[0:00] Welcome to the Beast Games quarantine.
[0:02] This is intended to be something of an
[0:03] appendix to the mainline Mr. Beast video
[0:05] and so we'd recommend you watch that
[0:07] video before watching this. If you
[0:10] don't, it might feel a bit like you're
[0:12] walking into a room midway through a
[0:14] rant, but also this is probably pretty
[0:17] entertaining on its own and the context
[0:20] is not that hard to grasp.
[0:27] The original plan for the mainline video
[0:29] was to keep discussion of Beast Games
[0:31] itself to an absolute minimum. But as
[0:33] the project developed, we found
[0:35] ourselves in need of more examples of
[0:36] Team Beast's
[0:38] creative instincts. And Beast Games was
[0:41] a petri dish for Team Beast's worst
[0:44] creative instincts. So, we quickly found
[0:46] ourselves overwhelmed with examples and
[0:47] minor grievances that we just we just
[0:50] need to exercise. Exorcise. That's like
[0:53] like like the exorcist. We we need a
[0:56] priest.
[0:58] There's really no better way to attack
[0:59] this than in linear order. So, let's
[1:01] start with literally the first thing we
[1:03] see. This opening CG shot is another
[1:06] example of a post hawk editing decision.
[1:09] >> Did you already know that the beginning
[1:10] was going to be that VFX shot or did you
[1:12] have that idea afterwards?
[1:13] >> So, this whole mic coming down, me
[1:14] grabbing it, this was definitely a thing
[1:16] we did afterwards. You could make the
[1:18] argument the reality TV ought to be shot
[1:20] with soft eyes open to spontaneity, but
[1:23] does that argument really play for the
[1:25] very first shot of the show? If any
[1:27] moment could be scripted and shot with
[1:29] intention, it's this. But as we drilled
[1:32] into you during the video, Team Beast is
[1:34] making this up as they go along.
[1:37] We covered this in the main video, but
[1:38] the opening strong challenge was
[1:40] conceived and shot entirely for
[1:41] spectacle. But spectacle was seemingly
[1:43] the only thing given any real thought.
[1:46] And to be fair, it is visually
[1:48] interesting. In the various
[1:50] behind-the-scenes bits, Jimmy is clearly
[1:52] proud of the concept and the spectacle
[1:54] of this thing, but like it was just too
[1:58] hard. The sandbag that they needed to
[2:00] carry back up the rope was onethird of
[2:02] the contestants body weight, which
[2:04] sounds like it evens the odds, but
[2:06] that's not how mass works. All the
[2:08] dancers, swimmers, and cyclists finished
[2:10] really fast because they all have a
[2:12] really high lift to body mass ratio
[2:15] while everyone else struggled. It's
[2:17] basically the rocket equation. Building
[2:19] muscle makes you stronger, but stronger
[2:21] muscles are heavier, which creates
[2:23] diminishing returns when those muscles
[2:25] need to lift themselves. A 105lb
[2:28] ballerina needs to lift a 31.5 lb
[2:31] sandbag for a total lift of 136.5 lb. A
[2:36] 240lb bodybuilder needs to lift a 72lb
[2:40] sandbag for a total lift of 312 lbs.
[2:45] >> 41 and through.
[2:46] >> Wow, we're not going to get there.
[2:47] >> Who would have thought that despite
[2:49] having 100 of these giant mammoth people
[2:52] that over half of them didn't even
[2:54] complete it.
[2:55] >> So yeah, the majority of the Strongs
[2:57] actually fell off and the remaining
[2:58] slots were filled with a tiebreaker
[3:00] round of push-ups.
[3:02] >> Do you worry that this may not be the
[3:03] most interesting content? like this
[3:05] isn't the most visual after going from
[3:07] that to this.
[3:08] >> This will never make the show.
[3:09] >> The narrative presented in the show ends
[3:11] up being highly misrepresentative of the
[3:13] reality of the game. And as you'll see
[3:15] the further we go into season 2, the
[3:17] more this stuff will crop up. It really
[3:19] needs to be stressed that this is a
[3:21] massive undertaking. This strong
[3:23] challenge is probably the one game that
[3:25] really delivers on the promise of Beast
[3:27] Games as unparalleled spectacle, but
[3:29] that only makes the abject failure of
[3:32] the game all the more embarrassing. This
[3:34] goes back to the lack of intent and the
[3:36] seeming lack of actual testing. Like I
[3:38] think the flaw in this game is apparent
[3:40] from the whiteboard. These numbers alone
[3:42] communicate the issue. But even if we
[3:45] accept that the laws of gravity are too
[3:46] nuanced for Chandler and the boys to
[3:48] comprehend, surely any good faith
[3:51] testing would have involved a jacked
[3:53] dude having a hard time. There's just no
[3:56] version of this where Beast Games comes
[3:58] out looking good because either they
[4:00] tested it properly and understood the
[4:02] dynamics at play and still chose to go
[4:04] ahead with it or they didn't test it and
[4:07] made this enormous investment based on
[4:10] vibes. For whatever it's worth, the
[4:12] show's director, Tyler Conklin, is
[4:14] adamant that they did in fact do loads
[4:16] of testing and it was literally just a
[4:18] skill issue on the contestants part.
[4:20] Sure thing, brother. As a bridge subject
[4:23] here, between the strong and smart
[4:25] challenge, we're met with a recurring
[4:26] gripe that will haunt the show until the
[4:28] very end. Block stacking puzzles. It's
[4:31] so vestigial that it's not even worth
[4:32] mentioning most of the time, but the
[4:34] strong challenge had a block stacking
[4:36] puzzle as the capstone task before
[4:38] contestants could push the button. I
[4:40] guess the boys figured that the
[4:41] competition would be such a nailbiter
[4:43] that they needed one last task to slow
[4:45] contestants down long enough for the
[4:47] cameras to react. But, you know,
[4:50] >> everybody in push-up positions.
[4:52] >> That brings us to Oops. All block
[4:54] stacking, the smart challenge. As
[4:56] discussed in the main video, the smart
[4:58] challenge involved playing Simon with
[5:00] colored blocks replicating Jimmy's
[5:01] pattern. In order to properly talk about
[5:03] the smart challenge, we need to
[5:05] distinguish between the game as
[5:06] presented in the show and the reality of
[5:08] the production. First, the fiction of
[5:11] the show. The game was easy and
[5:13] overhyped to an insulting degree.
[5:15] literal rocket scientists enrolled in a
[5:17] game show framing itself as a test of
[5:19] intelligence only to be greeted with a
[5:21] literal children's game, but that ended
[5:23] up being irrelevant because there wasn't
[5:25] even an attempt to stop players from
[5:26] just copying off each other. It wasn't
[5:29] much more than a test of procedure and
[5:30] of mass hysteria. The narrative, as it
[5:33] is shown to us in the show, is
[5:35] incoherent. We're shown three rounds of
[5:38] Simon. Round one involves six blocks
[5:40] with a 60-second timer with failure
[5:42] leading to elimination. In round two,
[5:44] it's 10 blocks in 30 seconds, but only
[5:47] 22 make it through. No eliminations.
[5:49] Round three involves 16 blocks, no time
[5:52] limit, and with the first 28 to complete
[5:54] the puzzle successfully making it
[5:56] through to the city. This is all shown
[5:58] to us in a delirious 5-minute sequence.
[6:01] So, you can be forgiven for just letting
[6:02] it all wash over you, even as I describe
[6:05] it. In reality, they started with four
[6:08] block stacks, which eliminated no one,
[6:10] and incrementally ratcheted up the
[6:12] difficulty until they landed on the
[6:14] final format.
[6:15] >> We'll be doing this over and over again,
[6:18] adding more and more blocks until 50 of
[6:21] you are eliminated.
[6:22] >> In reality, they were making these
[6:24] people stack blocks all night.
[6:26] >> Look outside. Like, it is like 6:00 a.m.
[6:30] >> They were tuning the difficulty of their
[6:32] game as they were filming it. And then
[6:35] Jimmy was like, "This is too easy." I
[6:37] don't know why we did it. That
[6:38] eliminated more people than we needed.
[6:40] Like, it was a disaster.
[6:41] >> This moment as a whole is also a great
[6:43] example of something that will plague
[6:45] the entire show. So much so that we
[6:47] won't even bother to call attention to
[6:49] it most of the time. But there is so
[6:52] much Jimmy voice over that has been
[6:54] added to make it look like this was all
[6:57] according to plan. Like round one
[6:59] eliminating zero players was an intended
[7:03] outcome. As I expected from a room full
[7:06] of geniuses, you all got that pattern
[7:08] correct.
[7:10] >> Like so much of Beast Games, this
[7:12] foreshadowed a persistent issue. The
[7:14] creators have no idea how to produce a
[7:17] game show for smart people.
[7:19] >> I don't have a degree in memory.
[7:20] >> The premise of the season is strong
[7:22] versus smart. It's nerds versus jocks.
[7:25] Fine. The problem is that what it means
[7:27] to be smart is incredibly elastic.
[7:30] >> 100 of the smartest people on the entire
[7:32] planet. Are we talking about academics?
[7:35] If so, what field? Surely we want some
[7:37] NASA folk. How much emphasis are we
[7:40] putting on personality? Is it enough to
[7:42] just be a stereotypical nerd of medium
[7:45] intellect? Whatever definition we might
[7:47] come up with, Jimmy walks straight past
[7:50] it. We have the usual suspects of smart
[7:52] people, but we also have contestants
[7:54] labeled as Rubik's cube savant, street
[7:57] smart, media mogul, AI prodigy, top 1%
[8:02] board gamer, Guinness World Record
[8:04] gamer, stay-at-home dad, sweepstakes
[8:08] champion, billiondoll problem solver,
[8:11] young investor, top 1% national public
[8:14] speaker, high school grad at 17 while
[8:18] raising children. I mean, very
[8:20] commendable. That's not smartest person
[8:24] in the world territory. We should note
[8:26] that players had these labels imposed on
[8:28] them. Jack didn't scribble child genius
[8:31] into his application form. Some dork at
[8:33] team beast gave him that title.
[8:36] Essentially, anyone can be smuggled onto
[8:38] the smart team with the right framing.
[8:40] Susi, a finalist from a recent season of
[8:43] Survivor, is a smart contestant. In
[8:46] fact, this season as a whole is marked
[8:48] by a notable uptick in professional
[8:50] reality TV personalities.
[8:53] So, what is a smart challenge for this
[8:55] cohort? No, seriously, that isn't a
[8:58] trick question. Answer in the comments.
[9:00] What are we supposed to do? Are we
[9:01] making them sit the Harvard entrance
[9:03] exam? Maybe an egg drop? This is a
[9:05] really difficult problem at a baseline,
[9:07] and Beast Game simply has no idea how to
[9:10] solve it. Beast Game season 2 does not
[9:13] have a credited game designer. It's
[9:15] pretty much an open secret that Jimmy
[9:16] and the boys come up with the games, and
[9:18] they don't seem to be particularly big
[9:20] into QI or Jeopardy. Beast Games
[9:23] conceives of smart people from the
[9:24] perspectives of a group of guys who
[9:26] never went to college and think high
[9:27] school is obsolete, trying to pander to
[9:29] an audience of 9-year-olds. I mean, for
[9:31] God's sake, when introducing Beast City,
[9:34] the Strongs get a functional and
[9:35] well-rounded gym, while the smarts get a
[9:38] child's chemistry playset and a shelf
[9:40] full of the cheap public domain books
[9:42] real estate agents used to dress show
[9:44] homes. If there was an answer to this
[9:46] smart challenge conundrum, these guys
[9:48] were not going to be the ones to solve
[9:50] it. Across the entire show, there are
[9:52] extremely few instances of pure smart
[9:54] coded games, and they are universally
[9:56] memorization games for children. It's
[9:59] stacking blocks and memorizing a path
[10:01] through a grid. And like the strong
[10:03] contestants aren't Sims. They don't have
[10:06] an ability score aotment. They're adult
[10:08] humans with adult human intelligence and
[10:11] experiences. They can both get yolked
[10:13] and solve block puzzles. And since that
[10:16] is the ceiling on smart challenges,
[10:18] smart people have no actual function in
[10:21] this game.
[10:22] >> There's a lot of strategy in it. You
[10:23] know, I'm excited to see the smart
[10:25] people maybe like grab the strong and
[10:26] kind of point them in a direction. Hey,
[10:28] listen. You can go super fast, but if
[10:29] you fall, our whole game's over. So slow
[10:31] and steady, you might win the race.
[10:33] >> There is enormous asymmetry that
[10:35] advantages strong contestants. A strong
[10:37] contestant can survive and win a smart
[10:40] challenge. But if a smart wants a shot
[10:42] at the private island, they will need to
[10:44] win get a grip. Predictably, this
[10:47] filters out and neutralizes pretty much
[10:49] all smart contestants. There's a
[10:51] perception that strong people have that
[10:53] competitive dog in them that the smart
[10:55] people simply don't. But what that means
[10:57] in practice is simply that certain
[10:59] strong people have a willingness to be
[11:01] rude that the smart people don't know
[11:03] how to deal with. From the very first
[11:05] game until the last remaining smart,
[11:07] we're going to see what amounts to
[11:08] outright schoolyard bullying of them by
[11:10] strong contestants. Smarts are
[11:12] systematically eliminated with almost
[11:14] scientific efficiency. There's something
[11:17] almost mlonist in the way that Jimmy has
[11:19] made a children's game show nominally
[11:21] for adults and immediately the adults
[11:24] start acting like children. So far, not
[11:26] a single smart person has been picked
[11:28] yet.
[11:29] >> Jim's new nickname is backpack boy cuz
[11:31] his girlfriend is carrying him through
[11:32] the finish line.
[11:33] >> Those few smarts who do go on a deep run
[11:35] ultimately make it through because
[11:36] they're non-threatening, just lingering
[11:38] at the margins. A free space that one of
[11:40] the real contenders can cash in at the
[11:43] right time, which they absolutely do.
[11:45] There is an almost ritualistic moment
[11:47] where seemingly everyone agrees that the
[11:48] two token smarts have outlived their
[11:51] value and now get thrown into the
[11:52] volcano. It's so intense and immediate
[11:55] that both of them start crying. Beast
[11:57] Game season 2 is ultimately tailored for
[11:59] a very specific kind of archetype, and
[12:01] by the end of the show, we have three
[12:03] identical dudes slapping each other on
[12:05] the back for making it here. So, you can
[12:07] look forward to that.
[12:09] So, I'm five pages into the script and
[12:12] we're only 20 minutes into episode 1.
[12:15] That's a great sign. The contestants
[12:18] arrive at B City and I'm sorry, but this
[12:21] place sucks. The scale of the space is
[12:24] big enough that everything needs to be
[12:25] cheap to fit the budget, but it's small
[12:27] enough that there isn't much of note for
[12:29] people to do, especially people who
[12:31] aren't gym rats. Also, the production
[12:33] does basically nothing to maintain
[12:35] kayfabe and frequently include wide
[12:37] shots that show the bare dirt
[12:39] construction site that surrounds the
[12:40] build. The show tries not to draw
[12:42] attention to it, but contestants are
[12:44] sleeping in what are essentially
[12:45] barracks with zero privacy. The pitch
[12:47] being that don't worry, we'll filter it
[12:50] down pretty quickly and so you'll get a
[12:52] barracks to yourself soon. The city is
[12:54] built for 100 people, but by episode 3,
[12:56] we're already down to the top 25, so the
[12:59] city feels empty almost immediately.
[13:02] That trope plays well in Survivor when
[13:03] it gets to the last few contestants.
[13:05] It's a meaningful absence the show can
[13:07] explicitly draw attention to, but that
[13:09] doesn't work here. There are only two
[13:11] episodes where the scale even remotely
[13:13] matches the actual population. I'm
[13:15] loathed to give suggestions here, but
[13:17] here's one for free. If you want to keep
[13:19] your big stupid spectacle 10,000
[13:21] contestant opening, then do what
[13:23] American Idol does and end episode 1
[13:25] with 20 people left who get to go and do
[13:28] the actual game show. Moving on, in the
[13:31] scope of things, this gripe is perhaps
[13:33] more forgivable, but the edit has a big
[13:36] problem of overemphasizing contestants
[13:38] who end up going deep into the show.
[13:40] Overwhelmingly, these players are top 10
[13:42] to 15. This gives the show a weird
[13:45] energy because Beast Games has an army's
[13:47] worth of contestants, but you keep
[13:49] seeing the same dozen or so faces over
[13:51] and over again. On the first viewing,
[13:53] this was noticeable, but on rewatch,
[13:56] it's unbearable. It's not a subtle
[13:58] leaning towards contestants in the top
[14:00] 10. It's the Nick, Jack, and Monica show
[14:02] with other contestants sprinkled in for
[14:04] plausible deniability. During episode
[14:07] one, while blitzing through the entire
[14:08] setup of the show, the edit takes 50
[14:11] full precious seconds to give Jack the
[14:14] Child Genius a full introduction, doing
[14:16] what can only be described as gesture
[14:18] maxing to pander to a group of strong
[14:20] contestants.
[14:21] >> I mean, listen, the right to bear arms
[14:23] is right here.
[14:25] >> It's not interesting, but Jack is making
[14:27] it to the top six, so you'll be seeing a
[14:29] lot of him. So, he gets an introduction.
[14:31] He's the closest thing we have to a
[14:33] smart protagonist, clearly because he
[14:35] went all in on embedding himself into
[14:37] the strong clique. Jim and Monica also
[14:39] get a 70-second introduction during
[14:41] episode 1. As already mentioned in the
[14:43] other video, they both go on a deep run
[14:45] and end up getting married during
[14:46] production. I I don't know, fake
[14:48] married. It wasn't legally binding, but
[14:50] who cares? Many reality shows have a
[14:52] protagonist couple, and these two are
[14:54] essentially that. Even in the
[14:56] behind-the-scenes stuff, they're given a
[14:58] lot of emphasis. Considering how much
[15:00] time will be spent focusing on these
[15:02] people in the back half of the show, the
[15:04] amount of time they get in the front
[15:05] half is simply outrageous. This is Team
[15:08] Beast overcorrecting in response to
[15:10] season 1 criticisms. It was said that
[15:12] they didn't spend enough time with
[15:13] contestants or build character. So,
[15:16] they're ramming these people down our
[15:17] throats until we choke. But the effect
[15:19] of all this is that the majority of the
[15:21] contestants feel like NPCs in these
[15:23] people's game. Again, all of this would
[15:26] be fixed by simply making these people
[15:29] the ones who actually do the show. You
[15:34] clearly have your protagonists, your
[15:37] chop 20.
[15:38] Just chuck everyone else. You don't need
[15:41] them. They could they can go sooner.
[15:46] Episode 1 ends with six minutes of setup
[15:48] for the next game, which we'll call OG
[15:50] Bribe. 10 players from season 1 were
[15:52] selected to have a chance to compete in
[15:54] season 2. So, this game involves them
[15:56] bribing contestants to swap places with
[15:58] them for 100 grand. This premise is sort
[16:00] of take it or leave it. There's
[16:02] arguments for and against bringing back
[16:04] notable contestants from season 1, but
[16:06] whatever those arguments may be, this
[16:08] isn't one of them.
[16:09] >> You can't just snap your fingers and
[16:11] make 100 million people or however many
[16:12] people end up watching season 2
[16:14] instantly care about people. So, the
[16:16] best way to do it without rushing it and
[16:18] give it time to breathe was just to
[16:20] bring back the people they already knew
[16:21] from season 1.
[16:22] >> Our whole idea for bringing back the 10
[16:24] contestants from season 1 was from the
[16:26] criticisms, which is kind of funny.
[16:28] Like, they said that we couldn't tell
[16:29] stories. We couldn't build characters.
[16:31] And what better way to do it in season 2
[16:34] than bring back the people that we've
[16:35] already fully built.
[16:37] They thought they were cheating the
[16:39] system. They thought they were sticking
[16:40] it to the haters by bringing back these
[16:42] fully formed individuals. The fact that
[16:44] this even crossed their minds once again
[16:46] highlights that they can't build
[16:48] character. The fact they think reheated
[16:51] leftovers are a viable substitute just
[16:54] proves that they really aren't cut out
[16:56] for storytelling. I'm sorry. Anyway,
[16:58] episode one cliffhangs on a contestant
[17:01] stepping forward to take the bribe. It's
[17:03] not an effective cliffhanger. We don't
[17:05] know who this guy is, nor do we care,
[17:07] but it does parse as a cliffhanger. Like
[17:10] it's a dramatic beat that carries
[17:12] momentum even if you feel nothing. So
[17:15] whatever. The episode has to end so we
[17:18] may as well end here. But does it need
[17:21] to end here? Because the only reason
[17:23] this moment is available as an end point
[17:25] is due to the odd pacing of the episode
[17:28] overall. The episode is 43 minutes long,
[17:31] 38 minutes once you lop off the teaser
[17:34] and credits. Despite being the launching
[17:36] pad for the season, it's the shortest
[17:38] episode in the whole thing. In that
[17:40] brief 38 minute runtime, we introduce
[17:43] the show and its premise, introduce the
[17:45] first 200 contestants, set up and
[17:47] complete the strong challenge, set up
[17:49] and complete the smart challenge,
[17:50] introduce and screw around in B city,
[17:52] and set up the OG bribe challenge to
[17:54] serve as a cliffhanger. 38 minutes. To
[17:57] say it runs at a breakneck pace is an
[18:00] understatement. The natural end point
[18:02] would have been the arrival at Beast
[18:04] City, possibly with some preamble about
[18:06] the city itself to build some hype
[18:08] leading into the teaser of what is to
[18:10] come, but there simply isn't 40 to 60
[18:13] minutes of content in the first two
[18:14] challenges, even before they had to be
[18:17] gutted in the edit. And of course, we've
[18:19] got to have that cliffhanger ending. So,
[18:21] we get the setup of the OG bribe on this
[18:23] side of the episode. and that
[18:25] effectively pads it to just long enough
[18:29] to call it a full episode. Already we're
[18:32] seeing weird structural decisions.
[18:34] Episode 1 is just as much of a parade of
[18:37] segments as episode 7. You're just
[18:39] inclined to forgive it on the first
[18:41] watch.
[18:43] Okay, so episode two, we spend 7 minutes
[18:46] resolving OG bribe. All the season 1
[18:49] contestants make it in. Cool. Then we
[18:51] get the premise of this episode. Players
[18:54] can choose one of four games to
[18:56] participate in where each game will
[18:57] eliminate half its contestants. This
[19:00] will be a problem.
[19:03] All the games try to leverage this
[19:05] massive video floor that I'm told was
[19:07] accidentally a world record.
[19:08] >> I mean, we weren't going for a Guinness
[19:10] World Record, but we got one.
[19:11] >> Dodgeball is the only game that really
[19:13] requires the screen as designed. And
[19:15] really, it only serves to complicate
[19:16] matters and introduce problems, but it
[19:19] is a core part of the game. It's
[19:21] dodgeball where teams are dynamically
[19:22] split based on these lines on the floor.
[19:25] This is meant to produce even groups and
[19:26] break up clicks. But in this, the first
[19:29] real game we see, players immediately
[19:31] disobey the rules of the game as
[19:33] designed. The best way to survive is to
[19:35] be on the side with the most people. So
[19:37] rather than spreading out evenly like
[19:39] this pretty graphic suggests, people
[19:41] would hoard into the one slice and it
[19:44] becomes a question of who the stragglers
[19:46] will be. And in cases where a popular
[19:48] person was stuck, people would just
[19:51] throw their ball away. So, who are we
[19:53] eliminating? The answer may not surprise
[19:56] you.
[19:56] >> I'm falling back towards you. Okay.
[19:58] Okay. Cuz there's smarts in front of us.
[19:59] >> Yes, I know exactly what we need to do.
[20:01] >> You say we're going for smarts, right?
[20:03] >> Yeah. Yep. I got you. I heard you.
[20:04] >> So, yeah, we get Patrick with Predator
[20:06] eyes staring down smarts like it's
[20:08] middle school gym. That's all there
[20:11] really is to say about this game. It's
[20:13] It's dodgeball.
[20:15] The next game was Balance, which I'd
[20:17] argue is the best game of the show. And
[20:19] director Tyler agrees with me.
[20:21] Contestants are split into pairs and
[20:23] have to vibe check the weight of this
[20:24] heart and stack rocks on the other side
[20:26] of a scale. The goal is to avoid placing
[20:28] the rock that tilts the scale and breaks
[20:30] the heart. Because it's reasonably well
[20:32] balanced and works fine, there's not a
[20:35] ton to say about it. The next game was
[20:38] Bluff, which was a complete disaster. We
[20:40] covered it in the main video, so we
[20:42] won't dwell on it here. It was a game
[20:44] premised on contestants lying to each
[20:46] other with no incentive to lie. No one
[20:48] lied and contestants were eliminated by
[20:50] drawing names from a box. If this worked
[20:52] in play testing, it was play tested
[20:54] wrong. Everyone who signed off on this
[20:57] should lose their job.
[20:59] Finally, we have the blocks game, which
[21:01] I'll call big blocks to distinguish it
[21:03] from the previous block game. Seemingly,
[21:05] because the first block game was so
[21:07] easy, people gravitated towards big
[21:09] blocks as their choice of game. 40 of
[21:11] the 100 contestants chose big blocks,
[21:14] which kind of broke the whole game. Big
[21:17] blocks involve stacking a bunch of large
[21:19] foam blocks to reach a flag. Each team
[21:22] has a designated guy on top of the pile
[21:24] stacking them up, and they're limited to
[21:26] one runner at a time who retrieves the
[21:28] blocks from a pile. So, there are 18
[21:30] people on each team without a specific
[21:32] role to fill. They try and form a
[21:34] committee of engineers to help plan the
[21:36] build, but it's a stack of blocks. It
[21:39] doesn't require a civil engineer to
[21:40] figure it out. In fact, that ends up
[21:42] being another dagger in the heart of the
[21:44] smart campaign. The producers use the
[21:47] fastest completion of the Strong and
[21:48] Smart games from episode 1 to ordain the
[21:51] strongest and smartest players as team
[21:53] captains, and they draft the players
[21:55] into their teams. Again, like middle
[21:57] school PE. So Corey, the Navy veteran,
[22:00] drafts all the biggest bloss he can see,
[22:02] while Johnny, the pro Pokemon player,
[22:04] spends his precious first round draft
[22:06] pick on Dino for experience. The teams
[22:11] drafted ended up being split almost
[22:13] entirely along the strong and smart
[22:15] divide. Johnny's team is composed of 15
[22:18] smart people, four OGs from season 1,
[22:21] and one strong contestant, a bare
[22:23] knuckle fighter. And as it turns out,
[22:25] running and lifting giant foam blocks is
[22:28] physically intensive. And given that the
[22:30] game didn't just take all night, but ran
[22:32] almost until noon, it was unbelievably
[22:36] physically intensive.
[22:38] >> Yo, it's going to get hard getting those
[22:39] up. By the way, there you go, buddy. Dig
[22:42] deep.
[22:42] >> So, while Cory's team was able to rotate
[22:44] between gigachads to lift these blocks,
[22:46] Johnny's team had Gage from season 1,
[22:49] who eventually subbed out for Johnny
[22:51] himself. While it took all night to play
[22:53] out, the smart team was never going to
[22:55] win this. I don't know how to say this
[22:57] politely, but this ended up being an
[22:59] enormous brain drain for the whole show.
[23:02] 15 of the 50 smart contestants. Over a
[23:05] third of the total pool of smarts were
[23:08] eliminated from this one game. And
[23:10] Johnny picked all the well, he picked
[23:14] all the actual smart people. the MIT
[23:17] researcher, the PhD candidate, the civil
[23:20] engineer, the NASA data scientist.
[23:22] Johnny picked them all for this suicide
[23:24] mission. And so, the smart people who
[23:26] survived this challenge were the ones
[23:28] just filling up the numbers on Cory's
[23:31] team. Going forward, most of the smart
[23:34] people you'll see will be people like
[23:36] Luke, the crypto content creator,
[23:38] Sophie, the licensed attorney, and
[23:40] Katie, the reptile breeder. Anyway, the
[23:43] show drags this out over 11 minutes and
[23:45] ends on the cliffhanger of Jimmy egging
[23:47] Johnny on to attempt a 9- foot hail mary
[23:50] of a jump. A basketball hoop is 10 ft
[23:53] off the ground. Johnny is being asked to
[23:55] make an NBA caliber leap while standing
[23:57] on like 40 ft worth of precarious foam
[24:01] blocks.
[24:03] But anyway, spoilers for Beast Game
[24:05] season 2. But Johnny misses the jump and
[24:07] the strong team wins because Mitch is so
[24:09] close. He just needs to work up the grit
[24:11] to stand up. They milk that for an
[24:13] additional 3 and 1/2 minutes. Seven more
[24:15] minutes of milling around B city and we
[24:17] get the obstacle course.
[24:20] This is perhaps the most overhyped thing
[24:22] on the show. They say it's the craziest
[24:24] obstacle course we've ever seen, but gun
[24:26] to my head, I could not tell you what
[24:28] separates it from any other obstacle
[24:30] course on Wipeout or Ninja Warrior. Like
[24:33] Ninja Warrior is tuned for top tier
[24:35] athletes who are expected to do monkey
[24:37] bars with a single bar, while this was
[24:39] literally beta tested by Jimmy's rando
[24:42] buddy in their backyard for a main
[24:43] channel Mr. Beast video. The only thing
[24:45] of note that stands out is this Y shape
[24:48] at the end of the course. It brings the
[24:49] contestants together and raises the
[24:51] possibility of some honest to god
[24:53] violence going down. That would at least
[24:55] be a unique spin on a classic formula
[24:58] and really fit the whole Beast Games
[25:00] vibe. But no, it turns out they didn't
[25:03] even notice this element until they had
[25:05] already built the damn course
[25:06] >> because we have a Y and then we have a
[25:09] path that both of you share and he stood
[25:10] on the path and we're like, "Oh, there's
[25:12] like interaction there."
[25:14] >> I was surprised like I wasn't rammed off
[25:16] the platform there.
[25:17] >> If somebody's standing there and $5
[25:19] million is at stake, I'm going through
[25:21] you. We can't have that. Somebody's
[25:23] going to get hurt.
[25:24] >> So, no, no blood sport. There was a
[25:27] whole set of rules against violence that
[25:29] the audience is never told about.
[25:31] >> You'll see the right arm of White.
[25:34] >> Here it is.
[25:34] >> Grabs the side. Now goes for the head.
[25:37] >> Oh, that's where it gets the illegal
[25:40] move.
[25:40] >> And he's out no matter what.
[25:42] >> It's not that I'm pro Blood Sport, but
[25:44] it's just they really built this thing
[25:48] before noticing the players could
[25:49] hypothetically crash into each other.
[25:52] And now we're going frame by frame
[25:54] through this footage as if Mike, who
[25:56] speaks four languages, has been flagged
[25:58] for holding. Players are each split into
[26:00] teams of five and go against each other.
[26:03] But each round has a different theme
[26:05] sort of. They keep changing the rules,
[26:08] but nothing materially changes because
[26:10] for three of the five races, anyone
[26:13] failing to complete the course
[26:14] eliminates their whole team, which
[26:16] happens very quickly in all three of
[26:19] those rounds. It's another bizarre
[26:21] decision that leads to a huge portion of
[26:23] players not getting a chance to
[26:25] participate. The obstacle course
[26:27] involved 50 contestants and by our count
[26:29] 28 players didn't get the chance to
[26:32] participate at all and 16 of those
[26:35] players were eliminated. This is
[26:38] seemingly another byproduct of bad
[26:40] production. The details are a bit fuzzy,
[26:42] but as we understand it, production gave
[26:44] themselves one night to film the
[26:46] obstacle course, Captain Bribe, and The
[26:48] Cannonball Find. before everyone would
[26:51] need to fly out for the Survivor collab.
[26:53] Then you had the big block game run over
[26:55] and into the morning of that same day.
[26:58] So four games would need to be shot on
[27:00] that day to stay on schedule. A huge
[27:02] thunderstorm rolled in that night and
[27:04] they gave themselves no other option
[27:05] than to brute force through it.
[27:07] >> We had such a tight turnaround.
[27:09] Basically were under the impression if
[27:10] we didn't film all of the games, which
[27:13] seemed impossible at the time. We
[27:15] weren't going to be able to go to the
[27:16] Survivor Island and film that entire
[27:18] episode. We could have missed that. We
[27:20] were stuck.
[27:20] >> We've just been sitting here on lockdown
[27:22] for the past 3 hours.
[27:24] >> The bigger thing is the next steps of
[27:26] what we're going to do to salvage the
[27:28] episode. Just be on standby. We are
[27:31] going to get this thing done. So, thank
[27:33] you guys. Thanks for uh sticking it out.
[27:35] >> We're just going to try to get as many
[27:36] runthroughs of contestants going through
[27:38] this obstacle course as possible before
[27:40] we have to shelter in place.
[27:42] >> So, we would speculate that the decision
[27:43] to be so cutthroat was part of their
[27:45] attempt to salvage the episode.
[27:48] ruthlessly cutting production time when
[27:49] the opportunity presented itself, even
[27:51] if it meant almost a full third of
[27:53] contestants were eliminated from a game
[27:56] without being given the opportunity to
[27:57] participate. On top of that, a wet
[28:00] course is a significant increase in
[28:02] difficulty. So, a bunch of contestants
[28:04] get to sit there and be eliminated as
[28:06] their single runner slips off the wet
[28:08] rubber within seconds of leaving the
[28:10] platform.
[28:11] Anyway, let's move on to Captain Bribe.
[28:14] The same teams from the obstacle course
[28:16] are kept together for this game. A
[28:17] player is nominated to serve as captain
[28:19] and they're well, they're bribed. It's
[28:21] it's all there in the name. This is a
[28:23] recycled game from season 1. The
[28:25] captains are offered an increasing
[28:27] amount of money that they can take at
[28:28] the cost of eliminating their team. And
[28:30] this feels incredibly fast, right? Like
[28:32] there has been one cooperative challenge
[28:35] so far, the obstacle course, which we
[28:37] already pointed out was not really a
[28:39] cooperative challenge since a majority
[28:41] of people didn't run it. only one team
[28:43] really had a clutch moment that
[28:44] suggested there was any cohesion or
[28:47] camaraderie between them. So, the
[28:48] challenge sort of plays it both ways. In
[28:52] some cases, the obstacle course teams
[28:53] reflect pre-existing alliances and so
[28:56] there is implied off- camerara rapport
[28:58] between them, but at the same time, some
[29:00] people were forced onto certain teams
[29:02] and so there's distrust of other
[29:04] members. And they work both of those
[29:06] angles, but it's just not compelling.
[29:08] The bribe caps out at $1 million. As we
[29:11] said in the video, the calculus is
[29:13] obvious here. You take the money. As a
[29:15] top 25 contestant, you have a 4% chance
[29:18] of winning the 5 million, and you're
[29:20] being offered a 100% chance at 20% of
[29:23] the prize pool. You would be a fool to
[29:26] turn down those odds. And so, the only
[29:28] justification to turn down the bribe is
[29:30] if you value your integrity that much in
[29:33] a game show all about debasing yourself
[29:35] for money. So yeah, we get another
[29:37] rugpull cliffhanger with the show
[29:39] pretending Nick took the money when he
[29:41] hoverhanded the button, but plot twist,
[29:43] he was too slow and JT took the money.
[29:45] It's better than season 1.
[29:48] Episode 4 then opens with four full
[29:51] agonizing minutes trying to put the
[29:53] screws to JT. Jimmy hands him a
[29:55] microphone to explain himself. JT says
[29:58] he has nothing to say, hands the mic
[30:01] back to Jimmy, who promptly hands it
[30:03] back to JT again and presses him to
[30:06] address his team. And it's just it it's
[30:10] not good television. It's uncomfortable
[30:12] and awkward because JT just won a
[30:15] million dollars and is being made to
[30:17] feain guilt for the camera. He is in
[30:20] fact happy to be a millionaire.
[30:22] >> I think that when I leave here, I could
[30:24] live with myself knowing that I got that
[30:25] million dollars. And then we get the
[30:28] most insane line in the show.
[30:31] >> Greed is idolatry.
[30:33] >> Imagine saying that on your second
[30:36] appearance on Beast Games. With that
[30:38] cliffhanger resolved, we can move on to
[30:40] the main hook of the episode, which is a
[30:42] crossover episode with Survivor.
[30:45] For whatever reason, the Survivor
[30:47] segment only includes 10 of the 20
[30:49] remaining contestants. So, to punch
[30:51] their ticket to Survivor Island,
[30:53] contestants need to find cannonballs
[30:55] hidden around the city. It's the only
[30:57] instance of them actually using the city
[30:59] as a play space. And I'm surprised they
[31:01] didn't do it more, probably because it
[31:03] would involve reusing an asset.
[31:05] >> And in traditional TV, they'll run like
[31:08] 20 seasons on one site. Not us. That
[31:10] would be boring. Who wants to watch the
[31:12] same thing over and over again? Not me.
[31:14] >> Because the production crew had to film
[31:16] three challenges in one night, there's a
[31:18] noticeable lack of coverage in this
[31:20] segment. Just to pick one moment that
[31:21] stood out on rewatch, we see Katie find
[31:24] a cannonball in this wide shot. It then
[31:26] cuts to a closeup of her holding the
[31:28] cannonball in PPE from elsewhere at the
[31:31] cannons. It then cuts back to the sand
[31:33] pit and we see Katie still there digging
[31:35] all in a 5-second span. But anyway, I
[31:39] find the pyrochnics bit very irritating
[31:41] because it's just a pointless waste of
[31:43] money. It reeks of insecurity. This is
[31:45] the sort of thing you do for the
[31:47] contestants and yourself, not to make
[31:49] good TV. Anyway, Jack is the only smart
[31:52] person who doesn't find a cannonball,
[31:54] and so he cries ugly tears to camera
[31:56] while the winners, who aren't idiot
[31:57] nerds, hop in a stretch hummer to go win
[31:59] a private island.
[32:01] The Survivor crossover is fine, and not
[32:05] like a limp fine. It's actually fine.
[32:08] It's Btier Survivor, which makes it S
[32:11] tier beast games, but for our purposes,
[32:13] that makes it very boring to talk about.
[32:16] The Survivor team did everything, and
[32:17] Team Beast just had to turn up, which,
[32:19] as we saw, they barely managed that. We
[32:22] partnered with one of the largest shows
[32:24] ever programmed on television in order
[32:27] to create the most insane television
[32:29] crossover the world has ever seen, Beast
[32:32] Games and Survivor, FUSED INTO ONE
[32:35] single groundbreaking episode. The
[32:38] precise way that Jimmy Hard sells his
[32:40] content has become really irritating to
[32:42] me. It's the way he talks as if he's
[32:44] trying to get you to invest in the show
[32:47] itself. It's not enough for you to want
[32:49] to watch it. You have to believe in the
[32:52] content's value and believe in Jimmy's
[32:54] value for making it. This is the kind of
[32:57] language you use when talking to
[32:59] investors. The survivor segment lasts
[33:01] about 45 minutes and features one team
[33:03] game followed by Get a Grip and finally
[33:06] tribal council. No one is eliminated in
[33:08] the segment, but the winner gets a
[33:10] private island valued at 1.8 million,
[33:12] which they're allowed to cash out. The
[33:14] tribal council segment takes about half
[33:16] the episode, which isn't great because
[33:19] Ian and JC are both very unlikable
[33:21] people, and watching them both gravel
[33:23] and plead for votes to win the island
[33:25] sucks. Because the Survivor episode is
[33:27] entirely self-contained, it wres havoc
[33:30] on the overall pacing of the season and
[33:32] skews the screen time towards a select
[33:34] few people. Ian wins the island, but
[33:36] we're shown in a postredits bit that he
[33:38] cashes out because yeah, a normal person
[33:42] does not need a private island. Like it
[33:45] it's actively a liability to own. As a
[33:48] consolation prize, JT wins the coin, a
[33:51] mcguffin that gives the holder an
[33:53] opportunity to flip the coin and
[33:54] potentially double the prize pool if
[33:56] they make it to the top six. It's meant
[33:58] to act as a hostage that protects the
[34:00] holder as they move through the show.
[34:02] But again, the game theory is weird
[34:04] because for some reason, the person who
[34:06] flips the coin risks elimination if they
[34:08] call it wrong. So, if you make it to the
[34:10] top six, you have a 17ish% chance to win
[34:13] $5 million, and the coin represents an
[34:16] 8ish% chance at $10 million instead. The
[34:20] absolute odds balance out, but the
[34:22] relative odds do not. $5 million is
[34:25] life-changing money. $10 million is
[34:27] life-changing money plus X. Flipping the
[34:31] coin strictly benefits the opposition.
[34:33] Either you flip the coin and double the
[34:34] prize pool or you fail and get
[34:36] eliminated, increasing their odds of
[34:38] winning to a clean 20%. So, in that
[34:41] sense, the coin is a cursed idol that
[34:43] grants protection early on but requires
[34:45] a blood sacrifice down the road. Maybe
[34:48] that's interesting, but this little
[34:49] subplot costs Jimmy $5 million in season
[34:52] 1. So, he spends all of season 2 trying
[34:55] to bribe the holder to sell it to him,
[34:57] which they eventually do. Really, season
[35:00] 1 played out more or less the ideal way
[35:02] that this device could. The holder gets
[35:04] a buy through several rounds because of
[35:06] it and then calls it doubling the pot.
[35:08] But in a hypothetical 20 seasons of
[35:11] Beast Games universe, I suspect this is
[35:13] how it would go. Hold the coin with no
[35:15] intention to flip it and cash it out in
[35:17] the late game. It would then lose its
[35:19] mystique and the protection that comes
[35:20] with it.
[35:22] Moving on to episode 5, the gang returns
[35:24] from the island just in time for a full
[35:26] 10 minutes yapping over the outcome of
[35:28] the island. Most of the chatter is based
[35:30] on the false premise that the island has
[35:32] permanently shaken up alliances.
[35:34] >> Island people are going to stick for
[35:36] island people.
[35:37] >> That ends up going nowhere because the
[35:38] island was an adversarial exercise. They
[35:41] were competing against each other. In
[35:43] that same sound bite, JC says he feels
[35:46] isolated because people voted against
[35:48] him. That is the real tone of the
[35:50] aftermath. People are either lukewarm on
[35:52] the whole thing or harboring new petty
[35:54] grievances. Jimmy eventually gathers
[35:57] everyone together under the pretext of
[35:59] offering JC 50 grand for the coin. JC
[36:02] predictably rejects that. And so we move
[36:04] on to Cubes, Beast Games most notorious
[36:07] challenge.
[36:09] Cubes is the only Beast Game challenge
[36:11] that really breaks away from the strict
[36:13] children's game theme. This game was
[36:15] featured in season one of Beast Games
[36:17] and was popular enough that Jimmy has
[36:20] reused it elsewhere, most recently on
[36:22] Kevin Hart and other mid-tier
[36:24] celebrities with bad agents. The
[36:26] decision to run it back with cubes is so
[36:28] hack that one team assumed there must be
[36:30] a twist to it and started destroying the
[36:32] room looking for clues.
[36:34] >> I hate to break it to you, there is no
[36:35] twist. Cubes involves two or three
[36:38] individuals entering a room and one
[36:39] individual needing to elect to
[36:41] self-eliminate from the game so the
[36:43] others can leave and continue in the
[36:45] game. Players are given freedom to use
[36:47] whatever method they want to determine
[36:49] who should be eliminated and each room
[36:51] has a phone that calls out to Chandler
[36:53] and Code to order explicitly whatever
[36:55] they want to reach a verdict. The whole
[36:58] pitch of the challenge is that the show
[36:59] goes hands off and lets the contestants
[37:01] figure it out on their own terms. The
[37:04] problem emerges when this concept comes
[37:05] into contact with Jimmy's love of
[37:07] deception and dishonesty. Beast Games is
[37:10] not just unconcerned with players
[37:12] reneggging on their agreements. Jimmy
[37:14] actively encourages it.
[37:16] >> Yeah, you've given them your word, but
[37:18] you don't technically have to.
[37:20] >> In season 1, there were 80 different
[37:22] cubes running and so several rooms
[37:24] devolved into these antics.
[37:26] >> Yeah, I'm out.
[37:27] >> Are we fair?
[37:28] >> Yep.
[37:29] >> Are you sure?
[37:30] >> Yeah. Actually, no. I lied. And bam,
[37:33] we're all gone.
[37:34] >> Are you serious?
[37:35] >> Yeah, I'm dead ass.
[37:35] >> The most notable instance of this
[37:37] featured the Habibi brothers. A pair of
[37:39] brothers were paired with a woman. One
[37:41] of the brothers simply refused to
[37:43] participate in any game, and so the
[37:45] three spend several hours sitting in an
[37:47] empty room with the brothers badgering
[37:48] her to agree to let that brother sit out
[37:51] their game, increasing her odds of being
[37:53] eliminated in any game of chance. She
[37:55] eventually capitulates to the game,
[37:57] loses, and is left to sit alone in the
[38:00] room chained to the wall. It's this
[38:02] scene that gives the game its reputation
[38:03] for being torturous. And that is why
[38:06] here in season 2, Katie immediately
[38:08] starts crying and reaching out for other
[38:11] women the moment the cubes are revealed.
[38:14] >> Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.
[38:17] >> Most people go on game shows because
[38:19] they're fun. If this is how your
[38:21] contestants react to the dramatic reveal
[38:23] of your signature game, it might be
[38:25] worth interrogating why that is. The
[38:29] incident with the Habibi brothers is
[38:31] another example of a major failure in
[38:33] Beast Games, one that shouldn't have
[38:35] even made it to air, but the creators
[38:37] are explicitly quite proud of the game
[38:39] they've built. And so the habibi footage
[38:41] is shown to us like three times in
[38:44] season 2. The good news is that the
[38:46] cubes game in season 2 is a lot less
[38:49] dramatic. Rather than 242 players
[38:52] needing to pair up, season 2 only needs
[38:55] to deal with the top 20. So basically
[38:57] everyone knows each other and mostly has
[38:59] their clique. The gimmick with the
[39:01] phones is that their stated purpose is
[39:03] to bring contestants things like a deck
[39:05] of cards or Jenga or whatever to elect a
[39:07] sacrifice. But the boys will bring them
[39:10] literally anything. So in season 1, you
[39:12] had some rooms partying with a tattoo
[39:14] artist and other rooms sitting in an
[39:16] empty void with nothing but a pack of
[39:18] cards and some Door Dash. In season two,
[39:21] everyone's in on the joke. Season 1 had
[39:23] a firm time limit of 5 hours to reach a
[39:25] verdict, or else everyone was
[39:27] eliminated. This led to mutually assured
[39:29] destruction being regularly invoked.
[39:32] >> And bam, we're all gone.
[39:33] >> In season 2, the crew prepared for the
[39:35] game to last all night. So, while there
[39:37] is an implicit deadline, it's not
[39:40] hanging over the contestants heads. They
[39:42] seem to have been encouraged to screw
[39:43] around with the phones and party on
[39:45] Amazon's dime. As a result, the season 2
[39:48] cubes go off without much incident. In
[39:50] terms of manipulation, Vance was
[39:52] convinced to agree to a popularity
[39:54] contest. And given that he was the least
[39:56] popular person in the competition, yeah,
[39:58] that was a mistake.
[40:00] >> Less than 10% of people voted for Vance.
[40:02] >> When Sue was eliminated from a card game
[40:04] because the child genius, Jack, swapped
[40:06] in a loaded deck. That is the only thing
[40:08] Jack does in the whole show, and Jimmy
[40:10] has milked it to death in the aftermath.
[40:13] You got to GIVE HIM A HUG.
[40:16] JI'S ELIMINATION is just funny because
[40:19] he wants to be a ruthless operator and
[40:21] make Jimmy proud, but just doesn't have
[40:23] it in him. He's paired with Jim and
[40:25] Monica, the maybe possibly married
[40:27] couple with Lego wedding rings. JC and
[40:29] Jim agree to let Monica sit out the
[40:31] elimination because chivalry isn't dead
[40:33] just yet. And so, the two guys play a
[40:36] card game. JC loses and rather than
[40:38] honoring the game, tries to bribe Jim to
[40:41] self-eliminate by offering to give the
[40:43] coin to Monica. And so that is our big
[40:46] cliffhanger for the episode. Will Jim
[40:48] take the bribe?
[40:51] Rather than episode 6 continuing with
[40:53] this exchange, the episode opens outside
[40:55] the cubes and we get the big reveal of
[40:57] who survived and it's Jim. The decision
[41:00] to shift perspectives is an odd creative
[41:02] choice until you see that like the
[41:05] actual conversation was not the least
[41:08] bit dramatic. Jim refuses the bribe. JC
[41:11] says, "Oh, well, Monica can have the
[41:14] coin anyway." And that was that. And so
[41:17] that is stretched into a threeinut
[41:19] sequence. There's a few more minutes of
[41:21] decompression before we get episode 6's
[41:23] challenge. Hearts will be smashed.
[41:26] That's what the wiki calls it. That's
[41:28] the name. We're stuck with it. The goal
[41:30] here is to decisively crown the
[41:32] strongest and smartest contestants in
[41:34] the city through a smart challenge and a
[41:36] strong challenge. These challenges don't
[41:38] eliminate anyone, but the two winners
[41:40] get to decide collectively which three
[41:42] contestants to eliminate. This had a
[41:44] curious impact on the game theory at
[41:46] play because players only valued the win
[41:48] if they felt like they were at risk of
[41:50] elimination. But almost everyone was
[41:53] entirely confident that they were safe
[41:55] from getting voted off. Also, you know,
[41:58] no one wants to try too hard to be safe
[42:01] and signal that they feel like they're
[42:04] unsafe. It produces an odd lack of
[42:07] tension given the circumstances.
[42:10] First up, we have the strong challenge,
[42:12] which is another spin on Get a Grip.
[42:14] This is the third of what will
[42:15] ultimately be four strong challenges
[42:17] involving hanging from a pole. All
[42:20] tailored for a very specific kind of
[42:22] athlete. So, shock, horror, the gymnast
[42:25] wins. I will just say though, Team Beast
[42:27] got really lucky that August didn't
[42:30] collide with the platform during this
[42:31] fall.
[42:33] The Smart Challenge is yet another
[42:35] children's memory game. Contestants need
[42:37] to memorize the path through a grid. A
[42:39] staple of game shows produced for
[42:41] literal children. Three, M2,
[42:45] M1, and Andrew's away. Runway, slip
[42:49] away, takeaway, and causeway.
[42:51] >> That 30-year-old clip from the
[42:52] Australian cult classic children's game
[42:54] show Time Masters is arguably more
[42:57] complex than the one here in Beast
[42:59] Masters. The time master's game is timed
[43:02] and the board is just a single element,
[43:04] a path they need to cross to answer a
[43:06] trivia question on the other side. A
[43:08] thing that never happens once in Beast
[43:11] Game season 2. Have I mentioned that
[43:13] yet? A game show purporting to challenge
[43:16] the smartest minds in the world and they
[43:18] have absolutely zero trivia. Well, I
[43:22] mean, okay, maybe that's a good thing
[43:24] given the tier of trivia they managed to
[43:26] pull out for season 1. What is the
[43:29] biggest animal on our planet? Blue
[43:31] whale, Indian rhinoceros, or spiny lump
[43:35] sucker?
[43:36] >> Anyway, this game is another spectacular
[43:39] failure because again, no one in the
[43:41] room thinks they're at risk of getting
[43:43] eliminated. And so this game that was
[43:45] conceived of as an individual
[43:48] adversarial one where each contestant
[43:50] needs to find their zen and focus
[43:53] through a cacophony of conflicting
[43:55] directions is instead handled
[43:57] collaboratively from beginning to end.
[44:00] Contestants were happy to volunteer to
[44:02] attempt the maze guided by other players
[44:04] who felt safe to guide basically anyone
[44:06] through the maze because they didn't
[44:08] believe the maze runner would eliminate
[44:10] them.
[44:10] >> Y'all better help me out though cuz I
[44:12] really don't remember anything. So, the
[44:13] entire player pool split up to memorize
[44:16] individual portions of the maze, worked
[44:18] together to get someone through it, and
[44:20] the player crowned the smartest person
[44:22] in the city was Nick the wrestler. Jimmy
[44:26] tries to lampshade this whole thing, but
[44:28] it's another catastrophic failure of a
[44:30] game. This wasn't Nick shocking everyone
[44:32] by winning a quiz. He won because
[44:34] players engaged with the game in a
[44:36] fundamentally different way than was
[44:38] intended. So, the last 14 minutes of the
[44:42] episode are spent milling around
[44:44] pondering who will get eliminated. Small
[44:46] Tyler and Bryley are the obvious
[44:48] candidates. So, after Big Nick
[44:50] eliminates Small Tyler with a
[44:52] sledgehammer, we get our cliffhanger. As
[44:54] we covered in the main video, the third
[44:56] elimine is veiled in the edit, but the
[44:58] show signals with equal bluntness that
[45:01] Brett will be the third pick.
[45:03] >> Alliances are crumbling. I don't know if
[45:06] I can trust you.
[45:07] >> I just don't open up. I struggle with
[45:09] that.
[45:09] >> I know you told me that you don't open
[45:11] up to people very easily and you don't
[45:13] trust people very easily. It's about
[45:14] having people who, you know, we both
[45:17] fully trust here.
[45:18] >> The language of the edit couldn't be
[45:19] more clear. Not only is Monica
[45:22] referencing a conversation we see with
[45:24] Brett, we literally see that visual and
[45:27] Brett's reaction. The language of filmm
[45:29] is telling us that this isn't even a
[45:31] real cliffhanger because it's so clearly
[45:34] Brett.
[45:35] And so then episode 7 continues to hide
[45:38] the elimin for another 90 agonizing
[45:40] seconds where we finally learn that it
[45:42] is Katie. Before we poke at that, I want
[45:45] to point out that the reveal occurs
[45:47] precisely at the 90 secondond mark,
[45:49] almost to the frame, by the way. 89
[45:52] seconds would have felt rush, but 91
[45:54] would have been too indulgent. But yeah,
[45:57] Katie, this is an attempted twist, but
[45:59] ends up being simply a rugpull. We had
[46:01] no reason to expect Katie to be
[46:02] eliminated. Katie had no reason to
[46:05] expect Katie to be eliminated. Rather
[46:07] than paying off a narrative beat, this
[46:09] dramatic moment is undercut simply by
[46:11] Monica and Nick needing to explain
[46:13] themselves and justify this decision.
[46:15] They rattle off a list of minor
[46:17] grievances and social fowls that
[46:19] ultimately emerge from Katie wanting to
[46:21] form an all girls coalition in response
[46:23] to the obvious boys club that was
[46:25] forming. But there you have it. We have
[46:27] our top 10 contestants and so we can
[46:30] continue with the worst reviewed episode
[46:32] of all of Beast Games.
[46:36] After Katie's elimination, essentially
[46:38] nothing of relevance happens. Each
[46:40] sequence has a practical purpose that
[46:42] makes sense on paper. The existence of
[46:44] the cliffhanger makes sense. The
[46:46] decision to bring the families in for a
[46:48] Last Supper makes sense. Using the
[46:50] cemetery as a highlight reel for the
[46:51] show makes sense. And perhaps even
[46:53] setting up a buried alive in advance
[46:55] makes sense. But in practice, it's all
[46:57] just vapor. It's pointless padding. The
[47:00] 30-something military guys have young
[47:02] kids. The young athletes all have
[47:04] parents who are so proud of them. The
[47:05] cemetery scene is even more of a waste
[47:08] of time. It's meant to be a recap of the
[47:10] show's most pivotal moments, a chance to
[47:12] reflect on how far we've come now that
[47:14] 200 players have become 10. But
[47:17] literally half the highlights Jimmy
[47:19] rattles off are from Cubes, which was
[47:22] barely an hour ago. This sequence is
[47:24] meant to remind us how much has
[47:26] happened, but it only serves to
[47:27] highlight how little has actually
[47:30] happened. The whole sequence is another
[47:32] example of pointless excess. Like the
[47:34] cannonball sequence, I'm sure it made
[47:36] for an impressive sight on set, but it
[47:39] does not translate to good television.
[47:42] >> 210 players entered Beast Games, and 200
[47:45] have already fallen.
[47:47] >> All of this is ultimately just set
[47:49] dressing for the next game, Buried
[47:50] Alive. In this game, players each get a
[47:53] turn taking a cut of a million-dollar
[47:54] pile of cash. It's build is a test of
[47:57] greed and integrity. Will everyone take
[47:59] their fair share or will contestants put
[48:01] themselves first? The order of players
[48:03] is determined via the nomination of a
[48:05] team captain. Essentially, Nick put his
[48:08] hand up and his team, who call
[48:09] themselves the Ultra Avengers or
[48:12] something, are by this point a strict
[48:14] boys club. The women and Jim weren't
[48:16] cool with the dynamic forming and so
[48:18] voted against the Mega Avengers. That
[48:21] left Cory and Brett, who are a bit older
[48:23] and don't really fit with the Turbo
[48:24] Avengers, but they are Nick's boys, just
[48:26] not his boys, right? So, Brett and Corey
[48:30] ultimately side with the boys. Nick
[48:32] wins, and the order of players that Nick
[48:34] goes with just transparently reflects
[48:36] their loyalty to him. These four are the
[48:39] last four to get dug up. But let's not
[48:41] get ahead of ourselves. We have another
[48:44] cliffhanger to ensure. After five
[48:46] minutes of sitting on the pile of money,
[48:48] wafting on how much to take, we get this
[48:50] sequence heavily implying that Nick
[48:52] takes all the money.
[48:54] >> You have a 1 million opportunity. The
[48:58] only question is,
[49:00] are you going to take it?
[49:06] >> Yeah.
[49:09] Episode 8 then totally rug bulls this.
[49:11] Nick doesn't take a million, he takes
[49:14] 250,000.
[49:15] So, the cliffhanger isn't just a rug
[49:17] pull that feels gross and distracting.
[49:20] It actively works against the show by
[49:23] inverting the expectations. Beast Games
[49:26] has force-fed us clips of Nick
[49:29] proclaiming his integrity and his
[49:31] immunity to bribes. He's so forward
[49:33] about it that as Brett will point out,
[49:36] it would be hypocritical for Nick to
[49:38] take even $1 over a fair split.
[49:41] >> If you took even a dollar more, if you
[49:43] took $100,1
[49:45] you're a villain.
[49:46] >> That is how you frame this development.
[49:49] That is the point that you drive. The
[49:51] quantity Nick took is a distant second
[49:54] to the rhetoric he pushed. The need to
[49:57] backtrack makes the segment more garbled
[50:00] and confusing. But more crucially, the
[50:02] show leads us to believe Nick took the
[50:04] entire pot. So when we learn he only
[50:06] took a quarter of the pot, it has a
[50:08] mitigating effect on the betrayal rather
[50:10] than an emphasizing one. The cliffhanger
[50:13] makes the moment less impactful. So
[50:16] we're off to an awful start, but
[50:17] ultimately episode 8 is probably the
[50:19] best episode that isn't just Survivor.
[50:22] Basically, every Beast Games challenge
[50:24] directs the contestants to behave like
[50:25] children.
[50:26] >> I'm falling back towards you. Okay.
[50:28] Okay. Because there's some arts in front
[50:29] of us.
[50:29] >> Yes, I know.
[50:30] >> And while this was probably an accident,
[50:32] this challenge has the contestants
[50:33] holding each other to the standards of
[50:35] an adult. And while I stand by our
[50:37] statement that Beast Games doesn't
[50:38] unveil anything about the true nature of
[50:40] Nick and company, I will admit that I am
[50:42] not above passing judgment on the
[50:44] simulacrims put before us for the
[50:46] purpose of entertainment. For example,
[50:48] Nick took a quarter of the pot instead
[50:50] of his onetenth share. This pissed
[50:52] everyone off and all but guaranteed his
[50:54] immediate exit from the game. So, at
[50:56] that point, should he have just taken
[50:58] the whole pot? I don't know. Discuss in
[51:00] the comments. Another example, once
[51:02] people saw that Nick took too much money
[51:04] and the 100k split was out the window,
[51:06] basically every player defaulted to
[51:08] taking an even split of the remaining
[51:10] pot. In doing so, those players took on
[51:12] some burden from stolen money. By
[51:15] contrast, Tyler did what he said he was
[51:17] going to do and took 100,000, an even
[51:20] split in absolute terms, but kicking the
[51:22] Nick problem down the chain for others
[51:23] to inherit. So, is it okay for Tyler to
[51:26] take 100 grand, or should he have paid
[51:28] the Nick tax like August did? I don't
[51:30] know. Discuss in the comments. Beyond
[51:32] that, the only notable bits are Brett
[51:34] and Monica. Brett follows Nick's lead
[51:36] and also takes 250K. Notably, it took
[51:39] him several hours to reach this
[51:41] decision. The crew was apparently
[51:43] legitimately furious with him for
[51:45] single-handedly dragging this challenge
[51:47] into the late morning again. Also, for
[51:50] some reason, the cubes are are green
[51:53] now. Also, if you think I went too hard
[51:55] on the boys in the main video, here's a
[51:57] taste of Chandler trying to do his job
[52:00] as a co-host.
[52:01] >> You have the whole pie in your hands
[52:03] right now. You're about to set the
[52:04] standard whether each pie is going to be
[52:06] equal or different based on what you do
[52:08] right here. utterly incompetent. But
[52:12] Monica's bit is, or rather could have
[52:14] been, the most interesting. Monica is
[52:16] left towards the back of the queue, and
[52:18] she finds $188,000 to split four ways,
[52:22] less than half the fair value. It's at
[52:24] this point that Jimmy rolls out a half
[52:26] million bribe for the coin, but it
[52:29] includes a unique caveat. She could sell
[52:31] the coin in secret. This presents her
[52:34] with the opportunity to make a bunch of
[52:35] money and do a solid for the people
[52:37] behind her in Q without losing the
[52:39] protection of holding the coin. That's
[52:41] how Monica wanted it to go and that's
[52:43] perhaps how it would have gone if the
[52:46] production hadn't spilled the beans. It
[52:49] seems the whole sellin secret component
[52:50] was an emergent element the production
[52:52] wasn't prepared for. So, the cat was out
[52:54] of the bag almost immediately. The boys
[52:57] need to feain ignorance for the camera
[52:58] and pretend that they only suspect that
[53:00] she sold, but they do know for a fact
[53:02] that Monica sold the coin.
[53:04] >> So, when Monica revealed the 500K, was
[53:07] everyone kind of just like, "Oh, well,
[53:09] we knew like or we had this decision."
[53:11] Okay,
[53:12] >> that's exactly how that played out. We
[53:14] already
[53:16] We already knew.
[53:17] >> Anyway, after Jim gets his go with the
[53:19] money, the show gets bored and
[53:20] unceremoniously starts wrapping the game
[53:22] up. Hannah and Katie are dug up
[53:24] simultaneously and their segments are
[53:26] blitzed in a combined 45 seconds. Just
[53:29] the raw disrespect this show has for
[53:32] women who aren't Monica. I swear to God.
[53:34] So after this, we get about 10 full
[53:36] minutes of yap about the fallout of the
[53:38] game. Though again, this is the only
[53:40] game that really felt like it could
[53:42] warrant that. If anything, I wanted to
[53:44] hear maybe a bit more of it or I wanted
[53:48] there to actually be Fallout. Like
[53:51] there's this tantalizing bit where Brett
[53:53] admits that his hope was for Corey to
[53:55] empty the pot and leave nothing for Jim
[53:57] and the women.
[53:58] >> I don't regret what I did. I was hoping
[54:00] that you would take the whole thing as
[54:02] well. I really wanted to give you that
[54:04] opportunity to take that if you wanted
[54:06] to.
[54:06] >> And yeah, I did want to see Cory put the
[54:08] screws to Brett for that statement and
[54:10] point out how crappy it is to think that
[54:12] way. Tragically, Corey is too much of an
[54:15] adult and too invested in his alliances
[54:17] to give us a proper crash out, but
[54:19] there's enough there to justify its
[54:21] runtime. All of this is followed by a
[54:23] big announcement from Jimmy where he
[54:25] declares that there's only two episodes
[54:27] left.
[54:28] >> First, there are only two episodes
[54:30] remaining until one of you wins
[54:33] generational wealth.
[54:35] >> What?
[54:36] >> Two.
[54:36] >> What?
[54:36] >> One of the most consistently funny bits
[54:38] of this show is when the contestants
[54:40] foresee the show's problems in real
[54:42] time. in this case. Yeah, August, the
[54:44] pacing of the eliminations is about to
[54:46] get really weird. Anyway, Jimmy declares
[54:49] that they're all leaving the city to do
[54:51] the finale elsewhere, which leads us to
[54:53] the worst segment in the show, the trip
[54:55] to Riad.
[54:56] >> That is so sick.
[54:57] >> Let's get it.
[54:58] >> Yo, let's go.
[55:00] Go, dude. Lock in.
[55:02] >> The decision to shoot in Riad adds
[55:03] nothing of value to the production. It's
[55:05] like how the opening episode was shot in
[55:07] Las Vegas. I didn't mention that at the
[55:09] time because it's irrelevant. The show
[55:11] isn't set in Vegas, Greenville, Riad, or
[55:13] Toronto. It's set in a sound stage. It's
[55:16] just another manifestation of the show's
[55:18] conflict with the optics of the
[55:20] production. Building a set on a
[55:21] construction site in Vegas is more
[55:23] prestigious than building on a
[55:25] construction site in North Carolina. The
[55:27] same goes for shooting in Saudi Arabia.
[55:29] But moving on, we get the setup for the
[55:31] episode 9 game here in episode 8. It's
[55:34] called Telephone Game, even though it
[55:35] has no connection to the actual
[55:37] children's game of telephone. And the
[55:39] literal telephones in this game are
[55:40] superficial elements that get discarded
[55:43] very early on. The game involves several
[55:45] rounds of voting where players vote on
[55:47] who ought to make it through to the
[55:48] final six. The catch being that
[55:50] contestants are able to bribe each other
[55:52] with the money earned from Buried Alive.
[55:54] We'll talk more about the game on the
[55:56] other side of the cliffhanger, which
[55:58] once again goes absolutely nowhere.
[56:00] August gets on the phone and attempts to
[56:02] blackmail Monica with his knowledge that
[56:03] she sold the coin.
[56:05] >> I have some unfortunate news for you.
[56:07] Yeah. What is that?
[56:08] >> I do know that you sold the coin.
[56:11] >> Beast Games has two kinds of cliffhers.
[56:13] Cliffhers that put forward an entirely
[56:16] fictitious version of events and
[56:17] cliffhers that tease a decision or
[56:19] action that is immediately revealed as
[56:21] immaterial. Episode 8's cliffhanger is
[56:24] the latter. It tries to sell August
[56:26] blackmail as a big deal. But once we get
[56:28] into episode 9, nothing comes of it.
[56:30] Neither that specific phone call nor the
[56:33] narrative thread broadly. And I'm like,
[56:35] dude, what if I use this as blackmail?
[56:39] And looking back, because obviously it
[56:41] doesn't really work. August never
[56:44] announces it to the group, and we never
[56:46] so much as see a single person upset
[56:48] over the possibility that the coin has
[56:50] been sold. This is the closest we get to
[56:53] a payoff for August's attempted
[56:54] blackmail.
[56:55] >> It's a theory, though. I don't know.
[56:57] >> Yet, the coin's not here. That
[56:59] conversation featured August trying to
[57:01] convince Katie to accept a larger bribe
[57:03] from him for her vote, but it's unclear
[57:05] if the whole coin thing influenced Katie
[57:07] at all. The plot thread is simply a
[57:09] bust. The kind of thing an editor would
[57:11] normally excise from the show entirely
[57:13] if they didn't need a cliffhanger.
[57:16] Anyway, the telephone game itself is
[57:19] weird.
[57:20] >> This is definitely by far the worst game
[57:22] that we've played so far.
[57:24] >> Yeah,
[57:25] >> it's designed to be a bidding war. Jimmy
[57:27] wants people spending big to buy each
[57:29] other's votes. And he wants people
[57:31] double crossing each other and
[57:32] additionally being perceived as double
[57:35] crossing each other. The whole gimmick
[57:37] with the phone and boos is about opening
[57:39] the game up for subtrafuge and paranoia.
[57:42] Like if Tyler paid Nick to vote for him,
[57:44] but Tyler sees Nick on the phone to
[57:46] Hannah, Tyler is supposed to get anxious
[57:48] about whether Nick is going to double
[57:50] cross him for Hannah. In the end though,
[57:52] it just makes the process less efficient
[57:54] and difficult to edit because a series
[57:56] of rotary telephones are a sub-optimal
[57:58] means of complex negotiation within a
[58:00] group. Round one was an hour long to
[58:02] account for that. Jimmy has this
[58:04] throwaway line that I think captures
[58:06] what he's trying to do. He thinks it's
[58:08] easier to lie over the phone than to lie
[58:11] to someone's face. And I guess that's
[58:13] true. But is that such a compelling
[58:15] observation to warrant building this
[58:17] entire game around it? I don't know.
[58:19] answers in the comments. Nothing like
[58:21] that ever really happens. The more
[58:23] interesting dynamic is the game theory
[58:26] around the voting. If a player is
[58:28] successfully voted through a round,
[58:29] they're gone from the pool. So that
[58:31] means if you vote for an ally, they're
[58:34] absent from subsequent rounds to vote
[58:36] for you. In essence, it's much easier to
[58:38] get through the early rounds when you
[58:40] have friends you can leverage compared
[58:42] to later rounds when a single vote can
[58:44] determine the outcome. And almost
[58:46] inevitably, someone in an alliance is
[58:48] going to be left holding the bag and the
[58:51] bag. The game kind of plays out that
[58:55] way, but the texture is strange. Part of
[58:57] this is once again a product of the
[58:59] edit. Once again, this episode took all
[59:02] night to film, and so hours completely
[59:04] vanish in the edit, and complex
[59:06] negotiations need to be flattened into
[59:09] singular ideas.
[59:10] >> Actually, the rounds were even longer
[59:11] than that. They were like they started
[59:13] out at like an hour long and then they
[59:15] kind of broke it down further and
[59:17] farther. So, it's kind of like Yeah, it
[59:19] was uh as you guys know all these
[59:20] challenges with filming and everything,
[59:22] it just it takes forever.
[59:24] >> Well, and they don't show this, but I
[59:25] think my conversation with Monica was
[59:26] like 20 minutes.
[59:27] >> The other major issue is that this
[59:29] process pushes the eliminations to the
[59:31] back end. And so, the tension in the
[59:33] early rounds is very abstract. Monica
[59:37] spends almost the whole game trying to
[59:38] buy her way through, but ends up letting
[59:40] herself get pushed to the back of the
[59:42] line. But maybe that's fine because
[59:44] ultimately there were only seven
[59:45] contestants truly vying for a spot in
[59:47] the top six. We knew going into this
[59:49] too, Nick was not going to spend his
[59:51] money. Um, he's just not.
[59:53] >> Nick was never a realistic contender to
[59:55] move on and was happy to cash in and
[59:57] cash out. Jim was maneuvering to get
[59:59] Monica through. And Katie wanted to make
[60:01] a push for the top six, but quickly
[60:03] found herself drowned out and never
[60:05] ended up making a play. I just felt
[60:07] really bad for Katie, honestly. It was
[60:09] And it's kind of portrayed like in the
[60:10] episode and stuff like that. Just uh
[60:13] people saying things that they shouldn't
[60:15] have said, and I felt really bad for
[60:16] her. She was crying. I understood the
[60:18] stress she was under, the pressure. It
[60:19] was just it was unbearable.
[60:20] >> The first round featured an hour of
[60:22] negotiation only for Tyler to get eight
[60:25] of the 10 votes without bribing anyone.
[60:27] People just agreed to vote for him
[60:30] because they think he's neat.
[60:31] >> Do you know who you're voting for?
[60:32] >> Um,
[60:34] would you be cool with me?
[60:35] >> I mean, I would be okay with that if
[60:37] everybody's on the same page.
[60:38] >> I would vote for you.
[60:39] >> Our group of people agree to vote Tyler.
[60:41] >> Hannah and August empty their accounts
[60:44] to get through. Jack is able to leverage
[60:46] the Hyper Avengers to get through with a
[60:49] 30K contribution to Jim and Monica's
[60:51] honeymoon to seal the deal. This makes
[60:53] Jack overconfident. I have been waiting
[60:57] waiting for a game like that where I can
[60:59] use my intelligence to its fullest
[61:01] power.
[61:02] >> Cory makes the novel decision to bribe
[61:04] for votes around in advance. This is a
[61:07] terrible decision because it gives the
[61:10] other contestants last mover advantage.
[61:13] Brett, Jim, Monica, and even Katie will
[61:15] have 30 minutes to talk themselves and
[61:17] everyone else into a different course of
[61:19] action. Cory is betting at it all on his
[61:22] peers ability to remain disciplined in
[61:24] the face of prolonged peer pressure.
[61:27] It's a bad strategy. But because the
[61:30] show is worse than his strategy, several
[61:33] contestants declared that they're firm
[61:34] on voting for Cory this round and Jimmy
[61:37] just offers to let everyone skip the
[61:40] negotiation phase altogether, which
[61:43] everyone agrees to do.
[61:45] >> All right, this round is over.
[61:47] I was like
[61:48] >> cuz we were already there for a long
[61:49] time as it was. So everybody was already
[61:51] getting tired and just like, "Hey, let's
[61:52] go to the next round."
[61:53] >> So Cory managed to accidentally turn
[61:56] everyone's last mover advantage into his
[61:58] own no last mover advantage. And look,
[62:02] I'm not going to say that Jimmy ought to
[62:03] have had these guys stand in silence in
[62:05] a circle for 30 minutes in some
[62:07] warehouse in Riad at midnight, but I
[62:09] can't think of another serious game show
[62:11] that seeds its rules to the whims of its
[62:14] players in this way. The last round is a
[62:16] two-way duel between Brett and Monica.
[62:18] Brett bribes Jim, Monica's literal
[62:20] pretend game show husband, $30,000 to
[62:23] vote for him instead of Jim's literal
[62:25] maybe game show wife. And Brett is
[62:27] surprised when Jim votes for his
[62:30] probable wife. No amount of money would
[62:32] change that decision, and Brett is made
[62:34] to look like an idiot for even trying.
[62:36] But what's even the point of this game
[62:38] otherwise? Nick ends up taking big money
[62:40] from both Monica and Brett for his vote,
[62:42] promising them both his vote. Throughout
[62:44] this episode, the edit has presented
[62:46] Nick basically as a two-faced liar,
[62:49] saying whatever was necessary to get a
[62:51] bag.
[62:51] >> Nick, Nick, Nick, I I don't understand.
[62:53] So, Monica's paying you 20K for a vote
[62:55] this round, and Cory paid you 15 grand
[62:57] for a vote next round.
[62:58] >> Yes.
[62:58] >> But between us, I thought you were
[62:59] running the wrong.
[63:01] >> We're going to see what happens.
[63:02] >> Monica, in particular, is framed as
[63:04] being consistently strung along by Nick.
[63:06] >> Please don't screw me over this.
[63:08] >> I got you. You're good. Start making
[63:11] your way to your pods.
[63:13] You're good.
[63:14] >> I'm so sorry. Like, I swear. Like,
[63:17] >> you're good.
[63:18] >> Okay.
[63:18] >> You're good. Thank you. You give me 10
[63:20] more thousand.
[63:21] >> I would. Can I again trust you to not
[63:24] change your mind here?
[63:24] >> Yes.
[63:25] >> Thank you.
[63:26] >> Monica's entire strategy ends up hinging
[63:28] on Nick's vote in round six, the final
[63:31] round. And we see every step of that
[63:33] process in agonizing detail. By
[63:36] contrast, we're shown no substantive
[63:38] conversation between Brett and Nick for
[63:40] the whole episode. Episode 9 cliffhangs
[63:43] on Nick's deciding vote. So, the framing
[63:45] is pretty straightforward. Will Nick
[63:47] deliver for Monica, or will he betray
[63:49] her one last time for Brett for some
[63:51] sort of vague unsatisfying reason like
[63:54] he's my boy?
[63:56] >> The person that I'm locking in the
[63:58] person I'm voting for is
[64:00] >> Thank you for your vote.
[64:02] >> So, I'm recording each of these segments
[64:06] in its own audio file. So, this is like
[64:08] beast video 2, episode 10. And I've
[64:12] already said this a whole bunch of
[64:14] times, but it is insane that we are
[64:18] going into episode 10 with the final six
[64:24] that there are going to be five
[64:27] eliminations
[64:28] in this one episode.
[64:32] Cracked.
[64:34] Nick casts his vote for Brett because
[64:36] he's Nick's boy. The finale then stops
[64:38] in its tracks to get really, really
[64:40] weird about passing judgment on specific
[64:43] contestants. Both Jim and Nick reneged
[64:46] on their promises, effectively canceling
[64:48] each other out. Jim renegged on a
[64:50] promise involving $30,000, and Nick took
[64:52] $33,000 for a vote he didn't provide.
[64:55] Jim stuck by his wife. Nick stuck by his
[64:58] boy. They are offsetting sins. It would
[65:01] be a waste of time to try and weigh the
[65:03] ethics of these lies. It'd be
[65:04] particularly weird to scold Jim for
[65:07] voting for his own wife simply because
[65:09] Brett was gullible enough to offer Jim
[65:11] money to do otherwise.
[65:14] The show weighs these lies and opts to
[65:17] school Jim for voting for his own wife.
[65:19] >> Brett looks so mad I didn't vote for
[65:21] him. What's he got to be mad about?
[65:22] >> He took 30 grand and he didn't vote for
[65:24] you. Oh yeah.
[65:26] The show then absolves Nick by passing
[65:28] the most extreme judgment on Monica for
[65:32] attempting to lie about selling the
[65:34] coin, going so far as to try and pedal a
[65:37] bizarre claim that Monica's failure to
[65:40] make it into the top six was a direct
[65:42] consequence of her deception.
[65:45] >> Can't trust Nick at the end of the day.
[65:47] >> I was honest about the money I made that
[65:48] night. You weren't. And you lost because
[65:50] of it.
[65:51] >> Yeah. If you told your teammates you
[65:52] took $0 so they could take more money
[65:54] when in reality you took 500. If you
[65:56] told everyone you took 500, you would be
[65:57] here right now.
[65:58] >> By this point, it should be clear that
[65:59] the final edit cannot be relied upon to
[66:01] accurately capture what went down on
[66:03] set. So maybe this is true. Maybe people
[66:06] were pissed off at Monica for insisting
[66:08] on maintaining a lie even after the
[66:10] truth had well and truly come out. But
[66:12] that is not the story we were just told.
[66:15] We were just told a story where no one
[66:17] cared about the lie around the coin. We
[66:19] were just told a story where a virtuous
[66:21] down on his luck wrestler rejected a
[66:24] million-dollar bribe earned the trust of
[66:26] the majority of his peers only to later
[66:28] surrender to his greed and devolve into
[66:30] a hypocrite. A man who in the end
[66:33] demands sweeteners in order to maintain
[66:35] his promises.
[66:37] >> Can you give Nick three more K? You know
[66:38] what? I'll give Nick three more K.
[66:40] >> For what? I don't know. He wants more
[66:41] money.
[66:42] >> If you give me 10 more thousand,
[66:43] >> I would. Can I again trust you to not
[66:46] change your mind here?
[66:47] >> Yes.
[66:47] >> Thank you. We were just told a story
[66:49] where a woman who, despite all the
[66:51] warning signs, rests her shot at
[66:52] generational wealth on the word of this
[66:54] man and is ultimately betrayed by him
[66:57] for vague and fickle reasons. Look, I
[67:00] don't need to overwork this. Nick is a
[67:02] villain. It's a villainous act. And
[67:03] yeah, it is worse than Jim voting for
[67:06] his maybe game show wife. By trying to
[67:10] make this about the coin, it undercuts
[67:11] the story we were just told in favor of
[67:14] a contradictory version of events. And
[67:16] worse, it essentially turns this moment
[67:18] into an exercise in victim blaming. Yes,
[67:20] Monica was betrayed, but she got what
[67:22] she deserved because she lied, too. If
[67:25] Monica's lie about the coin was indeed
[67:27] worse and more harmful, then show it.
[67:30] Don't try to spoon feed me August
[67:32] after the fact to try and
[67:34] manufacture a conclusion for the coin
[67:36] out of thin air. Regardless, this gives
[67:38] us our top six and the stage is set for
[67:40] the finale. or I guess we're 6 minutes
[67:44] into the finale, whatever.
[67:46] We get this kind of high production
[67:48] value animation that is made very
[67:50] annoying by Jimmy's narration declaring
[67:52] Beast Games to be a very legitimate and
[67:54] very illuminating simulation of reality.
[67:57] We then get the reveal of just how big
[67:59] of a warehouse Jimmy hired for the
[68:01] finale. Keep in mind as we go that this
[68:03] entire finale was filmed in one night,
[68:06] so strap in. First up is a game that the
[68:08] wiki refers to as ball kick, which
[68:12] yeah, it's not quite dodgeball because
[68:15] it's less interesting than dodgeball.
[68:17] Players each take position on a platform
[68:19] opposite a heart representing their own
[68:21] life in the game. Players then take
[68:23] turns kicking a soccer ball attempting
[68:25] to break each other's heart until two
[68:27] players have been eliminated.
[68:28] Apparently, Beast Games went with soccer
[68:30] balls because Ronaldo was supposed to
[68:32] have a cameo because he's in Saudi
[68:34] Arabia at the moment. Did that influence
[68:36] the production's decision to shoot in
[68:37] Riad? I do not care. Do not discuss this
[68:40] in the comments. Anyway, there's an
[68:42] initial foreplay period where again,
[68:44] players refuse to play the game. After a
[68:47] bit of that, they get a bit boulder and
[68:49] think strategically. Your closest
[68:50] players are your greatest threats, and
[68:52] there's a chance that aiming at the
[68:54] person next to you could result in a
[68:55] whiff that breaks your own heart. So,
[68:57] the game settles into a routine of
[68:58] players kicking it vaguely over there in
[69:02] an attempt to be as agreeable as
[69:04] possible. though over there quickly
[69:06] begins to resemble Jack and Hannah's
[69:09] hearts.
[69:10] >> So, I assume it's me.
[69:11] >> Let me try for Jack again.
[69:13] >> Let's just aim for Jack.
[69:15] >> Jack is nothing personal.
[69:16] >> I know it's easy for you to say it's not
[69:18] personal, but when everyone's aiming for
[69:19] you, it's not a fun feeling.
[69:21] >> Eventually, whether deliberate or
[69:22] accidental, Cory merks Jack. The game
[69:24] then gets super melodramatic for a few
[69:27] beats, and Jack really drives home how
[69:30] blindsided he is by the elimination.
[69:32] >> You You do so much in this game. you
[69:34] give like a full effort for 41 days and
[69:37] to lose on someone just kicking a ball
[69:39] right into your heart.
[69:42] It is literally the worst feeling in the
[69:43] world.
[69:44] >> And Jack is justified to feel this way.
[69:47] So, let's take a detour and drill into
[69:50] Jack's emotions in this instant and see
[69:52] if we can figure out why this moment
[69:55] feels so strange.
[69:59] The top down structure of Beast Games is
[70:01] very bizarre and causes all sorts of
[70:02] problems. We've hammered very hard on
[70:04] the issues caused by the cliffhers, but
[70:06] a perhaps equally harmful choice
[70:08] involves the pacing of eliminations.
[70:11] Most game shows have an uncontroversial
[70:13] pace to the eliminations. Ideally, it's
[70:15] something the audience would barely
[70:16] notice. A contestant is eliminated each
[70:19] episode, maybe once a week. Beast Games
[70:22] has a bizarre cadence of eliminations,
[70:23] which is further aggravated by the
[70:25] cliffhers shifting everything around.
[70:27] So, let's go through a timeline of
[70:29] eliminations, listing eliminations based
[70:31] on when they are official. and we see
[70:33] the stupid red cross imposed over the
[70:35] players. Episode 1 features 50 strong
[70:38] and 50 smart players being eliminated,
[70:40] leaving us with a clean 100. Episode 2
[70:43] features the choose your own challenge
[70:44] gimmick. We have nine eliminations in
[70:46] balls, 11 eliminations in balance, 10
[70:49] eliminations in bluff for a total of 30
[70:52] eliminations in episode 2. Episode 3
[70:55] features 20 eliminations in big blocks
[70:57] and 25 eliminations in the obstacle
[71:00] course for a total of 45 eliminations,
[71:03] 50% more than episode 2. Episode 4
[71:07] features the survivor crossover, so the
[71:09] only eliminations are the four from
[71:10] Captain Bribe plus one person who had to
[71:13] withdraw due to a family emergency.
[71:15] Episode 5 features six eliminations in
[71:17] the cube game. Episode 6 features one
[71:20] elimination from cubes and two from
[71:22] Hearts Will Be Smashed. Episode 7 begins
[71:24] with one last elimination from Hearts
[71:27] before we see zero eliminations for the
[71:29] next
[71:31] 159 minutes of television Sans credits
[71:35] in a production where a 15-hour shoot
[71:37] boils down to 30 minutes of television.
[71:40] Those 2 hours and 39 minutes represent
[71:43] like 2 weeks of production. The top 10
[71:46] cohort spent an absurd amount of time
[71:49] together. And finally, cutting the top
[71:51] 10 down to the final six involved a huge
[71:53] and elaborate telephone game that took a
[71:56] full night. And here in episode 10, Jack
[71:59] gets his red elimination cross just 9
[72:02] minutes after those previous four
[72:04] eliminees. In reality, this is something
[72:06] like an hour into the next day's shoot.
[72:09] So yeah, Jack would be justified to
[72:12] expect more from the finale, that the
[72:16] show would continue to build big and
[72:18] ceremonious eliminations resulting from
[72:21] complex challenges, and that he wasn't
[72:23] paying 30 grand for the privilege of
[72:26] being bullied at a worse version of
[72:28] dodgeball. After all, nine of the top 10
[72:31] contestants are eliminated in the
[72:32] finale. An insane decision. And so this
[72:36] is the way the finale is going to go.
[72:38] It's time to wrap this crap up. The show
[72:40] will screech to a halt to press F to pay
[72:42] respects to the elimine, but they're
[72:44] universally anticlimactic because
[72:46] there's simply so much still to cram
[72:48] into the episode.
[72:50] Jack was right to feel blindsided by his
[72:52] elimination and feel bitter in the
[72:54] moment about this whole thing. But at
[72:56] the same time, how did he think this was
[72:58] going to go? How did he think his beast
[73:01] games journey was going to end? By this
[73:03] point in the game, it's clear that smart
[73:05] players offer no unique benefits in
[73:07] themselves. Team Beast are not, in the
[73:09] literal 11th hour of filming, suddenly
[73:12] going to ask the contestants to do math.
[73:14] Jack's primary utility to the Giga
[73:16] Avengers was simply that he was a
[73:18] non-threatening ally that helped them
[73:20] attain majority voting power. And
[73:23] ultimately, he was a free elimination
[73:25] that could be cashed in at the right
[73:27] time. And top six was the right time.
[73:29] So, farewell, Jack. Now, let's play a
[73:32] quick game. If you had to guess which of
[73:33] these five people was about to get
[73:35] bullied by the remaining four, who would
[73:37] you pick?
[73:41] That's right. Actually, that's a little
[73:43] unfair.
[73:44] >> Hannah. Unless I want to create enemies
[73:46] with the three that are aiming for you
[73:47] right now. I have to I have to join
[73:49] forces.
[73:50] >> Despite saying that and really thinking
[73:52] about it, Cory does not in fact go for
[73:54] Hannah. But that clip is indicative of
[73:56] the rhetoric in the room and it makes
[73:58] for a really uncomfortable watch. It's
[74:00] not even malicious. And that lack of
[74:02] malice kind of makes it worse. It's so
[74:04] self-evident that Hannah is the correct
[74:06] option to target such that Cory's
[74:08] decision not to is an act of mercy.
[74:11] >> It's just the smartest play for myself.
[74:13] Kick for Hannah. We're all kicking for
[74:14] Hannah.
[74:15] >> And so Hannah, like a woman, starts
[74:17] crying to make it weird.
[74:18] >> It is a sucky feeling to have the entire
[74:21] cast gang up against you.
[74:22] >> This might actually be the weirdest
[74:25] moment of the show. I'll explain what
[74:26] we're shown and told, but understand
[74:28] that this is almost certainly not
[74:30] reality. Tyler is aiming to go for
[74:32] Hannah. She breaks down crying and Tyler
[74:35] hesitates. August then begins chirping
[74:37] to Tyler non-stop about how he simply
[74:39] has to go for Hannah. And then this
[74:41] happens.
[74:50] Oh my god.
[75:03] So Tyler breaks August heart from a kick
[75:05] that we only get shown for a few frames.
[75:08] >> I truly felt bad. You know, all of us
[75:11] were targeting Hannah and then after
[75:13] seeing her tear up, man, that's that's
[75:15] when I made my mind enough just told
[75:17] myself I couldn't keep doing this to
[75:19] her. My young boys at home, you know,
[75:21] that would watch this, you know, I want
[75:23] to be a good role model for them.
[75:25] >> Dang. And you know, I want them to stick
[75:27] up for the you the underdog, the little
[75:30] person, you know, the person in need. So
[75:33] >> that is the version put forward by the
[75:35] show. Tyler regretfully eliminated
[75:37] August to put an end to the harassment.
[75:39] Tyler merckked his best friend to
[75:41] protect a woman in need. What a guy.
[75:44] This is fiction. August is adamant that
[75:47] the edit misrepresented the situation
[75:49] and his and Hannah's relationship. I
[75:51] think in the edit it makes it seem like
[75:53] I like really hate Hannah or she really
[75:54] hates me. But there's no animosity
[75:55] against each other. There's no there was
[75:56] no hate for Hannah and Hannah and I are
[75:58] totally good. Hannah's awesome. As
[76:00] August tells it, Tyler was playing the
[76:01] game as Jimmy intended. Tyler and August
[76:04] had been close the entire show, but
[76:05] Tyler saw August as a threat. Tyler
[76:08] deliberately eliminated August for that
[76:10] reason. So when August is yelling go for
[76:12] Hannah, it is not misogynistic blood
[76:14] lust, but rather August pleading for his
[76:16] own life. that would track given that
[76:19] Hannah had just made the I'm a small
[76:21] bean, you should want to face me later
[76:23] argument to Cory. So, who should we
[76:26] believe? August, who was kind of wound
[76:28] up and annoying on TV, but otherwise
[76:30] seems like a normal dude, or the
[76:33] production team that brought us the
[76:35] amazing disappearing push-up contest.
[76:38] Answers in the comments.
[76:40] So, we have our final four, and it's
[76:42] time for the penultimate Beast Games
[76:44] challenge. The ultimate strong versus
[76:46] smart. The merging of brains and bronze
[76:49] into one spect. It's just stacking
[76:51] blocks again.
[76:52] >> Do you all recognize these?
[76:54] >> Yes.
[76:54] >> It's a combination of the pole hanging
[76:56] challenge from episode 6 with the block
[76:58] stacking from episode 1, but somehow
[77:01] even worse than that makes it sound.
[77:03] Players hang from the poles opposite a
[77:05] stack of 16 colored blocks. You can then
[77:07] press a button that will raise all the
[77:09] platforms up and drop the blocks. You
[77:11] must then attempt to recreate the stack.
[77:13] If you're successful, you get to
[77:15] nominate a person to eliminate. If you
[77:16] get it wrong, you're eliminated. So,
[77:19] just to start, the game theory of this
[77:21] challenge is ridiculous. The raw
[77:23] statistical odds of succeeding at the 16
[77:25] block stack are incredibly low, lower
[77:27] than your two in three chance of not
[77:29] being selected for elimination. So, even
[77:32] if you are Hannah and know for a fact
[77:34] that you're likely to be eliminated
[77:36] next, you're better off doing nothing
[77:38] and betting on the contestants failing
[77:40] to match the pattern. And if you're
[77:41] Tyler, beloved by all, you have every
[77:44] reason to just hold on to that poll and
[77:46] let the other contestants sort it out.
[77:48] Or at least that's how it would have
[77:50] gone if the players didn't break the
[77:52] game yet again. The the edit's kind of a
[77:55] little bit different than how it
[77:56] actually played out. Um, all right. So,
[77:58] the thing was me, Brett, and also Tyler,
[78:02] you know, we kind of had already a
[78:04] strategy made up. Hey, Brett was going
[78:06] to count the first six blocks. I was
[78:07] going to count the next six blocks. And
[78:09] then Tyler was going to count the last
[78:10] four blocks. And what what you guys
[78:12] don't see is actually Tyler was the one
[78:14] who stacked the last four four blocks on
[78:16] there.
[78:17] >> So it was actually like a three-way
[78:19] alliance that was working together. So
[78:21] yeah, no caveats this time. No
[78:22] mitigating factors. It was a three-way
[78:24] conspiracy against Hannah. It's # bags
[78:27] for the boys. This represents one last
[78:29] individualistic smart challenge that was
[78:31] bypassed collaboratively. And there's
[78:33] something almost poetic about this being
[78:35] how the last smart contestant goes. A
[78:37] perfect distillation of the smart
[78:38] experience on this show. The producers
[78:40] are too cowardly to admit to this
[78:42] happening, by the way. And so the
[78:44] version we see on the show is an
[78:46] incoherent fantasy. We're shown Brett
[78:48] pushing the button with no preamble. He
[78:50] gets about halfway through and looks
[78:52] cooked before Corey for Lornly begins to
[78:54] give Brett the solution, and it's
[78:55] implied that Brett is led by Cory all
[78:57] the way to the end of the sequence. The
[78:59] scene suggests that Brett attempted the
[79:01] puzzle with no confidence in his
[79:03] recollection, essentially committing
[79:05] Beast Game suicide before Cory saved
[79:07] Brett from himself at Hannah's expense.
[79:10] Oh, right. Brett chooses to eliminate
[79:12] Hannah. By the way, now that the season
[79:14] is all said and done and the cast have
[79:16] made their podcast appearances, it's so
[79:18] aggravating that Team Beast insisted to
[79:20] our faces that they don't manipulate
[79:22] events in the edit. Not only is that so
[79:25] clearly untrue, they don't even
[79:27] manipulate events for the right reasons.
[79:28] They excise whole elements of the
[79:30] production because they're embarrassing
[79:32] and discrediting to the creatives. Case
[79:34] in point, the final bribe. Three players
[79:37] must become two, so there is a final
[79:39] bribe for a player to self-eliminate.
[79:41] The set is designed to try and evoke
[79:43] mystery and subtrifuge with covered
[79:45] buttons, whatever. But the three just
[79:48] negotiated who would take it. It was
[79:49] agreed that Brett would be the one to
[79:50] take the bribe basically before the game
[79:52] even started.
[79:53] >> The edit doesn't show us really talking
[79:55] or anything like that because obviously
[79:56] they want the drama for the TV. But in
[79:58] real life, we're just sitting there
[79:59] talking and hey, who's going to take it?
[80:01] Who's not going to take it? Who wants to
[80:02] move forward? Who doesn't want to move
[80:04] forward?
[80:04] >> They chatted through the whole thing and
[80:06] did the prisoners dilemma thing where
[80:07] they simply wanted to see how high the
[80:09] counter would go until Jimmy told them
[80:11] it wasn't going any higher. So even here
[80:13] we have adversarial games being resolved
[80:16] collaboratively. And again, we're shown
[80:18] none of this in the edit, which
[80:19] constructs a simulacum of tension
[80:21] through everyone's bored expressions and
[80:23] benile remarks, but MMA fighter Brett is
[80:26] now a millionaire. And that leaves our
[80:28] finalists as Air Force pilot Tyler and
[80:30] Navy vet Cory.
[80:32] Which leads us to the final briefcase
[80:35] challenge. This game was famously a bit
[80:37] of a schmazzle in season 1. It's meant
[80:39] to be analogist to poker. Adversarial
[80:42] deal or no deal. One contestant will
[80:44] place the $5 million check in one of
[80:46] these briefcases, and the other
[80:47] contestant will have to guess which case
[80:49] contains the check to win it all. After
[80:51] a failed guess, a briefcase is
[80:53] eliminated to increase the odds of
[80:55] finding the check. This is supposed to
[80:57] be the ultimate beast game. Jimmy and
[80:59] his boys imagined this playing like a
[81:02] master's game of poker with players
[81:04] lying, double bluffing, searching for
[81:06] tells, and all that. In season 1, Jeff
[81:08] found the check on the first attempt by
[81:10] random chance. Here we see return to the
[81:13] mean and the game goes on far longer
[81:15] than is ideal. Now either Corey or Tyler
[81:17] are master poker players. Both hate
[81:19] lying. Both are fatigued from shooting
[81:21] beast games all night long. And so both
[81:24] are scared of giving away tells and lean
[81:26] on their military stone faces to get
[81:27] through and end up repeating phrases at
[81:30] each other like lunatics.
[81:31] >> Opening to find out. Open and find out.
[81:33] Opening to find out. Open and find out.
[81:35] >> I really really don't get this show's
[81:37] obsession with shooting at night. Like
[81:40] there's so many scenarios where they
[81:42] shoot at night for no reason. Set up in
[81:46] a sound stage and shoot during normal
[81:48] hours, you you goblins. But Cory, in one
[81:52] last act of disobedience, realizes that
[81:54] the odds are in his favor, and it's
[81:57] actually not in his interest to know
[81:59] what case the check is in because he'll
[82:02] have a tell. So Cory just closes his
[82:05] eyes and chooses a case randomly. It's
[82:07] like that one episode of Yu-Gi-Oh where
[82:09] Yugi outwits Pegasus' mindreading
[82:11] ability by swapping between personas and
[82:13] blindly playing each other's cards.
[82:15] You're wrong, Pegasus.
[82:17] >> Huh? Remember, I still have one more
[82:20] card out. The card that took the last
[82:23] bit of Yugi's courage to play. And now
[82:25] IT'S TIME TO FIND OUT WHAT IT IS. I
[82:28] DIDN'T need to play that clip, but at
[82:30] this point, it's just nice to have a
[82:31] moment's respit from Beast Games. Upon
[82:34] seeing this, Tyler then pretends to
[82:36] start closing his eyes as well. But in
[82:38] perhaps Beast Game's biggest twist,
[82:40] Tyler doesn't actually pick randomly. An
[82:44] act of deception that accomplishes
[82:46] nothing. Cory takes him at his word and
[82:49] asks no further questions, so it
[82:51] devolves into yet another game where
[82:53] players discard the game Jimmy made up
[82:55] in favor of simply rolling a dice. Like
[82:57] seriously, if I were a game designer on
[82:59] Beast Games, I would be offended that
[83:02] most people opt to solve my games by
[83:04] playing other pre-existing games
[83:07] instead. But maybe that's better for all
[83:09] of us. The game is bad, and it takes
[83:11] eight rounds for Tyler to eventually
[83:13] win. They then insist on stoically
[83:15] dropping Cory into the foam pit. Tyler
[83:17] flexes on the pile of fake money and
[83:19] then the show wraps up by spending its
[83:21] final two minutes doing inspiration porn
[83:23] of the contestants families and slapping
[83:25] itself on the back for how much money it
[83:26] gave away.
[83:27] >> But no one is walking away empty-handed.
[83:30] Multiple people literally became
[83:32] millionaires.
[83:33] >> Getting on the show is a miracle.
[83:35] >> So, what did we learn today? Nothing.