SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Beast Games Season 2, Episode 5.

Beast Games Season 2, Episode 5 brought back the Prime Video series’ infamous Cubes, forcing players to decide who among them would be kicked out of the competition. Yet what could have been an incredibly stressful experience turned out to be anything but—as the players took advantage of the “ask for anything you want” policy.

One decision to order coffee worked out incredibly well for Auguste Auger, as he now gets free Starbucks for life. Auguste sat down with TVBrittanyF.com to discuss the various happenings in the Cubes, how he really felt about Vance’s elimination, and if any of the other choices took him by surprise. Plus, he spoke about the sense of community in the Beast Games experience.

Brittany Frederick: The counterintuitive thing about the Cubes was that everyone took this dramatic situation and immediately used it to have a great time. How did you decide to have fun with this instead of stressing out over the elimination decision?

Auguste Auger: When we first got in the Cube, I think I was definitely nervous, and I think everyone else in our Cube was nervous too. But it was one of those things where it’s like well, for one of the three of us, this is gonna be our last night in Beast Games, so let’s make it fun. And even for the two people that are moving on, let’s make this a memorable experience.

And so for my Cube, we ordered food. We ordered Starbucks pretty early on, as you saw, and then a basketball hoop, and we were just having a good time joking around. But then pretty early on, Nick and I started strategizing behind Vance’s back, trying to figure out how to make it out of [there] together.

You were explicitly told you could ask for anything you wanted, and some folks had some interesting requests. So was it really anything, or were there limits fans didn’t see?

That’s the thing. You can ask for whatever you want, but you can’t take it with you out of the Cube. So you could have gotten two million in cash, but you can’t leave with it. Nick and I both ordered the guard masks, those panther masks—and after Vance handcuffed himself, we tried to sneak those out. They’re like no, you can’t take those, because we wanted to have the guard masks. [Laughs.]

But this Beast Games episode hammered home how everybody had turned on Vance. Fans saw it in the vote that the three of you took, and heard it in Jimmy’s narration. How do you think Vance ended up being so unpopular?

I actually liked Vance. Vance was cool. I didn’t have anything against Vance. But it’s one of those things where certain personality types, I just don’t think mesh well on a show like this.

While we were in Fiji, we were gone for eight days, and during those eight days the contestants just kind of sat around the city and hung out. They had a great time. But I think some of the people—people like Vance who like competing—got a little stir-crazy. And so I think he maybe rubbed some people the wrong way with some of the things he said, or some of the things he was doing.

We were kind of aware of that when we got back into the city. Maybe he was unaware of it, but people maybe had been fed up with him. And so they obviously voted against him. But he’s a good guy.

Did hearing the feedback that was so clearly against Vance make you a little more self-conscious about how you were playing the game?

I was always kind of self-conscious of that. And that’s a really good point you bring up. Beast Games is one of those places where you want to be yourself and you want to be true and authentic, but also you have to get a good read on the room—in terms of your humor, the way you joke around with people, the way you interact with people. You don’t want to accidentally rub people the wrong way, because you’re around a bunch of people from different walks of life.

I did definitely think about that, like I need to make sure I’m not screwing people over, rubbing people the wrong way. I need to make sure I’m being authentic and genuine, true to myself, while also not being over the top or irritating people.

You and Nick were the first people out of the Cubes, but there were others that took hours to make their decisions. So what was it like for the two of you, to just sit and wait for that long?

The episode doesn’t show this, but Nick and I actually are only in the Cube for probably two hours. The final Cube, which is JC, Jim and Monica—who we still don’t know [who comes] out of by the way—that Cube, I think they got out at about noon the next day. I think they were in for 14 to 15 hours. So our total wait time was probably about 12 hours.

But during that time, believe it or not, we were not bored at all. We were just having the time of our lives, realizing we made Top 13 in Beast Games. We have a one in 13 chance of $5 million. We were honestly just joking around, hanging out. They show a quick scene of us on the couch saying that line, “Big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games.” And that’s basically what we’re doing, is just sitting on the couch joking around, having a great time.

Were you making predictions as to who would emerge from the other Cubes? Or were there specific eliminations that surprised you?

We didn’t know Jack was going to do what he did, but we knew that Tyler and Jack were going to make it out of their Cube. They’re the other two people who are really close, and they were close with Catey as well. For Catey, we weren’t sure, because her and Ethan was kind of difficult, but I think we predicted that JT was going to get eliminated, and JT self-eliminates. We predicted that Jeff was going to eliminate himself; he eliminated himself. Same thing with Ian [Weber].

But the last Cube that they haven’t shown the end to yet, Jim, Monica and JC, we weren’t too sure on. And then Catey and Ethan, we weren’t sure on… That was a funny moment, to have Catey falling out of her Cube. We laughed so hard. At first we were like, are you okay? And then we were dying laughing.

And good on Jeff for helping out Hannah and Kady, because they’re both awesome. But I was really sad to see Jeff go—not only because I think he’s a great guy, but also just because we had gotten somewhat close, and he was someone that was fun to play the games with, because he had already gone to the end. Having him around was almost like having a mentor in the games. And so having him get out that way, it was very honorable and noble of him to do that, but it was hard. I was sad to not see him again after that.

This episode, though, brings up a reality of reality TV. There’s literal hours that Beast Games fans don’t see because it all has to be made into one episode. So is there anything viewers missed that you want to talk about?

The big thing that I feel like they’ve shown, but they can’t show all of it, is we had the best time hanging out. And we had so much fun traveling. For example, we went to Fiji. We took a charter jet to LAX, and then we flew commercial to Fiji. When we were in Fiji, we were [at] this beautiful resort, and we got massages, and we got to hang out on the beach, and we played sand volleyball with some of the locals. We just had the best time.

It’s one of those things where it’s a once in a lifetime experience. You don’t have your phone, you don’t have work distractions, you don’t have family distractions, you don’t have any of your outside relationship distractions. You are all in this simulation, per se, and it’s just so carefree. Obviously you have the pressure of trying to compete for five million [dollars]… But there’s just so much of us just having a great time and joking around and bonding and building relationships. It was really special.

Beast Games streams Wednesdays on Prime Video. Photo Credit: Cory Osbourne/Courtesy of Prime Video.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.