My hottest take with game shows is that I don’t think alliances work. Often, it makes the show boring because we are left watching people form groups who then sit and stay until the end, and they’re the most insufferable people on the show.
There are exceptions to this rule, but they’re few and far between. Squid Game: The Challenge proves that even your alliance won’t save you in the end. The Netflix series has been showing many of us that our expectations of the series may not be what we what we thought. Based on the popular Korean television series Squid Game, the reality game show puts contestants into the same kind of childhood games for money, showing just how vicious people will be their own benefit. Players will happily take out people who have talked about their kids and their families for their own growth in the game, and the show really highlights the lengths people will go to for themselves.
In terms of alliances, SO many times, people have been using their alliances to pick friends to join them in tasks, and it’s ruined them. In the Battleship round, it has gotten entire ships sunken. The only time it has worked on this show is with LeAnn and Trey, a mother and son duo, and that’s because everyone thinks they’re nice. Other than that, alliances are proving to be the downfall of every player on Squid Game: The Challenge, especially with the last cliffhanger before the next set of episodes, with the marbles game coming up.
Trying to be the main character isn’t the right move
The BEST way to get through this game is to be a nobody. Squid Game: The Challenge is about blending in and staying below the radar. Quite frankly, I am SHOCKED that Trey and his mother have made it as far as they have, and knowing that one of them will leave in the marble game makes sense because they constantly did everything together and should have known it would have meant they’d end up getting the other out of the game.
Still, being a main player in this game is far from the way to go because it puts a target on your back for the other players. Much like every other game show, the minute you end up in the spotlight, you’re the next to go, and whoever has the power isn’t afraid to use it. Putting yourself in a leadership position or being in an alliance is a mistake, and yet that’s all we keep seeing people doing.
I don’t know who is going to win this game show, but I don’t think it’s going to be anyone we think it will be given how the first five episodes have played out. The players quietly in the background? That’s who we have to watch out for.
(featured image: Pete Dadds/Netflix)
