Squid Game: The Challenge winner Mai Whelan explains what ran through her mind during intense Finale challenge

Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge season 1 came to a thrilling end in a finale that saw Player 287 Mai Whelan emerge as the winner of the show. Taking home a whopping $4.56 million cash prize, Whelan is the first winner of the inaugural show, which takes inspiration from the original Netflix fictional series Squid Game.

The finale saw things come down to the final three contestants in the form of Sam, Phil, and Mai Whelan. Mai, however, had a lot of experience playing the game Rock, Paper, Scissors, which set her up for a thrilling win. She talked about her dominant victory during a post-episode interview with Entertainment Weekly and went into detail about her experience.

"What I'm most proud of is that I didn't compromise my integrity to win the money. I came into it to challenge myself as a person, because I love challenging myself, and for me to finish that is a feat and accomplishment that I'm very proud of, and that at my age, I can do anything if I put my mind to it," Mai tells EW.

---

Mai Whelan knew she could easily win Final challenge during Squid Game: The Challenge

Whelan was delighted with how the finale went, even though she, like the others, had no idea that the final task would involve Rock, Paper, Scissors. However, being one of the most common games that made their way into the series, Whelan had already spent a lot of time preparing for the game in particular.

She talked about how the scene related to the safe and her choosing the correct key had to be re-shot:

Actually, when I picked the key, I think I maybe didn't turn it hard enough. And I could tell Phill was like, "Oh gosh, is that the key?" I could feel his anxiety. We had to reshoot that scene again and make sure that the safe opens so I picked up that same key, come up to the safe, and open it.

Player 287 ended up deciding to take control of her destiny and claimed that that was what she had been telling herself right from the start of Squid Game: The Challenge.

Whelan claimed that simply the decision to press the button meant little, and she was lucky that none of the other finalists picked green during the challenge. Regardless, while Whelan was lucky with the final game as well, she was relieved when it was announced. This was because she was scared about the challenge being a physical one. However, she knew she had a chance the moment the game was announced.

"I knew that it's not going to be a physical game because throughout the whole show, it's all about mental challenge. So when I saw the safe I was like, "What can this be?" Then when they announced Rock, Paper, Scissors, I felt so relieved."

She added,

"I've played all my life, even adulthood, when you come to a tie, everybody wants to play Rock, Paper, Scissors to break the tie. And I just learned from that and collect all that statistic when I've learned, between men and women, kids too. I used my memory bank from what I've learned from the past to play with Phill in the final game.”

Whelan claimed that she responded to her win by indulging in the dress that she wore in the Squid Game finale event after her win. Claiming that she also bought shoes from Jimmy Choo, Whelan suggested that she had every intention of splurging on herself after coming out trumps.

Of course, considering the kind of time she spent on Squid Game: The Challenge and how much discipline it took, Whelan pretty much deserves to spend a part of the $4.56 million cash prize on herself.

Her final victory can now be watched alongside all other episodes of Squid Game: The Challenge, Season 1, on Netflix.