Photo:Courtesy of Netflix

Courtesy of Netflix
Warning: This post contains spoilers from the first nine episodes of Netflix’sSquid Game: The Challenge.
In theEmmy-winning show, Dalgona was a surprisingly stressful game in which players had to painstakingly cut shapes (ranging from a simple circle to a terrifyingly detailed umbrella) out of paper-thin wafer cookies. In the scripted version of the story, one key player did help another out — but the act of solidarity had more to do with cheating and self-preservation than kindness.
According tomother-son competitorsLeAnn Wilcox Plutnicki (a.k.a. Player 302) and Trey Plutnicki (Player 301), who etched out circles in the first round of the cookie game, their team wasn’t afraid to flout the watchful eyes of the guards if it meant others might make it to play another day.
Pete Dadds/Netflix

“Yeah,” chimes in Trey. “We literally wrote it in the sand. … ‘Five minutes, lick back of cookie.'”
Unfortunately that guidance didn’t ultimately benefit Player 299 Spencer Hawkins, who reluctantly stumbled into a figure head position for Team Umbrella.
Alternating between tears and retching, Spencer was painstakingly scraping away at his cookie as he watched players around him fail and be eliminated. Against all odds, Spencer seemed like he might defy the odds and get an unlikely hero’s edit … until —SNAP!
Like 68 other people, Spencer didn’t make it to the next round.

Unlike Spencer’s bitter elimination, LeAnn confirms the cookie itself “was sweet.”
Trey offers a more terse description: “Sugar.”
“I was really excited about the social aspect coming into the game,” he tells PEOPLE. “But it was different [than I expected] because everybody played and projected that you should be playing honorably, which I found really interesting.”
He continues, “It also takes me back to … to the first season ofSurvivor, where I look at the first winner ofSurvivorand I seeRichard Hatch, who America hated because he played the game. And everybody liked the people who were playing honorably, who are like, ‘It’sSurvivor. The people who are voted out, it should not have to do with the politics of the game. It should have to do with your merits of survival strength.’ So I looked at this game and I’m like, ‘I think that’s kind of what we just did.’ If you aren’t a team player in here, it’s 200 people versus the game, not 200 people versus each other.”
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Who among those people ends up coming out on top remains to be seen when the season 1 finale ofSquid Game: The Challengedrops Wednesday on Netflix.
source: people.com