Midway through the new season of “Squid Game,” the protagonist, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), talks to a fellow contestant in the murderous big-money competition he has found his way back into. Gi-hun, who claimed the jackpot last season at the expense of hundreds of dead comrades, wants the players to exercise their right to vote to end the game. His friend argues that if they survive just one more round, they could all walk away with a bigger prize.

“Last time I was here,” Gi-hun answers, “someone said the exact same thing.”

You might think the same thing to yourself if you watch the seven-episode return of “Squid Game,” now streaming on Netflix. You will hear things you essentially heard in Season 1. You will see things you saw in Season 1. And should you happen to hear or see something new, it will likely come from a character who is very much like someone you watched die — or kill someone — the first time around.

One suspects this is by design. This “Squid Game” is a “things you’ve seen before” delivery device.

The 2021 premiere of this dystopian South Korean thriller was an international sensation, less for the novelty of its themes (capitalism exploits the desperate) or structure (see “The Hunger Games” and much reality TV) than for its spattery panache and visual inventions. The killer doll! The jumpsuits! The piggy bank! Those are what the people paid to see, and “Squid Game 2” dutifully delivers them again.

Season 1 introduced Gi-hun as a ne’er-do-well debtor who accepts an invitation to play a series of children’s games at a remote location for a life-changing pot of money, all for a viewing audience of debauched billionaire “V.I.P.s.” The losers die — usually spurting great arterial gouts — and a stack of bills representing their worth plops into the insatiable belly of the prize oinker.

Gi-hun emerges 45.6 billion won richer, but shattered and vowing retribution against the game’s organizers. The Gi-hun we meet in Season 2, three years later, is thoroughly grim and hard-boiled, which makes him more formidable but less interesting. (Lee, who gave his hard-luck hero an engaging Everyman spirit, spends this season doing a lot of glowering and speechmaking.)

Of course, he must return to the game in order to destroy it, but “Squid Game” takes its time getting him there. It takes its time with everything, stopping and starting as if in its own game of Red Light, Green Light.