Rating: 6/10
**This article contains spoilers.**
“Beast Games” is a psychological horror show. It pinned people against each other, made them choose between friends or money and forced its contestants to eat MrBeast’s “Feastables” chocolate bars for a month.
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The long-awaited and controversial show released its underwhelming final episode on Thursday. With the previous nine episodes inducing endless suspense, the last game was disappointing and didn’t match the rest of the show’s spectacle.
“Beast Games” was hosted by the viral internet sensation MrBeast, also known as Jimmy Donaldson. The show began with 1,000 contestants competing for the ultimate cash prize of $5 million. In the opening episode, Donaldson said the prize money is the largest amount given away in a game show, and Guinness World Records confirmed the information.
Contestants participated in a plethora of challenges, ranging from brain-teasing trivia to physically taxing obstacles, like pulling a monster truck over a speed bump. Throughout these events, people were given opportunities to win smaller sums and even a private island in Panama worth $1.8 million, according to Donaldson.
“Beast Games” is eerily similar to the second season release of the popular Netflix show “Squid Game.” With the opening episode dropping people down a seemingly bottomless pit and a pile of cash looming over the contestants in Beast City, the parallels of “Squid Game’s” piggy bank and the Glass Bridge Challenge make the resemblance uncanny.
The release of recent lawsuits makes “Beast Games” appear even more like “Squid Game.” As stated in a complaint filed by five contestants, the claims consisted of failure to pay employees, sexual harassment, failure to provide breaks, lack of food and false advertisement.
According to the lawsuits, contestants had no access to the outside world and were stripped of all personal belongings. This included personal medicines and feminine hygiene products, allegedly exacerbated by the lack of medical help on staff as well.
A handbook allegedly from “Beast Games” called “HOW TO SUCCEED IN MRBEAST PRODUCTION,” released by Rosanna Pansino, YouTuber and former contestant on the MrBeast channel, reveals the sexist environment.
“Really do everything you can to empower the boys when filming and help them make content,” the handbook said. “Help them be idiots.”
Even though the show is rated TV-PG and no explicit sexual harassment or sexism was displayed in any episodes, a low-level tone of misogyny was apparent during games that required picking teams or choosing leaders. In the fourth episode, contestant-nominated leaders ended up being heavily male.
From a psychological standpoint, the show revealed much about how people respond to being under pressure and how they remain optimistic about winning.
People often became followers of an unintentional leader. Throughout the series, there were many games where the contestants had to choose a team leader or someone to represent the group. These figureheads were consistently the same people.
Leaders included contestant 991, Jeremy Grant, who constantly called for God to “make the choices for him,” and contestant 830, Twana Barnett, who ended up being in the final two alongside contestant 831, Jeffrey Allen.
Although not campaigning to be leaders, other contestants constantly sought them out for guidance and relied on them to make game-changing decisions.
Not only were there “heroes” of the game, such as Grant and Barnett, but also villains. Two main antagonists were players 527 and 406 — brothers who mentally manipulated people multiple times to get their way. Their exploitation was evident in episode three, where they forced a girl to self-eliminate to progress and laughed in her face while doing it.
Allen avoided these villains and made it to the end, ultimately winning the show. He won $10 million in a coin flip in the last episode, doubling the cash prize.
Allen plans to use the money to find a cure for his son’s rare disease, Creatine Transporter Deficiency.
“Our aim is to find a cure for him (Lucas) and the hundreds of others around the world who are suffering every day,” Allen said.
In the final minutes, Donaldson alluded to “Beast Games” having more seasons in the future. However, with numerous lawsuits and an underwhelming finale, “Beast Games” may never continue its stunt philanthropy again.
