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5 hours ago
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There’s missing the point, and then there’s Netflix making its capitalism-skewing Korean hit about a ruthless contest into an actual gameshow. The producers of Squid Game: The Challenge have previously denied that’s what happened here, stating that, in fact, the series is also about camaraderie and how people work under pressure, and is, I quote, “a critique of how we are ingrained from childhood to be ultra-competitive”. Come on – it’s a reality show about people doing humiliating things because they’re desperate for money, based on a drama about people doing humiliating things because they’re desperate for money. If I rounded up a load of debt-ridden people and recreated Squid Game: The Challenge in my local park, I’m pretty sure I’d be put in prison.
The thing about Squid Game: The Challenge that makes it all OK (although really, none of it is OK) is that everyone here is completely mesmerised by the amount of money on offer. Its prize is among the largest in gameshow history, with the winner of series one, Mai Whelan, cashing a cheque for an extremely cool $4.56m (£3.47m). It’s the sort of money that makes people go gaga from the off, and the treachery is off the charts.
For series two, they’ve made it meaner than ever, with the twists coming in thicker and faster and the sob stories more abject. If there was a brief moment in series one where it felt as if maybe this whole “critique” thing was, perhaps, not a clear bid to have one’s cake and eat it, that moment has definitely passed.
The undoubted stars of this first batch of episodes (Netflix will release another lot on 11 November, before the finale on the 18th) are British twins and TikTok personalities Jacob and Raul Gibson. The Gibsons, AKA players 431 and 432, are charming schemers who have the other betracksuited competitors under their spell during a challenge to count 456 seconds exactly – that is, until they eliminate three other players to keep themselves in the game. People are outraged as the losers fall to the ground in mock-death but, well, there’s $4.56m dollars on the line here, guys!
Like The Traitors – which is made by the same production company, Studio Lambert – Squid Game: The Challenge has a dark campiness to it (at a pivotal moment in episode one, Nina Simone’s Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood plays, cocking a snook at the players’ differing tactics and opinions). But unlike The Traitors, Squid Game: The Challenge doesn’t always feel like fun. Sure, watching someone assemble a house of cards should be low-stakes enough. But when that person is physically shaking, sweat pouring off their face like water running from a tap, while their team’s chances of staying in the game are on the line? Not so much. Never has catching a ball in a cup been so urgent – or so unpleasant to watch.
Perhaps, as viewers, we’re supposed to find the “critique” in just how quickly players turn on one another, using words like “dorky” and, er, “fraudalent” to describe each other, and judging who should stay or go based on what they would use the prize money for (leukaemia research – good! Yacht party – bad!). People say things like “it’s just a game” while gritting their teeth in a way that says “this is very much not just a game”. There is the occasional air of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and seeing how quickly power corrupts.
But I feel all of this is giving Squid Game: The Challenge far too much credit. The last episode of this batch, Mingle, is particularly grim, and is based on a game from the original drama that was described as one of its most brutal and upsetting. At the very least, it will be very triggering for anyone who was ever picked last in PE.
For a brief moment, I do consider whether Squid Game: The Challenge could be so bad that it is good, but I think that would be letting its makers off too lightly. The way many of its contestants conduct themselves is dreadful, but then again, this is a dreadful contest. Still, I don’t blame the people who signed up to win $4.56m. Don’t hate the player – hate the utterly grotty game.
