Much like the first season, Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 is already facing accusations that it’s scripted. Now, producers have weighed in after the “heated” game of Mingle led to an unexpected protest.
The new chapter of the Squid Game reality spinoff series landed on Netflix this week, seeing 456 players entering the game in the hope of becoming the sole winner of a whopping $4.56 million cash prize.
Similarly to the show upon which it’s based, the contestants compete by taking part in a series of children’s games, only in this case, they don’t die if they’re eliminated – they simply leave the competition.
Alongside a series of new games created specially for Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2, the show introduces real-life versions of classic challenges. And Mingle proved to be just as upsetting as the original. Warning: spoilers for Part 1 ahead!
Was the Mingle protest real in Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2?
According to Squid Game: The Challenge producers, the mutiny that unfolded for the final round of Mingle was real – but they didn’t have to change anything, as the plan was always to introduce them to Marbles at the end.
For the uninitiated, Mingle first appeared in Squid Game Season 3. It sees players standing on a rotating platform, and when it stops, they must assemble into groups of a specific number.
After this, the groups must make it into one of the surrounding rooms before the time runs out. Any stragglers or groups in the wrong number are eliminated immediately. What makes it so brutal is that it rips apart alliances, puts friendships to the test, and creates instant enemies.
They’re working against the clock, and in desperation, some players try to squeeze into rooms, get kicked out, or, in Player 398’s (Trinity) case, held back despite wanting to leave to help his friend.
By the final round, they’ve had enough of the emotional turmoil. When the number is announced – two – the remaining players don’t take part. Instead, they hold hands and shout that they’re “not playing.”
The Front Man comes out with an army of Pink Guards, who gifts them a “reward” for their courage: a bag of marbles. Since they’re already in pairs, this means they’ve unwittingly chosen their partner for the next game, and one out of the two of them will be sent home in Part 2.
A number of viewers at home are skeptical about how real this entire debacle played out, with one writing on Reddit, “The end of Episode 4 (Season 2) was so scripted.”
Another said, “There’s no way that this isn’t scripted. You’re telling me that everyone just decided to take a stand and not play Mingle? Then everybody magically paired up and was given marbles? Come on, the producers must think the audience is a bunch of idiots.”
However, the creators have insisted that this was all real, as the mutiny didn’t actually change anything. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Tim Harcourt explained, “I think people have imagined that we pivoted a lot more than we did.
“The intention always for the last round was for there to be an even amount of pairs for everyone to run to a room, no one would be left outside. And then the intention was that the guards were going to put that box of marbles through the window of the doors of everybody’s room.
“So we didn’t actually pivot in that, but psychologically it is incredibly interesting. When that last number was called out and everyone found their pairs, which is what we always intended to do, they rebelled and held hands in their pairs.
“We quickly figured we can still do what we want to do, just not into their rooms. We’ll just come onto the stage with the Front Man leading the guards to hand out the marbles, so we just literally pivoted to how those marbles were delivered.”
“It was a great natural moment, and we just leaned into what happened – they didn’t want to play anymore and they rebelled, but I don’t feel like we’d lost control of the players in the game or exceeded any sort of power,” he added. “It was a soft, velvet revolution.”
Executive producer John Hay also told Netflix’s Tudum, “It was a powerful moment. We’re always looking for responses to the games that reveal character and this felt like a particularly heightened form of that.
“In planning this season, we thought long and hard about how to make Marbles a surprise. No one was going to fall for the ‘picnic treat’ a second time around. Having the game come straight off Mingle was part of that, and would have been enough on its own.
“But in the end, the revolt proved even more of a distraction – and the pairings players chose in that dramatic moment made the games of Marbles that followed even more intense.”
Mingle protest sparks theory
Despite the confirmation that the protest was real, Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 viewers have shared an alternative theory: the producers pulled the plug due to how “heated” Mingle became.
The theory arose after one Redditor said, “Be very interesting to see what stories start leaking out once the season is over. Mingle up until the end felt like the most ‘real’ game so far. People seemed to be getting genuinely heated and stressed out.”
Another replied, “It was getting heated. People basically pulling / preventing people from going in doors but letting others in. I think producers pulled plug.”
“That’s where I’m currently leaning,” a third agreed. “I’m assuming that they had a word with the contestants between rounds, but probably didn’t tell them about the marbles at the end.”
For the most part, however, viewers found the game gripping, with one guessing that the plan was always to present them with marbles at the end.
“The last number was two anyway and they said everyone would make it through at that point since there was an even number of them left,” they wrote. “I think that last round was just to pair them off and they’d give the gifts in the rooms rather than around the circle.”
“This Mingle was somehow more intense than the Mingle that was in the fictional series. Bravo,” said another, while a third added, “Yeah I think it’s because we know the other one is scripted deep down even though we care about the characters.
“This one is just pure real human reaction. Getting to see all sides of the spectrum. It’s honestly fascinating to watch.”
Squid Game: The Challenge players say Mingle was the “most intense game ever”
A number of Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 players have since spoken out about Mingle, telling Netflix’s Tudum about how “intense” it was in that moment.
“Mingle was by far the most intense game ever,” said Player 369 (Zoe). “I don’t think anyone was expecting it to get as physical as it did. I like to say you could send the B-roll footage of Mingle to a university study on human behavior because people were acting just so crazy.”
Player 111 (August) added, “The chaos onscreen doesn’t even fully encapsulate the intense and overwhelming emotions the games brought out,” while Player 361 (Faith) described it as “the worst thing I’ve ever gone through in my entire life.”
Not everyone had a bad time, however, including Player 110 (Melissa). “I was very excited for Mingle and I also was very prepared,” she said. “That morning before we played, I went around the dorms and inserted myself in a couple of different alliances.
“I remember looking up at the ceiling – they had the strobe lights going – and I was so excited. I wasn’t necessarily scared. I was one of the ones dancing on the carousel. For me, it was thrilling, scary, but fun all at the same time.”
Zoe’s father, Player 370 (Curt), added, “When we went through the first couple of rounds and hit our numbers, [we thought] ‘OK, we’re good.’ Then alliances started to break.
“People started stealing your people. Then it got more emotional. You started to get angry at people, you started blaming people – people accusing other people. It was a test of human character for sure.”
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