In Squid Game: The Challenge, you can lose a chance at the $4.56 million cash prize with a split-second decision. Players have been sent home because of their dice roll, and others have met the same fate because they squeezed a cookie too hard for a second too long. Few had as dramatic an elimination from the slightest error in judgment as Trey (Player 301). And his mom is here to tell him what he did wrong.
During the infamous glass bridge challenge, 20 contestants had to go from platform to platform by choosing which glass squares to step on. For every pair of glass squares, one was safe to step on and the other would open up and drop players to their elimination. The order of when they crossed was determined by what number they were given by another player’s random drawing. The higher the number, the later you would have to cross, giving those with higher numbers a better chance to see the best path forward laid out by the sacrifices of the lower numbers.
Even though it’s every person for themselves, most of the players agreed to work as a team. Each person was to only take one step forward, and if they survived, the person behind them would hop onto the same square as the person in front of them and then take the next step. That would ensure that people won’t be trying to figure out all the right steps alone. That was the plan, but not everyone was on board.
Unfortunately for Trey, he was given #3. After the players who drew #1, #2, and #4 were eliminated, Trey made another successful jump and awaited Ashley (Player #278)
who drew #5 to overtake him. To his surprise, she stood still and wouldn’t overtake him. Unbeknownst to him, she said in her confessional interview that she was prepared to stand there until everyone else passed by her if that helped her chances. Trey could’ve done the same, but instead he took a leap of faith and ended up falling to his elimination.
When Men’s Health caught up with Trey and LeAnn, his mom told him to his face exactly what she would’ve wanted him to do. “I would have wanted him to let someone go ahead of him at some point because he’s not Superman.”
Unfortunately, Trey says he didn’t think about holding still until someone overtook him on the glass bridge until after he had plummeted to his elimination. His biggest mistake with the glass bridge challenge was taking one too many steps before standing his ground. “At that second jump, I didn’t think [I shouldn’t move]. If I had made a third jump, I think I would have been like, ‘Alright, I’m done.'”
As surprising as it was that he wouldn’t just wait until someone eventually overtook him in the interest of moving the game along before the timer ran out, what’s more surprising are his post-elimination feelings. Firstly, he was very understanding of Ashley’s derisive move, alluding to the fact that it was his job to “allow her to [overtake me].” He all but agreed he should’ve just stayed put and put the pressure on Ashley to make a move rather than bailing her out by hopping on another square.
Secondly, it didn’t take him that long to get this post-competition clarity. LeAnn remembers getting a knock on her door at two in the morning at where they kept the people who were eliminated. It was her son knocking, and he wasn’t acting how she may have expected. “I was so surprised that he wasn’t sad. He was almost jubilant because he knew he played the game he wanted to play, and played it heroically and true to himself. That made me happy.”
That maternal joy doesn’t mean she didn’t want to take her son out not too long before he was eliminated. Prior to the glass bridge challenge, LeAnn was taken out by her son in a game of Marbles. What we saw in the show was a mother proud of her son for winning. What we didn’t see was a competitor who would do almost anything to win, even when they’ve already lost. At the end of each game of Marbles, the winner takes all of the marbles and hands them to the guard to signal that they’ve won. LeAnn found a loophole in that rule.
“I did try to trick him into giving me the marbles so I could give them to the guard. When we were done, I asked him, ‘Do you want me to give them to the guard?’ He said, ‘No.'”
That would’ve been a pretty awkward Thanksgiving dinner if she succeeded. But, now they can both laugh because they lost out on $4.56 million together.
Keith Nelson
Senior Editor
Keith Nelson is a writer by fate and journalist by passion, who has connected dots to form the bigger picture for Men’s Health, Vibe Magazine, LEVEL MAG, REVOLT TV, Complex, Grammys.com, Red Bull, Okayplayer, and Mic, to name a few.
