Squid Game: The Challenge: Who ‘Survived’ to Claim the $4.56 Million Prize? Plus, Grade Season 1

Matt Webb Mitovich
·3 min read
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It is fitting that the final “cut” in Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge came via scissors beating paper.

The 10th and final episode of the competition series based off the megapopular Korean thriller saw the Final 3 — Mai, Phill and Sam — don tuxedoes and be led to a lavish “feast” that was often referred to as a “feast.” There, they got to know a bit about one another.

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Phill has been living paycheck to paycheck in Hawaii his entire adult life, and hopes to reciprocate to those who have helped him over the years. Sam is from Idaho and grew up in a very religious family, and was 17 when his father died. When he came out, his mother was (very vocally) disapproving, so he moved to Texas and found a husband. And Mai was born in Vietnam and came to the U.S. in a refugee camp when she was eight. As an adult, she joined the Navy, but got pregnant at age 19 — much to her family’s disapproval. She now lives with her daughter, a grandchild and two dogs.

After feasting on the feast — wait, what was for dessert?? — the trio were presented with the episode’s first challenge, a table with one square, one round and one triangle button. If the first button pressed turns green, the player moves forward and picks who goes with them; red, that player is eliminated; if gray, it’s a wash.

Mai — suspecting that if one of the guys pressed green, she was a goner — wisely volunteered to go first and be in control of her destiny. But of course the first button lit gray, because these producers are not idiots.

After a bit of back and forth, Sam offered to go next, and while the producers could have milked a bit more drama by giving him a green light, it in fact went red. So he was out.

Phill and Mai sobbed some, effused some, and then went back to the dorm, where they were invited to ogle/covet the piggy bank filled with $4.54 million in fake, symbolic money, which had been lowered to the floor. Shortly after, they were led to the final game… of Rock, Paper, Scissors (which is having quite a moment this fall on TV, given the recent NCIS: Sydney reference!).

Standing on a sandy version of the Squid Game playing field, Mai and Phill played Rock, Paper, Scissors again and again, with each round’s winner invited to fish an iron key from a box and see if it opens an ornate safe symbolizing the $4.56 million jackpot. This went a lotta rounds, probably more than any of us thought it would, and though the edit for a hot second had us thinking Phill was gonna unlock the safe (as voiceover of his well-meaning intent for the money played), nope, no dice.

Instead, on the next round, Mai’s scissors cut Phill’s paper, and she picked the key that opened the safe and gave her an ATM card with $4.56 million loaded onto it.

Let’s just hope she has changed the 0287 PIN code we saw her use to check her balance in a glossy little coda that checked in on several of the players back home in their real lives!

What did you think of the already-renewed Squid Game: The Challenge and the first winner, and are there any changes you’d make for Season 2?

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