“Squid Game: The Challenge” Player 301/Trey reveals what really happened with Ashley on Glass Bridge

"We were both under duress and I don't have any sort of ill feelings about that at all," Trey tells EW.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Squid Game: The Challenge episodes 1-9.

Not many people can say they've eliminated their own parent on reality TV. But after charming viewers in the first five episodes of Squid Game: The Challenge, mother-son duo Player 301/Trey Plutnicki and Player 302/LeAnn Wilcox Plutnicki both met their downfall in this week's batch of episodes — and one was because of the other.

First, after mistakenly pairing up for what they thought was just a nice picnic treat, they were forced to compete against each other in Marbles. LeAnn missed a few throws, and Trey ultimately beat her and moved on without her. But when he was assigned spot No. 3 in the Glass Bridge order, he knew his time was up. Even though the group decided each player would only have to jump and make a 50/50 decision once, making it as fair as possible for everyone despite the order of the line, Player 278/Ashley didn't step up after Trey successfully jumped once. Trey then jumped a second time, but his luck ran out — he picked the wrong square and was eliminated.

Below, Trey dives deep on what really happened with Ashley during Glass Bridge, why he shockingly doesn't blame her for his elimination, what it was like eliminating his mom in Marbles, and more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When you had to pair up for the "picnic," did you or your mom ever consider going with other people? Why did you pair up together?

TREY PLUTNICKI: I never really considered pairing up with anybody different for that. The instructions were sprung on [us] so suddenly and we didn't really have much time to think about it. If we had more time to think about it, I think we may not have paired up together. Waiting in line for this blanket, we were like, "This might be Marbles." I was like, "If it is, that's fine. One of us goes through no matter what." She was, on the other hand, very against us pairing up in that moment. But part of my decision-making was I don't want my own paranoia to influence me having this really nice once-in-a-lifetime experience with my mom. I just wanted to do it so I could spend more time with her. Also, from a sort of meta perspective, I felt as though we played the whole game together, so it would only make sense if we played Marbles together. That's not strategic at all, but it sounds dope when I say it out loud.

That's very "reality TV producer brain" but not "reality TV competitor brain" of you.

I like a good story and I like doing things that are interesting to watch. I'd rather play as someone who is fun to watch than play as someone who is going to win and be boring.

When you learn it's Marbles, what was the conversation like with your mom? What didn't we see in the episode of that moment?

I was devastated when it was Marbles. We chatted about it on the blanket for a really long time. "Do we let one of us win? Who has the better chance of moving forward?" And we came to the decision that, no, we're going to play. That's a useless conversation. We had always said if we played Marbles, we were going to play that game in the show where they dug a hole and they flicked the marble in the hole, and then you collect the marbles that are outside of the hole.

But my mom decided in the white room, that waiting room that you see, that she was going to change things up on me and change the game. She was like, "That's a game of luck. I want a game of skill." So we did this almost darts game with marbles. We drew a couple circles in the sand, and that was her idea, not mine. She sprung that on me literally two minutes before we started playing. And what she didn't know was that I had been playing darts all summer the previous summer, so I was a marble assassin up in there.

So she changed the game last second and had no idea that it ended up being in your favor.

Not only was it in my favor, she didn't do herself any favors because she shanked two marbles almost instantly, which was the reason for her demise. But that's not my fault. I did everything right.

Have you and your mom talked about that since filming? Do you think she subconsciously let you win?

No, she definitely wanted to win. Obviously it's very difficult to eliminate your son who's living his dream, but I believe her competitive nature supersedes that emotional motherly side. I really don't think that there's a subconscious effort to sabotage herself. I think she literally just messed up and didn't get the throw right. What's shocking to me is people don't have that relationship with their parents. I can't imagine a different relationship than me playing pinging pong with my mom and my mom cheating as I'm winning, or vice versa. It's funny.

After Marbles, your downfall comes in Glass Bridge. What happened up there with Ashley?

What's interesting is I just talked to Ashley yesterday. When I got my number from the crane game, I was like, "Fine, whatever, I'm out." I made peace with it. From the time that we played the crane game to the time that we actually went on the Glass Bridge may have been three or four hours. The people that were freaking out were the people who were the later numbers because when they discovered that there was a timer, they were like, "Can the lower numbers, like, unionize and take out the higher numbers?" That's where the tension started. When that was happening, I was angry because I had already made peace with going home, and then all of a sudden I'm given this sliver of a sliver of a chance with this timer discussion that was happening, and the higher number players were being antagonistic about maybe the lower number players having a chance here. And in that anger, I sort of blacked out and I never fully computed what the plan was.

Roland mentioned the plan on the bridge and he was like, "Everybody gets a jump. It's only fair. It's a 50/50 shot." I make my jump and I look back and I'm not really computing what that meant. I look back to see Ashley and I'm trying to make her do what Marina did, because I thought me turning back and saying something helped Marina go forward. I think I either just didn't turn back long enough to make it seem like that I was giving Ashley permission, or I didn't seem like I was part of the plan enough to have Ashley vocally insert herself and be like, "I want to overtake you." It was a mixture of time pressure, pressure to jump to the next stone, and Ashley not quite speaking up at that moment that created my demise.

I feel like I need to be super clear about that, also, I'm not mad at Ashley at all, because I was stressed at that moment. Obviously I just eliminated my mom right before then. She was stressed at that moment, she was in a lot of pain from something for maybe a couple days. We were both under duress and I don't have any sort of ill feelings about that at all.

Have you seen the episode yet?

I haven't seen my elimination yet.

Yeah, I was wondering because it looks like Ashley refuses to step up, forcing you to jump twice, which is why you were eliminated. It's very interesting to hear that you don't blame her for what happened.

I had a conversation with Chad right after the game and Chad was like, "I talked to Ashley and Ashley was like, 'If he's going to jump, I'm just going to let him to keep jumping. I'm not going to tell him to stop jumping.'" That is a truth, and then also another truth is that she didn't not want to take the jump. She just thought that I went rogue and wanted to keep jumping and leave the game for whatever reason. But on top of that, I genuinely believed that I was going to get to the end of the bridge. I thought that I was going to jump across 14 stones — like an idiot.

Well ... it's not impossible, but it's also not probable. The odds were definitely not in your favor.

[Laughs] I could have done it! It's a slim chance, but it's a chance.

Producers previously told EW that players didn't actually fall through the glass when they were eliminated, so what was that like from your perspective?

We were 15 feet in the air, and it was cool being up there. The set was unbelievable. What we did instead was when we jumped, you would hear over the speaker, "Pass," or "Player 301 eliminated," and when you heard "Eliminated," you would stand straight up and then the director or whatever would tell you to do a quick squat so they have your head going down. And then they had a stunt person do the actual fall. They had a stunt person fall from every stone that somebody fell through. It was really cool to watch what it's like to be on a big budget television set. I was very upset that we couldn't fall because underneath it was a black mat, I think it was a big old pillow, and I wanted to fall so bad. I was like, "Then what am I even getting eliminated in Glass Bridge for if I can't fall?!"

What was your mom's reaction when you told her what happened with Ashley on Glass Bridge?

I actually got a chance to spend the day with her after my elimination because she was still around, which I was so thankful for. She was like, "I haven't been able to sleep because I see the van that is carting eliminated players to the hotel out my window. And I kept wanting to see if you come out of that van, and I kept hoping that you're not coming out of that van." I think it was midnight by the time I got back, and I walk up to her hotel room, and she's crying. She gives me a hug and she's like, "Why are you here? Why, why, why?" I told her everything that happened and she was just like, "I'm so proud of you."

Looking back on it now, do you regret jumping more than once and not forcing Ashley to overtake you on Glass Bridge?

No. If any one person had made their jump in front of me, I would've gone through because I would've seen the plan in action. TJ missed, instant elimination. Charles missed, instant elimination. I make it. Marina jumps in front of me, misses, instant elimination. If any one of them went past me, I would've been in the clear [and understood the plan]. In terms of making a second jump, what my goal was at that time is I just wanted the person that I gave my number to in the white room to make it over the bridge — and they ended up not making it. I was like, "If I can just make this many jumps for them to be safe no matter what, then I'm fine. I feel I've done my job."

I don't regret not making it or not opening my ears to listen to the plan because ultimately the events that happened led to me making those decisions. There was no way that I was going to be capable of reversing the feeling that was inside of me. I don't have any regrets about how I played. In that moment, I feel heroic and I feel extremely happy that I went out the way I did, by dumb luck.

What would surprise viewers to know about what it's actually like competing on Squid Game: The Challenge?

Every single challenge took the whole day. Red Light, Green Light took the full day, Dalgona took the whole day, Warships, the full day. So the people that didn't compete early, they had to wait seven hours in that white room. For example, Dalgona: Circle went in first, got super lucky. I spent six hours in the dorm while the umbrella people were still waiting to do theirs. And same with Marbles: I had to wait three hours to do Marbles since I was in the back half of [the line]. So the reason why you see a lot of this stress and tension from the players is because they've been waiting to do this one thing, and in a moment their game ends. It's really hurry up and wait — it's a TV set. So when people are like, "Why is Spencer crying like that?" Well, it's because he's been waiting alone in a room for seven hours waiting for his moment to fail at Umbrella.

You've actually been on TV before — your mom posted a photo of you in a scene on The Gilded Age — so are you hoping to use this experience to do more scripted TV? Or do you want to do more reality TV shows and competitions?

I love performing and I love acting. My skills lend better to live theater. I have done some TV stuff in the past, but I don't apply to reality shows because I wanted to elevate my acting career in any way. I just think that's a bad way to go about doing that. I want to do reality shows because I love competition. I love expressing myself as myself, and it's just like a paid for, really cool adventure where you meet a bunch of really cool people. I want to do more reality shows. Obviously, yes, I want to do more TV and theater, but that's work.

Do you want to go on Survivor, especially after you became good friends with Figgy during your time on this show? And were you asking her a lot of questions about her time on Survivor?

I figured that Figgy would be getting asked a bunch of questions about Survivor, so I really purposely didn't. Truthfully, I'm such a Survivor fan — I know all the behind-the-scenes stuff, I've read all the interviews, I've heard all the stories, so I didn't really care about that. What I did care about was her experience compared to Squid Game, so those were the type of questions that I was asking. But I would love to do Survivor, 110 percent. That is my dream.

Someone get Jeff Probst on the phone.

Yeah, call Jeff Probst right now. We can have a dimple-off!

The season finale of Squid Game: The Challenge premieres Wednesday, Dec. 6, on Netflix.

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