General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

The Victims' Game: Season 2 (谁是被害者2)

The Victims' Game: Season 2 (誰是被害者：第二季) is the second season of the Taiwanese crime thriller series The Victims' Game, released globally on Netflix on June 21, 2024. It comprises eight episodes of about 60 minutes each, in Mandarin, English, and Japanese, and continues the story of the forensic investigator Fang Yi-jen, who becomes the prime suspect in a string of murders linked to a case from 15 years earlier.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	June 21, 2024, exclusively on Netflix worldwide¹
Format	8 episodes of about 60 minutes; languages Mandarin, English, and Japanese¹
Genre	Crime, mystery, societal issues; rated TV-MA¹^•³
Directors	David Chuang (莊絢維) and Chen Kuan-chung (陳冠仲)¹
Producers	Hank Tseng (曾瀚賢), Phil Tang (湯昇榮), and Wen-yi Lee¹
Returning cast	Joseph Chang (張孝全), Tiffany Hsu (許瑋甯), Jason Wang (王識賢), Moon Lee (李沐)²
New cast	Tarcy Su (蘇慧倫), Dean Fujioka (藤岡靛), Terrance Lau Chun-him (劉俊謙), Chang Tsai-hsing (張再興)²

Spoilers

Plot

The season follows Fang Yi-jen (Joseph Chang), a former forensic investigator with Asperger's syndrome, as he is reunited with his daughter Chiang Hsiao-meng (Moon Lee) after her release from juvenile detention. As the two, together with Hsu Hai-yin (Tiffany Hsu), a former journalist now working in public relations for a foundation, try to start a new life, they become entangled in a series of deaths, and Fang becomes the prime suspect.¹

The murders connect back to a case Fang responded to 15 years earlier, and the reputation of his mentor Lin Ching-jui also comes into question. To clear his name and avoid losing his daughter again, Fang works with Detective Chao Cheng-kuan (Jason Wang) and forensic examiner Hsueh Hsin-ning (Tarcy Su) to uncover the truth.² In the new killings, each victim had a different organ surgically removed and mailed to a family member.⁶

The season also develops the personal relationships established in season one. Hsu Hai-yin has changed careers, and she and Fang, who were investigation partners in the first season, are now in a confirmed romantic relationship while struggling with communication and the demands of the case.⁷

Background

The first season of The Victims' Game premiered on April 30, 2020 and received eight nominations at the 55th Golden Bell Awards, including Best Television Series and Best Director for Chuang and Chen.⁴ On September 21, 2020, Netflix announced the renewal, which the company described as the first time it had renewed a Chinese-language original series.⁴^•⁵ The second season arrived after a four-year wait.⁵

Production and themes

Visualizing the investigator's mind. The directors made the visualization of Fang's inner world a central production challenge: because Fang himself is the suspect, the season renders his memories and reasoning as imagery rather than relying on spectacle at the crime scene. In one case involving a runaway teenager on a bus, the young characters communicate with codes, including ASCII code and rune symbols, turning the conflict between children who do not want to be understood and adults trying to understand them into a process of encryption and decryption.⁸

Producer Phil Tang and executive producer Hank Tseng said the season's theme is that every character is in some sense a victim trying to escape their situation, with parent-child relationships used to reflect social issues. Tseng noted that the scripts were developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the team's experience of isolation informed the season's focus on repair and on people feeling trapped.⁹^•⁸

New cast members. Tarcy Su returned to acting after about 12 years to play the forensic examiner Hsueh Hsin-ning, and Dean Fujioka joined with a Japanese-accented role that the producers said did not affect the story. Terrance Lau, a Hong Kong actor, was originally planned for the series Copycat Killer before joining this production.⁹

Reception

Critical response was mixed. James Marsh of the South China Morning Post gave the season 2 out of 5 stars, writing that Joseph Chang's detective seeks answers to a 15-year-old murder mystery in a series that sacrifices storytelling in favor of slick production.¹⁰ Johnny Loftus of Decider praised Chang's performance as "another exceptional performance" as the forensic genius facing a new set of murders.³ On Rotten Tomatoes the season had one reviewed rating and fewer than 50 audience ratings at the time of the site's snapshot.³

After release, discussion online focused on identifying the killer. TVBS reported that the season's antagonist is Hsueh Hsin-ning, who lost her daughter in the questionable case Fang examined 15 years earlier and turned to orchestrating the serial killings as revenge.¹¹ The producers said a third season would depend on the platform's decision.⁹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026