Hot take alert: Next time you do a collabo with Survivor, Beast Games, maybe don’t cram your vaunted crossover event with the legacy title of competition reality television into like half an episode. Because come on, didn’t airdropping MrBeast and 10 of his Season 2 Beast contestants into the island world of Jeff Probst and Survivor feel anti-climactic to anyone else?
It’s not like we know anything about plotting out a season of reality television, beyond having viewed many seasons of reality television. But even though the Survivor thing marked a solid halfway point for Beast Season 2, we just feel like it should have lasted longer. Done more. Been more in-depth. You’ve got fucking Probst, the ultimate reality guy, right there! Use more of him. It was funny when Ian, the ultimate winner of the private island booty, directly called Jeff out during the initial game on the beach. Like, “Watch me work, bro!” While Sue was an actual Beast-er and former Survivor competitor, apparently guys like Ian had long made applying for that show part of their reality competition plans. But the moment didn’t go anywhere. We also had Beast players, in their blue jerseys and numbers, wandering around Survivor’s Fiji environs like fish out of water. They looked like Norm and his escaped vault people in Fallout Season 2, arriving in Vegas and looking all wondrous about it. We’re just suggesting, with this high-visibility crossover, Beast Games had a big opportunity. It should have explored the Survivor space a little more.
With these gripes in mind, you can imagine how we thought – hoped – Jeff Probst might pop up at Beast City in Beast Games Season 2 Episode 5 (“Ask For Anything You Want”). But the only thing MrBeast brought back from the island adventure is more drama among the remaining 20 players.
LIFE DURING CUBE-TIME
“What happened on the island? Any tea?” The word on the street in Beast City is shock and awe over Nina Warrior Ian sweeping the private island vote. Beast cuts to earlier games this season, with one player calling Ian a “puppetmaster” and Monika labeling him a villain – and it’s curious, this Ian-centered static, because it’s not like Mr. “I took $650,000 for myself” JC had the best reputation around. We have to assume there is more to the personal relationships in Beast City than we have been privy to as viewers. As for the next challenge, it’s already here. A wall falls in the city to reveal 10 human-sized red cubes, which many players and watchers will remember from Beast Season 1. The remaining 20 players will organize into teams of three – except for one team of two – and enter the cubes, where they won’t depart until one contestant is eliminated by handcuffing themselves to the wall.
To keep things spicy, MrBeast also drops a wheelbarrow bribe on JC: will he sell the gold coin he received at the tribal council? The one with potential to double the ultimate grand prize to ten mil? JC says no, joins a team with Beast City lovers Jim and Monika, and life among the cubes begins in earnest.
Cory, JT, and Brett (#195) bro it out in theirs. They use the provided red phone to call in food orders, ask for musical instruments, even get haircuts. For some reason Druski, along with MrBeast and his black-hoodied henchmen, is manning the phone bank for requests; this isn’t really explained, and we don’t see much more of him as a special guest. Sue is the star of her cube with Jack (#58) and Tyler (#167), because they’re big Survivor heads and she’s the former finalist. Jeff, the Season 1 winner, delivers a lecture to Hannah and Kady about playing Beast Games hard but fair. And Catey (#157) squares off with Ethan, who won 50K during Get a Grip last episode, in their two-person cube.
Cube time keeps on ticking into the future. MrBeast: “I don’t care if this challenge takes all night – you will all live in these cubes until one of you is chained to the wall.”
“DUDE YOU’RE GOATED”
The cubes prove a few things about these players. While it makes sense that guys like Jeff, JT the Captain Bribe millionaire, and even Ian ultimately agree to self-eliminate – they all say a version of “I got mine already” as they get red X’d – what is left behind could signal trouble to come in Beast City. In his voiceover, while running back footage, MrBeast highlights how Jack pulled a fast one on Sue in their cube, switching out the playing cards they were using to choose a cuff-ee. Sue is giving props to Jack and Tyler for being honest guys while they’re making statements to MrBeast like “I hope we can still be friends after this.” While Sue was X’d from the cubes, everyone who remains saw what they did to her.
Remember Vance, #175 and the other Ninja Warrior guy? Evidently he was also not making any friends in Beast City. With so many players to keep track of, we didn’t catch a lot of this flak, but when Nick (#118) and Auguste (#172) concoct a voting scheme to catch Vance as the cuff man out, it totally works. The likeability poll they conducted with other cube residents comes back, and Vance is trounced. Outside the cube, after the ruse, Nate praises Auguste for the plan. “Dude, you’re goated.” But will he still be goated when this cutthroat style resurfaces later?
And Ethan, in the two-person cube with Catey, keeps up his static with Ian until the bitter end. When MrBeast settles who will cuff by pulling their names out of a box – it’s Ethan – he says “I wasn’t about to pull an Ian on you” and willingly cuffs up so Catey will survive. Her victorious emergence from the cube comes complete with a Mary Katherine Gallagher-style Superstar! pratfall, but she is unbowed.
Every cube but one has cuffed a departing player. As the remaining contestants gather in the safe zone, they wonder: what’s going on in the last cube between JC, Monika, and Jim? Since their Beast City love affair began, Jim has blabbed to anyone who would listen that Monika is his “sugar-mama,” and that he would self-eliminate to save his girlfriend. But what goes down in their cube is not quite that. JC and Jim both agree to “fast pass” Monika, and begin a game of 52 Pick-Up. And while Jim is behind badly at first, he ultimately passes JC on points, making the Beast City cuffed safe from this cube cuffing. Is JC knocked out of Beast Games, and with him his “leverage” over that ten-million-dollar, potentially game-changing coin?
Or is it twisting time again? Inside the cube, JC says he’s willing to give his gold coin and its inherent leverage to Monika, but only if Jim self-eliminates. “This gives her a lot of power,” JC says. “It will help push her through to the Top 6.” And MrBeast lets the offer hang in the air as the episode ends.
11 safe players remain, with the fate of three more cuffed to a twist.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.