‘Beast Games’ Season 2 Episode 2 Recap: Change The Floor

Step forward to eliminate yourself! To us, it’s the love MrBeast and Beast Games have for self-immolation that feels most insidious. A sense creeping into this game, already with Season 2 Episode 2 (“Choose Your Fate”), that no matter the team, the alliance, or the personal bond forged over Feastables munched in Beast City, at the end of the day – or duration on the City’s big stopwatch; time doesn’t function as a typical progression of existence in this cloistered reality show world – it’s gonna be about how one gets theirs. Beast Games can’t quit ultimatum challenges like the “$100 K to leave” ending of Episode 1, because it so giddily wants to see what will happen when money is more gettably immediate than the percentage chance of securing its grand prize bag.

Our theory proves out with the addition of The OG’s. When Brent, #24, steps into the circle to self-eliminate/get paid, he picks Deano, #380, to replace him. Deano famously turned down the chance to take a million bucks for himself in Season 1. And when Nate, #192, also steps forward, his rationale is that Jeff, #831 and the big winner last time, played Beast Games with integrity. Jeff hands his cash case to the departing Nate and promises to make him proud. It’s an admission that he’ll play the game with respect, rather than aiming to pad his personal purse. Even the players want to counteract this show’s obsession with singular gain.     

It felt fated that all ten returning “Legends” would eventually re-enter the Beast, and that’s exactly what happens. So we now have a new group including Jeff, Deano, Twana (#830), JC (#566), Karim, #406, and Akira, #830, who MrBeast calls “The Assassin” for how many players he took out last season. Each $100k departure is replaced by an OG, to keep the total player number at 100. For now. 

GAME CHANGER

The circular room accessed via portal from Beast City can morph into many games, and for this round, MrBeast sets up four quadrants: Balls, Balance, Bluff, and Blocks. Half the people who pick each game will be X’d, and the breakout in order is 18, 22, 20, and 40. Dodgeball is first, with a kind of musical chairs element added; players move around the circle, waiting for the line of scrimmage to materialize, meaning they might have to face an ally instead of an opponent. (One Team Strong member asks his buddy, “We’re going for Smarts, right?”) Pressure mounts as the half-circle line becomes a three-way split, and contestants start dropping balls rather than target team members or friends. Not Akira, though. The Season 1 killer has no allegiances here. It’s crazy when the other contestants gang up on him and launch their balls in a volley, only to whiff entirely. MrBeast: “How did you all miss?!”     

Not for long, though – Avery, #133, beans Akira to send the OG assassin packing. 

The Balance portion of the game requires players to judge the weight of a big glass heart, and those hearts soon shatter along with the reconstituted Beast Games dreams of OGs like #991 and fan favorite, the big-bearded Jeremy. Bluff, in its very name, assures that contestants will be required to lie. Again, self-preservation as this show’s biggest driver. But MrBeast is a little miffed when they won’t do it. Round after round ends with players refusing to lie to each other about the colored discs on the back of their heads, and the impatient host takes drastic action. “It’s time for Plan B: Bring out the box!” The box of chance, that is, and his random number picks eventually conclude the game.

And before we get to Blocks, which becomes the highest-stakes portion of this episode in more ways than one, we need to mention the love connection that has roiled Beast City. Fellow Strongs Monika, #152, and Jim, #173, have rocketed from mutual attraction to going steady in one-and-a-half episodes. But despite the grousing of their fellow contestants, there might be power in their instant love connection – both players survive their Balance and Bluff challenges. 

HUMAN JENGA

The circle room cannot contain the magnitude of Blocks. It’s back to Beast City for everybody who picked this portion, where players must unite to build a tall tower out of large random shapes. MrBeast denotes captains from the Smart and Strong ranks – they are pro Pokémon player Johnny, #11, and US Navy veteran Cory, #191 – and each builds his team with a custom mix of Strongs, Smarts, and OG’s. “Uncle Deano, where you at?” Johnny’s going with experience. But Cory sees brawn as the power in this game, and picks guys like Mitch, #117 and a bodybuilder, who says “I don’t get tired. Ever.” A player in a harness and helmet will be on top, aiming to reach the green flag high above the City’s sand playground, while the rest of the team will pick and haul the shapes that build the rickety tower.  

“‘Sup, Mitch?” It’s funny when Johnny catches up to his opponent, because it’s another dig at who has the realest power in this Beast Games dynamic, the big brains or the bicep-pilled. But the going for both is tough, and full of instant peril. One slip and the contestant atop the tower eliminates his entire squad. They’ve got MrBeast in a scissor lift, complete with megaphone. “One of our hardest games ever!” he’s shouting from up there. “Five million on the line!” Johnny is calmly, carefully preparing to take a standing position on the tower, because drawing up any more shapes from his teammates below could wobble the whole thing into tumbledown tragedy. The Smarts’ captain chances a glance at the Strongs’ tower. They’ve got a few feet of shapes on him, but if he jumps, Johnny’s physical height could be the balance. The green flags dangle above. So close, so elusive, just like this show’s constant visual aid of its five-million-dollar cash pile. Cue the latest Beast Games cliffhanger.

70 players remain. 

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.