him a job, he goes to a convenience shop, where he encounters Player 001. The old man claims that he has a friend who lives in the neighborhood and wonders if him and Gi-hun meeting is destiny. They share ramyeon and soju, and the old man reveals that he decided to return to the games, remarking that he won't live much longer anyway and he thinks that the outside world is a worse hell than the games. The old man states he prefers to play the games, claiming he might even have a chance to win, than just sit around waiting to die from his brain tumor.

Meanwhile, Player 101, a gangster named Deok-su, reconnects with one of his criminal underlings, showing him the game card he got and orders him to gather as many people as he can, figuring they can follow the vans and find a way to break into the location of the games and take all the cash. However, his underling casually informs him that he sold him out and drove him right to a bridge surrounded by armed operators from a Filipino casino, where Deok-su racked up a small fortune in debt without paying it up. Deok-su kills the traitorous underling and jumps off the bridge to escape and swims to safety.

As a desperate last resort, Gi-hun tries to ask his ex-wife for help, only to find that she and her husband are also financially struggling and barely making ends meet as is. They get into an argument about Gi-hun's inability to be a responsible father for Ga-yeong. Ga-yeong's stepfather offers to give Gi-hun the money on the condition that he cease all contact with Ga-yeong. Infuriated by the proposal, Gi-hun angrily rejects the money and leaves. On his way home, he encounters Jun-ho, who questions about the business card and the games, but Gi-hun lies and claims he made it all up. Even when Jun-ho informs that he needs his help to save his brother, Gi-hun rejects it, feeling that he can't be of help. As Gi-hun enters his home, he receives another card, an invitation to go back to the games.

Ultimately, everyone decides to return to the games, waiting on the street at midnight to be picked up by the cars. Jun-ho drives close behind, following the van which picked Gi-hun.

## Cast

### Main actors

* Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun
* Park Hae-soo as Cho Sang-woo
* Lee Byung-hun as The Front Man
* Gong Yoo as The Salesman
* O Yeong-su as Oh Il-nam
* Jung Ho-yeon as Kang Sae-byeok
* Wi Ha-joon as Hwang Jun-ho
* Heo Sung-tae as Jang Deok-su
* Anupam Tripathi as Abdul Ali
* Kim Joo-ryoung as Han Mi-nyeo

### Recurring actors

* Yoon Don-sun as No Sang-hun
* Jo A-in as Seong Ga-yeong
* Kang Mal-geum as Kang Eun-ji
* Kim Young-ok as Oh Mal-soon
* Lim Ki-hong as Jung Min-tae
* Lee Seo-hwan as Seong Gi-hun's friend
* Kim Young-sun as Seong Gi-hun's friend's wife
* Park Hye-jin as Cho Sang-woo's mother
* Yoon Seung-hoon as Park Ju-un
* Won Choon-gyu as Player 066
* Choi Jae-sup as North Korean Defector Shelter Employee
* Pyo Dong-jun as Seong Ga-yeong's stepbrother
* Hyun Jin as Player 209
* Park Jung-eon as Player 073
* Lee Dong-yong as Kim Sang-hyuk
* Kim Min-sik as Kim Jin-woo
* Song Hyung-soo as Doctor
* Jun Hyun-sook as Fish Shop Customer
* Kim Kye-sun as Dormitory Owner
* Kim Seo-ha as Factory Owner
* Yang Mal-bok as Player 453
* Min Tae-yul as Player 271
* Anwesha Purkayastha Mandal as Ali's wife
* Na Jo-eun as Player 187 (uncredited)
* Kim Tae-yeong as Mun Jang-ho (uncredited)

## Trivia

* This and "One Lucky Day" are both the least rated episodes on IMDb, with 7.5.