Squid Game: The Challenge Series-Premiere Recap: The Ol’ Golden Ticket

This recap covers episodes one and two, “Green Light, Red Light” and “The Man With the Umbrella.”

What does it mean, exactly, for Netflix to “adapt” Squid Game into reality television?

When Squid Game came out on Netflix in 2021, I figured it would be popular, but I didn’t quite expect it to hit that hard here in the United States. K-dramas have long been a global phenomenon, but U.S. viewers tend to focus exclusively on English-language programming. Adding to that is the fact of what Squid Game actually is: a dark fantasy created by Hwang Dong-hyuk that baked its full-throated critique of capitalism into a metaphor of sadistic competition, where hundreds of financially struggling people volunteer to participate in a series of violent children’s games for a shot at 4.56 billion won. (At the time, that was equivalent to around $38 million.) The series was relentless in depicting human beings killed in cold and ignoble ways for failing to, say, carve out an umbrella from a cookie.

Whatever the cultural explanation, here we are today, finding ourselves in the strange and thoroughly unsurprising position of Netflix having adapted Hwang Dong-hyuk’s stridently anti-capitalist K-drama into a reality game show where 456 very real people compete for $4.56 million. (Without the killing, of course.) The news that this adaptation was happening filled me with bile. Frankly, Squid Game: The Challenge doesn’t feel very promising at the outset. The debut episode opens on the K-drama’s signature creepy choral theme, with several players waiting on dark curbsides worldwide to be picked up for the competition. It begs the question: Are we watching high-end cosplay?

The confessionals only deepen that sense, which the show uses as its primary narration and storytelling device. “It’s like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” one player says. “Going after the golden ticket.” We start to hear language common in American reality television:

We meet our first character: Starla (Player 318). “Who’s not in debt?” she says, speaking in a setting designed to look like an interrogation room. “We’re facing a recession. I’m not getting paid at work for this. But … you’re dreaming, you’re taking a chance. What’s that like to pay off your house? To pay off your car?” It’s depressing.

Soon, we arrive at the scene of the first challenge, “Red Light, Green Light,” which features the return of our favorite giant robot doll, Chantal. This is where the scale of the enterprise gets emphasized, as we see an ocean of green tracksuits — 456 people! — pour into the playground set, which is dotted by those red-tracksuit-wearing facilitators with those eerie shape-stamped masks. Everyone’s in awe of the replica; everyone’s nervous about the kickoff. There are some wild hairstyles in the crowd: multiple mullets, one guy who looks like a young Hulk Hogan. Already, the shit-talking begins.

We’re introduced to a smattering of players. There’s a mother-son combo, Trey (301) and LeAnn (302). There’s Jada (97), who claims to be a great people-reader. Elsewhere, there’s a best-friend combo, Chase (242) and Stephen (243), the former having pulled the latter out of washed-dad territory to have this crazy experience. We’re also introduced to Player 432, Bryton, who immediately gives off the vibe of a heel. “You control your destiny,” he says in the confessional. “The moment that you can control your mind and become mentally strong, then you understand that sympathy is only a weakness.” All right, guy.

The premise of Squid Game’s “Red Light, Green Light,” in case you need a refresher: Move when Chantal is reciting her phrase, stay still when she’s not, cross the finish line before the clock runs out. Away. We. Go! Glorious Chantal looks away, and the giant mass of green tracksuits makes a break for the finish line. Almost immediately, we see a spread of strategies that turn out to be pretty interesting. The trick, of course, is to move in such a way as to improve your odds of staying very still when the time comes to perform petrification for Chantal. So you have clusters skipping sideways, keeping hands in pockets and close to the body. Others practically hug the wall. I like some people’s idea of hitting the floor and lying prone when Chantal turns back. Whatever the strategy you turn to, you have to do it quickly, or else you’re left in Player 385’s situation, who finds herself in the unenviable position of freezing mid-squat. (Additionally, it was allegedly so cold during filming that several players needed medical attention.)

Squid Game: The Challenge often represents “death” through an ink pack exploding on the chest of its players, to which they’re made to respond by keeling over as if they’ve actually died. Is it tasteless? Yes. Is it giving theater-kid energy? Also yes. But it nevertheless provides the intended dramatic effect. Chantal completes her recitation and turns, wiping out a first wave of players. The sequence is punctuated by sounds of pop, pop, pop as the scene cuts between the eliminated.

Starla (318) is among the very first to go down, which is the show’s way of setting the tone: It doesn’t really matter who’s being given narrative thread here. Elimination can come quickly and randomly. Chase (242), best bro of Stephen (243), also goes down. Stephen is devastated, but basically goes, “Oh well.” A host of other unidentified players bite the dust, too. Pop. Pop. Pop.

The first person to go through is Player 107, followed by a wave of people. Among them is Trey, whose delight is immediately tempered by the fact his mother, LeAnn, is still out there. “I did this because of her,” he says in the narration. “I wanted her and I to have an experience, and she might not make it.” I know the show is milking this tension, but my heartstring is pulled.

But LeAnn does ultimately make it. Mother and son reunite in a slow-motion embrace, and this is probably the moment Squid Game: The Challenge starts to click in my head. Or, at least, this is the beat where I start wondering, “Is this … not bad?” Crossing the finish line as well are shit-talkers Bryton (432) and Lorenzo (161), plus Jada (97), Stephen (243), another mullet named Kyle (101), and young Hulk Hogan. The survivors celebrate in relief, though one poor soul (66) is left standing in the field when the clock runs out. Pop.

Soon we transition out of the trial and are introduced to the large bunker-esque dormitory that will serve as the living space through the rest of the competition. It’s a spitting image of the same room in the show. Groups and cliques naturally form. Bryton (432) begins to curate a group of follower jocks. The two mullets, Stephen (243) and Kyle (101), find each other — cute! — and soon, they are joined by other men of grand follicular expression. Trey and LeAnn stick together, each other’s number ones, and they survey the room warily. In what will turn out to be the show’s dominant storytelling move, efficiently introducing more characters as previously established ones are eliminated, we cut between several new players. Among them is Rick (232), a retired physician and endearing grandpa type.

The doors open, and an armada of red tracksuits emerge in formation. Their spokesperson informs the room, via digitized voice, that it’s time to take stock of who’s left. A screen at the front of the room displays the count: We’re down to 197 — 259 players were eliminated in the challenge. The giant plastic piggy descends from the ceiling and money pours in: The pot is now $2.59 million, each eliminated player representing $10,000. The survivors cheer.

Then, Alpha Red Tracksuit introduces a twist: The challenges won’t be the only thing players have to deal with. There will also be “tests of character” in the dormitory. Some will provide opportunities to grant others advantages; others will be chances to eliminate. Now we have a social game on top of everything else.

“I’d have no problem,” LeAnn, a stone-cold killer, tells her son. “I’d eliminate somebody.” Her first target would probably be Bryton (432), who’s doing push-ups with his bros, cultivating a clique based on physical prowess, and generally being abrasive. “My personality is outgoing,” he says in the confessional. “It’s almost selfish because I love myself so much.” I find Bryton both annoying and fascinating, an Ayn Rand–type figure. He’s banking a lot of chips on his athleticism, both as individual prowess and as currency for other players to align with him, but one imagines that only takes you so far in a competition that also features an elaborate social game. Anyway, LeAnn would be far from the only person with a distaste for Bryton.

Time for chores. As temporary life hums into place in the dormitory, the camera settles on Dani (134) and mullet bro Kyle (101), who are peeling carrots for dinner. We learn a bit about Kyle’s hang-ups in the confessional. Kyle and Dani are making small talk when an announcement kicks in: They’ve been selected to take the first test of character. They’re given a choice to grant one player an advantage or to eliminate someone outright. The choice will be anonymous and announced the next day.

This strikes me as an interesting moment. The two almost instantly disregard the option of granting another person an advantage, believing that, when it comes down to it, that person won’t reciprocate in kind. It’s a somewhat fair assumption to make given the history of reality television, but it’s also a chance to set a different tone and advocate for a different internal culture that they’re simply denying from the get-go. So they choose to eliminate and consider a list of potential targets: Bryton, one of the mother-son combo, and Mothi (200), who they feel is making friends a little too well. They tumble back out into the main dorm area, looking like two people who are trying not to look like people who committed murder (because they did). Kyle, in particular, looks sus as hell. Dani only fares marginally better.

Meal time. Red tracksuits dole out containers of what’s basically a rice bowl. Alpha Red Tracksuit instructs the players to take only one container, but Lorenzo (161), seemingly ravenous, pulls a fast one: He takes one, hides it under his pillow, and goes back in line for another. Later, he also scrounges other people’s leftovers. The nutritional chicanery does not go unnoticed.

Back in the confessional, we get a bit of backstory from Lorenzo. He lives in London, which explains his shifting Italian-British accent, and used to work in finance but decided to pursue creative interests after the pandemic. He’s clad in a knitted dress and knitted hat, all adorned with knitted daisies. “At the end of the day, we are not here to play fair,” he says. “We are here to play a game, and I’m going to play by any rule that I want.” A life philosophy is being communicated, one that is, in this specific context, both understandable and reprehensible. But it doesn’t seem like a particularly winning one since the competition’s social game is explicitly designed to encourage players to act on a vendetta. Lorenzo and Bryton are of a piece; both are individuals who don’t seem to put much value in diplomacy. (Or cordiality.) I’m shorting his stock.

Bedtime arrives soon enough. A giant bedroom shared by more than a hundred people is going to produce a cacophony of sounds — snores — and Bryton isn’t having it. The lights go out, and we see him in the dark, doing push-ups like the hype bro he is. In the morning, Bryton goes hunting for the snorer. Alas, I imagine being a snorer might be enough grounds for some people to target for elimination. The guy is clearly tired, though, but he’s got to front because he doesn’t believe in looking weak.

Everyone’s chilling when the red tracksuits reemerge. It’s time to announce who Dani and Kyle secretly eliminated. It’s Mothi (200)! Offed for the reason of simply being too friendly. Frankly, the choice makes little sense to me relative to the other options on the table. Eliminating Bryton would’ve taken out a physical threat, and there is genuine logic in shattering the unbreakable alliance of Trey and LeAnn. Axing Mothi feels like a hedge against a future that hasn’t happened yet. But Dani and Kyle’s choice does set a frank and brutal tone: Friendliness itself may be punished. People are shocked. Kyle doth protest too much. “I immediately feel awful,” Dani tells us. “However, it’s $10,000 added to the bank.” Much of the room boos as Mothi’s weight in cash falls into the piggy, as they should.

We’re off to the next challenge. The players are led through the room of colorful Escher staircases, and at the end they are confronted with a blank, white room. They’re made to form four lines, and the announcer pipes in to instruct the first person from each line to enter the next room. The lucky four: Players 166, 328, 98, and 170, whom we don’t know. The room applauds as the first four go through, though one insightful player states the obvious: “Something dodgy is happening.”

Several players called it: They must now deal with the Dalgona, or cookie, challenge. Once again, if you need a refresher on the premise: Everyone’s given a delicious-looking but brittle sugar cookie that has a shape etched into it, and they must fully extract the shape using a needle. Any breaks or cracks in the shape, and they’re out. The trick, of course, is that there are four possible shapes in play: circle, triangle, star, and an umbrella. Because the umbrella has nuanced little curves, it’s the hardest.

The four are given two minutes to decide who gets which shape. Of course, no one wants the umbrella. Their approach, it seems, is to argue it out, which doesn’t result in anything because … on what basis? Here we get into interesting questions of decision-making apparati: Can four strangers come to a consensus over how to come to a consensus? The answer for these four is no. At some point, they somehow arrive at an arbitrary “guy, girl, guy, girl” sequence, which 328 doesn’t agree with. She breaks the pattern and assumes the star. In the end, 98 refuses to comply and lets the clock wind down.

To their shock, all four get eliminated. The room is in disbelief and starts pressuring the next four not to settle for the umbrella: 454, 378, 321, 288. Player 288 proposes an alternative form of resolution: a foot race to the shapes. But that breaks down as well, with the group melting down into an argument. They’re toast, too.

This is where episode two, “The Man With the Umbrella,” picks up. Next are Bryton (432), 452, 344, and 299, who we learn is named Spencer. And lemme tell ya, Spencer isn’t looking good right off the bat. The people in his line start to crowd around him, some mix of pumping him up and pushing him not to compromise. But the fear in his eyes is palpable. This isn’t going to be pretty. (By the way, Survivor fans will see a familiar face in this sequence: Jess “Figgy” Figueroa, from the Millennials vs. Gen X season.) We get some backstory on Spencer. A mama’s boy, generally sweet-natured, perhaps a little too naïve. None of these traits bodes well for his current situation, a veritable pressure cooker that’s been shoved into the center of a volcano.

When the clock starts, Bryton immediately goes after Spencer, having previously identified him as a weak link. Spencer almost instantly folds after supposedly extracting what he believes to be a compromise: that everybody helps each other. “Spit into someone else’s cookie, please,” he says. It’s a meaningless deal because the game plays out shape by shape. As much of the waiting room erupts in excitement, Spencer’s line is crestfallen. With some exceptions: Matteo, Player 107, who came first in Red Light Green Light, puts on a fighting face and tries to lift his group to little avail. Back in the arena, Spencer starts to gag, a bodily reflex under pressure.

Team Circle goes first. Sounds of licking fill the air. Everyone entered the competition has watched the K-drama, so they know that saliva is a good tool. It breaks down the cookie’s integrity for easier carving. From the edit, it seems like the majority of the team passes, including LeAnn, Trey, and Figgy. In a nice display of courtesy, some successful players sound out the remaining time left before leaving the room.

Team Triangle is next. We’re shown quite a few more eliminations here, though I believe the general consensus is that a triangle is significantly easier to carve out than a circle. I’m not sure I agree with that. Bryton, Lorenzo, and young Hulk Hogan are shown making it through. Back in the dorm, we’re shown several other players annoyed with Bryton’s survival. “We’re all here to win a prize, but that can also be won with humility,” says Chaney (179).

Now it’s Team Star’s turn, which includes Dani, one of the two made responsible in the first test of character. The show sticks close to Dani here. We get some backstory — primarily about her insecurities in life — and as she picks at the cookie with her needle, we hear her talk about feeling guilty over arbitrarily eliminating Mothi (200). It’s all a windup because Dani fails the Dalgona trial. “I chose to hurt somebody instead of help someone, and karma’s a bitch,” she narrates. Pop. Mullet Stephen (243) and the line’s rep survive.

We arrive at Team Umbrella. Mullet Kyle (101) is here, and like just about everyone else, he’s morose. The group barely acknowledges Spencer when they walk into the room, and even when they do, it’s, uh, not pleasant. As you might imagine, the casualty ratio is enormous. Mullet Kyle breaks his cookie, completing the karmic circle. Both of Mothi’s executioners are now out. Spencer has a bit of a funny moment when he peeps at Kyle as the latter gets taken out, but he doesn’t fare well either. He gags repeatedly while working on the cookie, which eventually cracks. The show is particularly cruel here, affixing its gaze on the guy as he curls into the fetal position, rolls onto his side, and gets rocked by the ink pack. Pop.

Back in the dorm, the tally. Sixty-nine players were eliminated in the challenge, bringing the remaining number down to 119. The pot is now $3.37 million.

A few things happen here. First, the formation of a new clique. Mullet Stephen is sad about losing mullet brother Kyle, and he heads off in search of newfound family. He finds it in Physician Rick and a group of other guys; they christen themselves the Gganbu gang, appropriating a term (which is apparently Korean slang for buds) used in the show.

Second, some backstory for LeAnn. We learn that she’s a retired newspaper editor — some Googling reveals a long tenure at the New York Times — who signed up for the experience. “I wanna do it to prove I still have the thing that’s inside me that I haven’t seen for a long time,” she says in the confessional, referring to a fiery competitive spirit.

Third, a little drama. A passive-aggressive altercation erupts between Bryton and Husnain (198), who joins a growing list of players itching to eliminate the guy the first chance they get. Not everyone wants him offed just yet, though, figuring that he’d come in handy for the Tug of War challenge. LeAnn, the stone-cold killer, extends a maternal hand to Bryton, simultaneously establishing friendly contact and trying to figure out if there’s more to his bravado. Turns out, the answer’s not really. The show does try to provide him with a little more emotional context in a confessional, but it’s nowhere near enough to justify his behavior, if it’s ever justifiable at all.

As some players are getting a meditative breathing lesson from Player 330 (“Dr. V”), the red tracksuits return, this time with a telephone. It sits there quiet for some time, but when it rings, Husnain seizes on the thing, hoping that it will grant him the opportunity to get rid of Bryton. What he gets instead is a tray of cheeseburgers and fries, which gets descended upon by other players. (Shout-out to Jada for swiping a whole-ass burger.) Husnain’s disappointed, but when the phone rings again, he eagerly pounces on it a second time. Perhaps he forgot that this was meant to be a sadistic game. The voice on the other end tells me that he’s now at risk for elimination … unless he’s able to convince someone else to pick up the phone. Two minutes are on the clock.