The Devil’s Plan Episodes 5 to 9 Review: Created by Jung Jong-yeon, the Korean psychological survival reality show (블스 플랜) stars 12 contestants from varying professional fields including Ha Seok-jin from Problematic Men, Korean professional Go player Cho Yeon-woo, freelance announcer Lee Hye-sung, actress and inventor Lee Si-won, Kpop idol SEVENTEEN’s Boo Seungkwan.
Joining them, Seo Dong-joo – a MIT graduate and a lawyer in America with an MBA degree, comedian and actress Park Kyung-lim, Guillaume Patry – a Canadian gamer, now a professional poker player, Kwedo aka Scientist ORBIT – former policy advisor to the Blue House, and Kwak Joonbin – a travel YouTuber and a multilingual speaker. Other than these famous names, two non-celebrity contestants of the show are Seo Yoo-min – American orthopaedic surgeon, and Kim Dong-jae – a college student, now a professional poker player.
The series premiered on Netflix on September 26, 2023, with its first 4 episodes (runtime: 59-71 minutes), and Episodes 5-9 released on October 3, 2023. English subtitles and dubbed audio are available for international audiences.
The Devil’s Plan Review for Episodes 5 to 9 Contains Mild Spoilers
The Devil’s Plan Episodes 5 to 9 Review: Discussion
The mind games continue with this week’s new episodes, but with The Devil’s Plan Episode 5 we also start to see more emotional drama emerge out of the game arena, which eventually consumes the ongoing game series and starts affecting the players for worse. Certain teams push a very specific type of narrative against the other, and this may start impacting your loyalty to some of these contestants as well.
The initial episodes, i.e. Episode 1-4, may have had you rooting for the “underdogs”, but the new set of entries in the season make you further question the true concept of what it is to be an underdog, and in whom vests the power to declare one as such. A lot of betrayals unfold and the unreliability of each contestant starts rising to the top. In the race to solidify new alliances, everyone goes all out and is keen to destroy and bring each other down.
The people you thought were underdogs, eventually start peddling a propaganda of their own to turn things in their favour while fighting it out against the leading contestants who’re in possession of the most number of Pieces in their pockets. However, that fact alone about their leading stances can’t turn them into villains, but the other side consolidates their image like so, in turn manipulating other contestants and their thoughts about them along the way too. Soon enough, the spiteful sting of these actions will start getting to you as well, testifying for how a certain party of members has been pushing too hard to vilify the other party. And even if it’s all just part of the “game”, it starts feeling unfair.
Those who may seemed like people who were worth standing beside, eventually they end up hurting the whole lot of people with their supposedly “selfless” strategies, that otherwise don’t lead the game anywhere. By the time Guillaume was eliminated in the first few episodes last week, it didn’t hurt hurt as much because we hadn’t gotten used to the cast playing their games.
But with the eliminations that make their way out in Episode 6, it stings quite a bit. All through this, Ha Seok-jin makes a valid point about how unfair it was to protect five people who didn’t contribute much VS dropping off 1 talented person who was actually capable of making it to the end. His critique hits the mark. But it also feels great to see some of these people retracing their steps and introspecting their mistakes later on.
The show’s format that hopes for the contestants to betray each other in the morning and then team up for the evening matches really sounds like a complicated mess, but the latter also helps balance out the tension by lightening up the mood. So it works in the favour of the team-building process and gradually becomes a much-needed getaway.
Persistence rarely lies, and by far, I believe Lee Si-won has been one of the most consistent contestants in giving it her best to survive. So, even if it means that she has to face the worst tendencies in people and words against her, I sure hope that she stays strong in the game till the end. Not only has she done her best to churn out results from each opportunity pushed her way, she’s also tried her all to win over the trust of a few loyal teammates on her side, even if it hasn’t fully translated into the best of things for her in the end.
And as I’d mentioned in the previous review as well, the games are well balanced and spread out so that they give each contestant their chance to outshine others who’ve otherwise stayed ahead in terms of seeming like the proactive leaders in the arena. But, as I’d mentioned earlier that the show lacks an overarching purpose, and it’s merely invested in switching between the long series of individual games, after the journey of the first set of episodes, it all seems valid.
The contestants are already too emotionally invested in making things work for themselves that it often results in alienating others along the way naturally. However, if on top of that, another larger motive or storyline were to push their actions, it could’ve been extremely draining for them. Most of the things witnessed in this show ring in memories of the Squid Game K-drama where everyone is bent on making it out alive and surviving with the grand prize in their hand in the end regardless of what this solitary path makes them do.
The Devil’s Plan Netflix Reality Series: Final Thoughts
It almost feels like a personal journey to see Si-won and Seok-jin make it together as they face off against the group of majority ganged up against them who have established themselves as self-proclaimed “underdogs”. Despite most of the duo’s team being broken apart and other members having been eliminated, their strong comradeship with each other is worth watching.
SEVENTEEN Seungkwan maintains the otherwise amiss innocent charm and keeps things light in a largely tense environment. So, in unexpected ways, people who stayed in the background previously, also find enough footing to step forward with their unique quirks in Episodes 5-9. As for my allegiance, it’s clearly drastically switched around and it now stands with Lee Si-won and Ha Seok-jin’s alliance, at least for now.
The Devil’s Plan definitely offers a great change by making its contestants’ minds race, which will equally work its charm on you as well. But again, a lot depends on your subjective preferences. Therefore, it may not necessarily be your piece of cake, because it demands a lot of patience out of its viewers.
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