If your favourite way to unwind after a long day is to stay in and binge watch Netflix, you’ll probably already be familiar with The Devil’s Plan, the latest Korean reality competition that’s on Netflix’s Top 10.
On the show, 12 contestants from all walks of life compete in a series of brain games that require wit and strategy. And much like Squid Game, the winner will get to walk away with a grand prize of cash money — no, there isn’t a death penalty for those who are eliminated (thankfully).
As we went through the highs and lows with each contestant, here’s a ranking list of their most iconic moments while playing the game.
Warning: Spoilers for The Devil’s Plan ahead, proceed at your own risk if you’ve yet to watch the show!
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I’m not going to sugar coat this, but it was hard to find moments where Hye Sung truly shone in the games.
But I did finally notice her in Episode 5 when the contestants played “Secret Number”, and she solved her own number fairly quickly. Using her same equation, she then solved both Dong Jae and Yoo Min’s numbers too, and contributed as much as she could to their alliance.
Watching Yeon Woo’s terrible luck in “Rules Race”, aka the board game in Episode 3, almost made me scream in agony. How was it possible for her to land in jail so many times?
Thankfully, she redeemed herself by showcasing her skills as a professional Go player during the fifth main match, “Laying Grass”. Before the match started, she shared her knowledge of where the most optimal places on the board are for the contestants to build their territory.
She may have lost the game in the end, but it was honestly her best play throughout the series.
I didn’t think much of the puzzle game in jail — after all, Kyung Lim was one of the first contestants to go in and she seemed to have solved it easily. How hard could it have been? And a free piece for solving it too? Easy win.
But that was until other contestants went to jail and struggled with solving the puzzle that put its difficulty into perspective. Like Joon Bin, I gained respect for Kyung Lim’s determination to solve it because I didn’t realise how tough it was.
With how often Seung Kwan stars in his group’s reality game show, Going Seventeen, I would’ve expected him to thrive in these games. But I guess without Jeonghan or Mingyu to challenge him, the idol struggled to play his own way on The Devil’s Plan.
Seungkwan played a major role in bonding everyone together though — it’s probably why the contestants were so eager to help him out to the point where it was a little overbearing.
I felt proud when he finally began to make his own decisions during “Laying Grass”, and eventually won alongside Yoo Min and Dong Joo, earning himself a piece.
Controversial opinion: While everyone was upset about Yoo Min’s betrayal in “Secret Number”, I thought it was one of the best moves on the show. After all, the games aren’t just about winning, it’s also about being able to eliminate other contestants.
Though she felt bad and cried about it, her last minute betrayal was what needed to be done for her to move up to the next round. I was on the edge of my seat and clutching my screen, eagerly waiting for the drama to unfold.
Joon Bin was clearly underestimated by everyone at first — myself included. But the travel YouTuber proved himself to be more sly than he looks.
When playing “Zoo” in Episode 7, Joon Bin strategised with Yoon Min to secretly make himself the winner of the game. He unfortunately tied with Dong Joo and didn’t win any pieces, but it showed that he didn’t need a team to push himself and secure a win of his own.
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I think we can all agree that Guilaume was eliminated way too soon. In “The Virus Game”, I myself couldn’t tell that he was the Terrorist was right until the final reveal. Lying and acting dumb turned out to be a power move on his part.
The other contestants misjudged him as a foreigner, but his deep understanding of the game showed that he had the potential to do so much more.
Dong Jae may be the youngest contestant on the show, but he certainly should be a force to be reckoned with.
Like Guilaume, his play in “The Virus Game” left me stunned. Dong Jae remained fiercely loyal to the Terrorists, who he agreed to be in an alliance with, and was the main strategist for their team. Doing all these and he still succeeded in his own personal mission. Mic drop.
Dong Joo truly flexed her memory skills during the team game “Fragments of Memory” in Episode 4. She single-handedly tanked all 10 tough questions and added 50 million won to the final prize — it was a thrilling episode that left me with goosebumps.
Let’s be real — if not for Si Won’s curiosity, no one would have uncovered the devil’s secret. Si Won was always hungry to win, and it was obvious in her determination to go to jail to search for secrets, staying up until 4am to solve the pieces and trying to break Orbit’s alliance.
She had so many iconic moments that it’s hard to pick just one. But all of them boiled down to her strong will to never give up and search for clues that no one else has thought of.
Here’s an iconic quote from her in Episode 2 to take away: “the sweetest honey is inside the hive”.
I get it — there’s a lot of hate surrounding Orbit because of his alliance and illogical reasoning to “help the weak”. But you’ve gotta admit that the guy’s basically a genius.
In “Equation Hi-Lo”, which was pretty much a game of poker and mathematics on drugs, everyone thought that Orbit would be eliminated ASAP. After all, things didn’t look too good for him with his low number of chips.
But his comeback was too legendary to not mention on this list. After betting his very last chip and winning, Orbit began to climb back up, and soon emerged 3rd place after seven gruelling hours of the game — a 0 to 100 move.
Ha Seok Jin is the definition of a sexy brain — I said what I said. He was never keen on relying on others through an alliance and won games using his own skills. The most thrilling scene was when he finally solved the devil’s secret and unlocked the passcode, “NEXT YEAR”, all on his own.
Special mentions to his Gomoku game win against the devil, and of course, finally emerging as the champion of the show.
Competing on a show with endless puzzles that will wreck your brains isn’t easy — especially one that lasts for seven full days. The Devil’s Plan perfectly encapsulates the seriousness of the games, heart dropping cliffhangers and the close bond of the contestants into 12 concise episodes. We can only hope that there’ll be a Season 2 soon.
All images courtesy of Drama Cool.
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