What a step down this second season was.
The first 1 -3 and a half episodes are stella. They're really good! It was great to get back into the nitty-gritty of a game or two.

But then episodes 4 to 6 were a conbination of montaging and rushing through multiple games and wasting time showing random one episode characters' backstories (they weren't even backstories for our three to four main characters who're actually interesting??!!).

They wasted so much time when we could've been getting more build up of our main characters' backstories and developments such as more about Arisu's relationship with his dad, or Chishiya's backstory - he is LITERALLY the best and most mysterious part of season one and the writers BARELY had him in this season. He has nowhere near enough screentime! Where was our Chishiya time and development?!?!?.
Episodes 7 and 8 is similar to episodes 1 tp 3 and definitely improves on sticking to the story and actually spending time on the people we actually care about in this show but...

At 1hr05mins in man. What a stupid reveal. If your show is 99% absolutely BONKERS, please don't give it a realistic reveal. I wanted an absolute BONKERS reveal (my own theory is similar to what is explained about 15 mins into episode 8).

Luckily the very very very final shot somewhat redeems it, but not by much.