“Squid Game: The Challenge” Season 2 executive producers Nicola Brown and Nick Walker said their jobs producing Netflix’s hit competition series were much harder this time around, as their new batch of 456 players came in more prepared, tactical and excited.
“They wanted to take it on and beat the other competitors, or beat the game itself in some way,” Brown explained to TheWrap. “They were very pumped up to come and take part in it, really excited.”
Season 2 was filled with just as much drama and thrill as the first. But this time around, “character” and what it means to have a moral compass was put to the test — literally. Between moments of sacrificial self-elimination and players coming together to unite against the game, Season 2 left not only viewers’ jaws dropped by Brown and Walker’s as well.
“It was brilliant. It’s like when reality TV supersedes scripted,” Brown said.
In a conversation with TheWrap, the producers dish on their most shocking moments during the season, their thoughts on bringing players back for a reunion show, their decision to bring back “Red Light, Green Light” and more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: After such a successful and widely-discussed first season, what were the conversations you all had about tackling Season 2? What were the lessons you learned, or things you wanted to add or leave out of Season 2?
Brown: Season 1, we were taking an amazing piece of scripted IP and figuring out how to do that for real. So, the pressure logistically, practically, was how do you have 456 people? How many bathrooms, bunk beds do you need? Can you put one top of one another and it’d be safe? There was a whole world of just like, logistical lift that had to be done to work out the first season.
So, in a funny way, coming to the second series, after all that work, of figuring out how you make it work, there was quite a nice creative freedom and thinking [now], what games we want to keep, what worked well last year… so there’s lots of lots of learnings, but it was really nice coming at it this time with a bit more headspace.
Walker: It gave us the license to think creatively about the format twist, how to ratchet it up, how to bring people together to then break them apart. How do we lead our alliances, strategy and gameplay, and all those things that we really attempted. I think we did dial up in Season 2.
Was there anything you noticed about this new batch of players in Season 2 as far as behavior? For instance, one of the twins, Player 431 and 432, mentioned they’d practiced one of the games before coming onto the show. What stood out to you about this group versus the Season 1 players?
Brown: You could see it as soon as we started watching the casting tapes for the second season. You could tell they’d all watched the first season, and they were coming into it with more intentionality about how they wanted to play the game. There was a much clearer split— I don’t know whether you thought this as well, Nick — people who were coming in saying, “I’m definitely going to play the game this way.” “I’m going to play it honorably,” or saying, “I’m going to be absolutely dastardly.” “I’m going to play the villain now.” They really thought about what they were going to bring to the game and how they wanted to approach it. There was so much second-guessing [from the cast] trying to figure out what game is going to come next? What are we going to do? So staying one step ahead of the cast was a much tougher job than in Season 1.
Walker: As Nick said, people were coming in with a game plan. Like, Eric, Player 415, whose game plan was to lie, lie, lie and lie some more, we hadn’t seen that in Season 1. I think people have done their homework as much as they can, because they’re trying to be one step ahead of the game, but our job is to always be two steps ahead of them.
Something that stood out to me was how much the concept of “character” was implemented into the games, the challenges and even showed up in the players’ personal decisions in the game. Talk to me about the decision to incorporate more morality-based games, and if that decision had anything to do with the backlash the show previously received.
Walker: The test of character is something we established in Season 1 with those tests, and as you rightly pointed out, we lent more upon [them] and had a bit more rhythm of doing them. And that was always sort of to test the morality of players when given the option to do something good. For example, the five slowest players from [the Six-Legged] Pentathlon, that was a very good example of herd mentality, crowd behavior and also morality. When given the option to save or eliminate, what do people do?
What were y’all’s reactions on set to everyone coming together and deciding to not play the Mingle game anymore?
Brown: Expect the unexpected. In television, all the time, the best laid plans can often go out the window. But actually, it was really, really good because that was their genuine reaction to the game. They found it to be really stressful in their heads. They thought they could almost rise up against the game, but the frontman is always there. He’s overseeing the game, and they say they don’t want to play, but in essence it was really, really…
Walker: It was great. It was brilliant. It’s like when reality TV supersedes scripted, in my opinion because if you were to script it, somebody might go, “Oh, that’s beyond the realms of comprehension. They wouldn’t do that.” We were going, “Oh, my God. This is happening.” It was somewhat terrifying. We hadn’t even considered that this might happen. But as Nicola pointed out, we’ve always got a plan B and plan C.
The same with Trinity — who sacrificed himself in the season’s penultimate game. I’m not going to lie, as a viewer, I was like, “Trinity, why?”
Brown: We were in the gallery that day watching it unfold. There’s a moment where people are looking at him and realizing, “Hang on a minute… You’re not really going to walk away from this?” We were all in the gallery thinking the exact same thing. But he was an extraordinary character. It was a really, really heartfelt moment from him. I think the intensity of “Squid Game” means that you’re bumping into people that you would never ordinarily meet in real life, and under the pressure of the game and life in the dorm, you are building bonds with people. And those were just bonds that he ultimately didn’t want to break.
Walker: Again, it’s one of those moments you don’t expect to see. You have $4.56 million on the line and being a one in five chance, for Trinity to make that decision, I don’t think any of us saw that coming. There was a part of me that wondered, “Is he just playing an amazing game?” With that last coin, was he then going to do a 180 on Vanessa, which would also have been some great TV. But Trinity’s faith, as he detailed throughout the series, he had his faith, and I think he saw that as his destiny.
How did you all feel about people’s reactions to this finale versus Season 1’s? Some folks online were against “Red Light, Green Light.” And some fans were upset about the game finishing with Rock, Paper, Scissors in Season 1. How’d you all weigh the finale games?
Brown: We talked about the end game a lot. What should that be. When we landed on it being Red Light, Green Light, what we loved was that moment of you haven’t seen that doll all series. She was the destroyer of so many hopes and dreams in Season 1, and I thought it would be a really nice callback.
Walker: It was full circle. You started with it last time, and now this time, the $4.56 million is standing between you [and the doll] directly. We talked about “The Tortoise and the Hare” a lot — slow and steady wins the race. But if someone is in front of you, at what point do you become risky? How risky are you willing to be to play this game? It has its rooting in “Squid Game.” I thought it was exciting the way it played out.
With all the drama that happened this season, so much of me was like, “We need a reunion to unpack all this.” Would y’all ever consider that? You obviously couldn’t have all 456 people but maybe the final 15?
Brown: That’s not come up in our discussions really, has it?
Walker: No, I mean. I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind. Like, the beef from Slides and Ladders …. It’s not something we ever really explored. But there’s certainly some merit to the suggestion, and I’m sure there would be some tea spilt should we ever settle upon it. We’ll jot that one down.
“Squid Game” Seasons 1-2 are now streaming on Netflix. The show was already renewed for Season 3.
