‘Beast Games’ Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: “The Obstacle Course”

“OH my gosh, they’re both SO freaking CLOSE!” The morning after Episode 2 of Beast Games Season 2, the tower stackers from Blocks are still precariously stacking, and MrBeast is doing his best to sustain peak hyperactivity while keeping things clean for Prime Video. And the stakes really are as high as these towers, because Blocks is one of these games where a contestant’s Beast dreams can be dashed through the external action of somebody else. You can’t rely on your smarts or swoleness when it’s up to your teammate not to fail. But that is the fate of Johnny (#111), who leaps from the top of the tower to touch the green flag…and misses. It’s Mitch (#117) on the other tower who makes the grab, which immediately cancels 20 more contestants. In these moments of mass exodus, Beast Games delights in plastering red X’s on the eliminated.  

There is a 12-hour break before games return, and of the contestants still in play, the Strongs outnumber the Smarts. Ian, #148 and one of two remaining Ninja Warrior vets, is not surprised. He thinks the higher number of Strongs proves their “mental fortitude,” which sounds like a way of saying his brain can also do pull-ups. As for the OG’s, they’re down to three representatives after their recent insertion. Jeff continues to defend his title, #952 Mia is still in it – she won an island in Panama at the end of Season 1 – and #566 JC is infamous all over again. Last time, his sly $650,000 cash grab did not endear him, either to viewers or fellow players, and everyone in the new Beast City knows his rep. It’s an example of how the Beast vets are a test case for what the second season of a show like this can mean. In the City, they themselves recognize Season 2 contestants as way more focused and competitive. (Jeff: “It’d be a feather in the cap to take us out.”) Another guy, one of the Strongs, is more blunt. “I’m not vibing with them being here. They’ve had their time.” Why should someone who already got their bag impede his personal route to said bag.

NINJA BEAST WARRIOR   

MrBeast is in a giggle fit over the next challenge. “By the end of this game, we’ll have our top 25 contestants,” which will give each of them a 4 percent chance of winning the big stack. But maybe he’s excited because of what we’ve also sensed: as time and ways to win grows short, so do tempers. There are still alliances, and Jim and Monika’s just-add-Feastables Beast City love affair still thrives. But for instance, an early connect between Strong teamers Eric (#179) and Tyler (#162) has soured, and just in time for the Beast Games elevated obstacle course, which comes complete with pugil sticks. Tyler says Eric is just “choosing to be a jerk on TV.” MrBeast says work out that beef on the course, which also includes spinning windmills, levered platforms, and a bottleneck final stretch perfect for blasting competitors into the moat below. 

The Beast obstacle course is unforgiving, and quickly boils down contestant numbers as quickly as it raises the heat. Rain is making the uneven surfaces slippery, MrBeast keeps changing the rules for each mini-team run, and tempers flare again as chances to win slip away. Cydney, #125, clearly doesn’t like it when the host calls her pause-filled course strategy “the worst I’ve ever seen.” And Nick (#118) seems to express the feelings of the group when he says “Jim’s new nickname is Backpack Boy, because his girlfriend is carrying him.” Whether Smart or Strong, all of these people were coasting through the early rounds of Beast Games with a lot of euphoric adrenaline. But that positivity has hit a major obstacle.

CAPTAIN BRIBE RETURNS

Tyler did indeed end up pugil-knocking Eric from the course, blocking the “Y” junction and ignoring his former Beast friend’s protestations over the right way to play. Even “mental fortitude” Ian got into the self-preservation act, wiping out a guy who pleaded for mercy because he was playing for his kids. That guy, X’d and falling: “I played an honest game broooooooo…”

But if you thought things were getting chippy on the obstacle course, wait til MrBeast drops Captain Bribe on this new group of contestants. The game was a highlight of Season 1, because it pressurizes the notion of singular gain over a player’s supposed team integrity. Here in Season 2, captains are picked by the teams who remain from the last game. They are positioned on a platform high above Beast City. And an enormo-screen fires up an increasing cash number. The captains hit a button, and the money’s theirs alone. Nobody is eliminated in this scenario, but damn if taking the cash for oneself won’t further fray the Beast City vibe. 

The chosen captains are JT, #126, Hannah, #99, Nick, Tyler, and Jeff. The latter says he’ll keep his hands in his pockets – he’s already a ten-million-dollar champion, and the only thing MrBeast could give him is a cure for his son’s condition. But the others? This is worse than being on top of that tower from Blocks, all alone, as you leap for a flag you’ll never catch. 

In his way, MrBeast has juiced the growing conflict among the contestants. After all, friction is a driver of his YouTube empire. But before the Captain Bribe money ticker kicks in, he pauses the game to read statements from the captains, written back when they were cast on Beast Games. “I read you guys this to remind you that these are real people,” he says to the gathered teams. “They’re not just players in this game. And if they do decide to take the money, they all have their own reasons, and it’s probably not screwing you over.” It’s a moment of clarity about the real world outside this competition that, while reasonable, also feels weirdly like a legal disclaimer of some kind.

“Start the money counter!” MrBeast commands, and the amount rises fast. The contestants below all saw Season 1, where it didn’t happen. Their opinion? This time will be different. (Someone says they don’t trust Nick.) $100,000. $350,000. The figures keep ticking up. The show adds a new visual wrinkle, with its masked guards dumping bags of real cash at the counter’s base. “They’re gonna tell you they won’t be tempted, but people can change!” The counter hits a million just as Beast Games Episode 3 cuts to black.

25 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.