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Binge-worthy: South Korean game show The Devil's Plan 2 ups the ante with death matches

The second season of The Devil's Plan features 14 contestants across various fields vying to be the final player standing. PHOTO: NETFLIX The Devil's Plan 2 Netflix ★★★★☆ When its first season premiered on Netflix in 2023, South Korean competition reality show The Devil's Plan captured audiences with its intriguing premise. Twelve contestants – comprising celebrities like the eventual winner, actor Ha Seok-jin, as well as Seungkwan from K-pop boy band Seventeen and actress Lee Si-won – are locked in one place for a week without access to the outside world. They hope to emerge the final survivor in a series of strategy games, showing off their brain power in the process. As circumstances change and pressure mounts, players sometimes form alliances or turn on one another, allowing viewers to get a glimpse of how far they are willing to go to win. The second season is back with 14 contestants, mostly related to the entertainment industry, like singer-host Kyuhyun from K-pop boy band Super Junior and Korean-American actor Justin Min (The Umbrella Academy, 2019 to 2024; Beef, 2023). Players again have to try and earn game pieces to survive. Pieces can be traded among players or used for in-game benefits. Here are three reasons to tune in. 1. High-stakes death matches While both seasons see players with the least number of pieces at the end of the Main Match – the primary game involving all players each day – get sent to 'prison', they now have to play a prison death match after which one player gets eliminated. This tweak means the stakes are that much higher if a player does not manage to snag enough pieces to evade jail during the Main Match, and also helps the show trim down its number of contestants quicker. This, too, helps keeps the alliances interesting. Half of the remaining cohort gets sent to prison every day, and in the event that multiple people have the same number of pieces, those with the most number of pieces will choose who is sent there. The editing is snappy, without too much time spent on non-gameplay portions. With main and prison matches alternating quickly, viewers are kept hooked to find out which prisoners do not make it through the night. The second season introduces a new element of death matches for players who are sent to prison daily when they fail to secure enough game pieces to keep themselves safe. PHOTO: NETFLIX 2. Players getting humbled One of the great joys of The Devil's Plan is watching exactly that. All 14 contestants are considered brainy or intelligent in some respect, like retired professional Go player Lee Se-dol, Physics Olympiad participant Park Sang-yeon or Seoul National University student and influencer Jeong Hyun-gyu. As such, many of them join The Devil's Plan confident of their ability to outsmart others and ace the games. Yet, their demeanours change as the game begins to test them in ways they did not foresee or when they underestimate other players. It is satisfying to see them go from cocky and smug to quietly panicking or openly desperate. 3. 'Competence porn' K-pop singer and boy band Super Junior member Kyuhyun showed his ability to lie and form alliances in the second season of South Korean strategy game competition show The Devil's Plan. PHOTO: NETFLIX If you enjoy 'competence porn' – watching people be really good at what they do – then The Devil's Plan is for you. With various games requiring different skill sets – bluffing, mathematics, logic, spatial awareness or even how to read people – different contestants get a chance to show off. Actress Yoon So-hui, a graduate of Kaist (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), was one of the more low-key contestants, but a star player nonetheless. Put her in front of any difficult maths-adjacent puzzle, and she will find a way to solve it, often while others are talking or arguing. Even Kyuhyun finds a way to shine when asked to act, lie and betray his teammates. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.