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The finale of the first season of Squid Game: The Challenge is now officially in the books. A winner has been crowned and the conspiracy theories that the show was rigged to hand that person the title are all over the place.
Warning: Possible spoilers ahead.
In the finale, Sam (number 016), Mai (numbers 287), and Phill (number 451) were the last three contestants left standing.
Out of 456 participants, these three managed to survive all the way to episode 10, giving them each a great shot at taking home the $4.56 million grand prize.
In the end, some viewers were left happy, some sad, and others (including some eliminated contestants) complaining that the challenges presented to the participants seemed to be rigged.
With so many of the games being left to chance, viewers are claiming that they believe some Squid Game: The Challenge outcomes, including the final test, were manipulated to a set of pre-determined outcomes.
“I liked the show … But too many electronically controlled games/devices towards the end that would allow producers control over who made it through and won. The bridge, the 3 shaped light buttons and even the safe. I’m skeptical,” one person on Reddit wrote, echoing the sentiment of many others.
Many always wondered why, if the final two tests were really just games of luck, how lucky were the show’s producers that no one picked the right/wrong object on the first try? That would have been terrible for the show as there would have been no drama, leading people to think something fishy was going on in the end.
Certainly games like Warships and Dalgona – the cookie game – couldn’t have been rigged though, right?
A interview with Squid Game contestant number 432 posted to TikTok has people wondering.
@thetab_ Urrm i’m shook ?!! #squidgame #player432 #squidgamethechallenge #fyp ♬ original sound – The Tab
“I have a real problem with a ‘game of chance’ like the button pushing at dinner being controlled by the producers,” another viewer wrote on Reddit. “They could choose whatever color they wanted those shapes to turn depending on who they thought was best for the final. And the whole green button gets to choose a friend nonsense omits chance and becomes a popularity contest like allot of the BS eliminations on this show. Shoulda brought out covered dessert trays and made them choose not knowing underneath was either a red ball or a green ball. That way they’re at least choosing their own destiny not the producers.”
Squid Game contestant number 090, Dr. Ankur Khajuria, made it to the final 30 and he was asked if claims by some of the show’s contestants that the show was rigged bear any truth.
“Many have been complaining for several reasons, but most of them were eliminated during the Red Lightm Green Light challenge, and felt bitter that they didn’t make it through, but we knew this would be tough,” he told Hindustan Times. “This is Squid Game with a huge cash prize which won’t simply be handed over. It was the survival of the fittest. No one was forcing you to do anything, they could have quit.”