“Squid Game: The Challenge” producers answer episodes 6-9 burning questions

The reality show's executive producers tell EW behind-the-scenes secrets about Marbles, Circle of Trust, Glass Bridge, and more.

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

While 456 players entered Squid Game: The Challenge hoping to emerge as the sole winner of the $4.56 million prize, only three remain after nine episodes of brutal games and eliminations: Player 287/Mai, Player 451/Phill, and Player 16/Sam.

The onscreen drama leading up to next week's finale has been intense, and executive producers are taking EW behind-the-scenes on how they made Netflix's Squid Game reality spinoff. The fact that players did not actually fall through the glass during Glass Bridge isn't the only secret they're sharing — check out what else executive producers John Hay and Stephen Lambert revealed in the interview below.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s start with Marbles — since there’s only so much you can show in the episode, were there any pairs we didn't see onscreen during that game?

STEPHEN LAMBERT: We left out all the best bits. [Laughs] No, there were lots of little bits in the story, but essentially we had enough time in the episode to feature all the best. I don't think there were any great ones that we left out. Because of the picnic, people are paired with people that they like, in some cases even related to, so it's quite emotional. Some of them, it's so emotional that they can't bear to start playing the game and they leave it until the last minute.

JOHN HAY: Also, we were getting down in the size of cast and number of players at this point, where that challenge of coverage that had really been a big thing in the first episodes was less, and we were able to leave out less.

I loved watching the one pair who couldn't agree on the game to play and who eventually won.

LAMBERT: I know, wasn't that wonderful?

HAY: Marbles is brilliant. It's a very intense, simple game, but our hope all the way through had been that the series would deliver on this mantra of how you play is who you are, and Marbles really, really showed that.

Were there any other pairs who disagreed and were eliminated as a result?

LAMBERT: That was the only one who felt it hard. It made for great television.

HAY: What was interesting as well was the mixed emotions in the episode, because LeAnn had said in one of the earlier episodes that she'd come into this game to reconnect with a part of who she used to be and to remember that competitive spirit in herself. I found it very touching that when she and [her son] Trey [paired] up with each other, they both decided to play. It was a beautiful thing that you could feel the love between mother and son, but they could be competitive at the same time.

The one guy who wasn't paired with anyone for the "picnic," what did he end up doing during Marbles?

LAMBERT: He had some more food. He stayed in the dorm.

Sounds like he had the best deal out of anyone.

HAY: Except he then worried about there being a target on his back. The interesting thing about the game is that, as you've seen in Jack-in-the-Box, any advantage is also a potential disadvantage.

If more players had been eliminated during the Glass Bridge, would the dice rolling game still have happened? Or was that just a backup plan?

LAMBERT: We had done a lot of testing. With Glass Bridge, we knew how many people were going to start playing the game: 20. We thought that if you're tossing a coin, we'll probably lose half of them. As it was, they managed to beat the odds, and I think we were down to about 13 at the end of that. But as with tossing a coin, it is only when you toss it close to a very large number that the odds start coming towards the 50/50 you would expect.

HAY: But we wanted to play the dice game anyway. We thought it would be intriguing.

LAMBERT: The nice thing is that those additional, new games, if for some reason the numbers would've been different, then we might've adjusted those games. It wasn't as if we weren't bearing in mind how many people came through.

HAY: We were forever between games reacting and adjusting. But it's a really interesting game, the dice game, psychologically. It had a simplicity to it. It felt like it belonged in the Squid world in that it's got a very simple premise, but it asks quite complex questions of people's behavior.

LAMBERT: But the most exciting game for me of that batch is the Circle of Trust. That was just amazing. I was absolutely amazed that so many of them were able to work out who had put the coffin on their desk.

Phil figured it out twice!

HAY: That was extraordinary.

LAMBERT: He really deserved his place in the final for doing that. It's such a pure test as well. It's the test of reading people. It's an intangible thing, but it's really amazing to watch it play out.

Since it determines who makes the final, how did you make sure to make Circle of Trust as fair as possible? 

LAMBERT: It was fair so long as people couldn't hear or see who was putting the coffin on somebody's desk. Having the guards walking around, in all our testing we were confident that people couldn't hear or see, so it felt completely fair. And as with all the games, they were all independently adjudicated, and our adjudicators were confident that it was fair. We had a choreographer for the guards, and the choreographer was great at talking to the guards in terms of regulating the speed at which they walked around and saying, "Move faster," or, "Move slower." The guards were so good throughout the whole show at conveying the authority and behaving and moving in a way that worked for each scene.

HAY: And it is also fair in the sense that numbers were generated at random, and then people had complete choice about where they put the coffin. I guess if one of them had done it in a very clumsy way and knocked their table over, that would've been on them. You've just got to have a starting point where everyone's odds are even.

Going back to Glass Bridge, we see Ashley not go when it's her turn, which results in Mai targeting her in the dice game, and that carries over into Circle of Trust. What was it like watching that happen in real time?

LAMBERT: What you're looking for in any drama is exceptions to the rule, and for people to behave in a way that others don't expect. Clearly, many of the players, particularly Mai, were surprised that Ashley wasn't willing to do what the others had agreed to do, and Mai took it very seriously and then decided to move against Ashley in the dice game. That's the kind of stuff we're hoping for in an unscripted show, but the intensity of feelings cuts across what might otherwise be expected to happen.

HAY: But also in fairness to Ashley, there were several situations in the run of the whole game where "the group" decided something and not everybody in the group felt they'd been part of that decision. That's a classic human dynamic. We've all been in those situations in our life, so I've got some sympathy with people who then felt, "I didn't make this choice and I don't feel I'm bound by it." And there's no right way to play it. People have forever been presented with decisions about how they're going to try and win this thing, so I think all responses are valid in that sense.

What can you tease about what Mai, Phill, and Sam are going to face in the finale and how it all ultimately turns out?

HAY: Not much, I'm sorry.

LAMBERT: [Laughs] They all decide to share [the money].

HAY: We have to keep an air of mystery around that, but it's a fitting ending.

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

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