Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 — Emotional Father-Daughter Showdown

Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Squid Game: The Challenge season 2!Squid Game: The Challenge season 2 has once again whittled down its roster of contestants in its latest four episodes, though one came as a sweet sacrifice to allow another player to carry on. Thus far, the 456 players cast for Netflix’s reality competition spinoff of its iconic Korean thriller series has seen them face everything from a Six-Legged Pentathalon to a heated game of Catch and Matryoshka doll.

The latest batch of Squid Game: The Challenge season 2 episodes from this season threw a real curveball as two of its players, Zoe Stinson (369) and Curt Stinson (370), a father-daughter pair, as they elected to pair up to play an unknown game after narrowly surviving Mingle and the Pentathalon. Upon the reveal they had to play Marbles, Curt ultimately lost to his daughter, who herself was later eliminated by player 183, real estate broker Jesse, during Slides & Ladders.

In the wake of their eliminations, ScreenRant interviewed Zoe and Curt Stinson to discuss Squid Game: The Challenge season 2. Reflecting on the emotional conversation had between father and daughter prior to their game of Marbles, in which the latter humorously noted she was “not going to let you win“, Curt recalls telling her honestly his desire to play the game “straight up“, as it otherwise wasn’t “fair for either one of us” should they go on.

However, with the game taking place the following day, the Stinson patriarch “didn’t sleep at all” the night beforehand. Still feeling as though he was ready to keep competing, Curt especially found himself in a unique predicament when he had a conversation with Zoe the morning before the game, in which she told him, “I don’t want to go home“.

Despite his previous desire to play the game straight, Curt confirms he “made the decision right there that she was advancing“, stating point-blank he did indeed let her win. As for why, he had “a couple of reasons” for letting Zoe take the victory:

One: I felt she had a better chance of winning it than I did. Two: I also thought that everyone in the world would hate me if I took out my daughter. It just seemed like more of the logical choice.

As to whether Zoe picked up on the fact that he allowed her to win their Squid Game: The Challenge face-off, Curt expressed that “I felt like she didn’t know” when their game of Marbles ended, especially as she asked him immediately. However, when he found himself asked again by his daughter before leaving, even as he said no, “I winked at her“, resulting in Zoe starting to cry and Curt saying, “Best of luck, honey. Proud of you.“

Zoe & Curt Pairing Up Was Both “Emotional” & The “Most Natural Thing”

ScreenRant: I have to be honest, Zoe, I really thought you were going to win the whole thing. My money was really on you. Going in as a dad and daughter, did you get any secondhand embarrassment or nervousness for each other? Kurt, watching your daughter do that card-stacking game, you had to be like a million miles a minute.

Kurt: And in my mind, I am thoroughly convinced that they’re setting me up for Agony of Defeat. As a little kid, I remember the skier going off the cliff, Agony of Defeat, and I am like, “They’re going to watch me cry. They’re setting me up to watch Zoe not get past House of Cards.” I didn’t think she was going to, sorry! I was really thinking that they were going to do that. And then when Zoe did it, I’m like, “Oh, my God. She might pull this off!” At that point, I’m standing there watching it on the screen, thinking that she could be on the plane back to the States, and I didn’t get to say goodbye to her. Honestly, during most of that, I’m thinking she’s not advancing in the back of my mind, and they want to capture the drama of me being defeated. Yeah. Sorry, Zoe. Zero support!

ScreenRant: In this show, it seems the number one rule is not to pair up with someone you know. What was the moment after you paired up where you went, “S–t, we’re playing marbles?”

Zoe: I feel like as soon as the Front Man walks out, you have this feeling, but you’re still like, “Maybe it’s something different. It has to be something different. They’re not going to do marbles twice.” And then you open that package, and it’s marbles. Immediately, one of us is going to go home, which really sucks. But after Mingle, that game was so intense and emotional that pairing up was just the most natural thing you were going to do — just because of how dramatic it was. But nobody saw that coming.

Be sure to check out our previous Squid Game: The Challenge season 2 interview with Mark (100) and Viper (152)!

Release Date

November 22, 2023

Network

Netflix

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