As Beast Games Season 2 races to its conclusion, Monika Ronk and Jim Bent are among the toughest competitors. Prime Video viewers have seen Monika emerge from the Cubes with the coveted coin—then make a game-changing decision about what to do with it. Meanwhile, Jim has been consistently having the single best time in the entire show.

Yet while they’ve been vying for millions of dollars, fans have also watched Monika and Jim’s romantic relationship continue to grow. They’ve supported one another through all of Beast Games‘ various twists and even met each other’s families. TVBrittanyF.com spoke to both Jim and Monika to learn how they navigated the world of Beast Games together.

Brittany Frederick: What was your approach to playing Beast Games? Because you get to work together, but at the same time, everyone’s aware that you’re working together.

Monika Ronk: You can look at it as a pro or a con, but I think I was having an easier time with some of the challenges. Jim was my closest ally in the game, and so it was really important to me that at least one of us made it through. But I think you can see as the episodes move on, it is really important to have at least somebody super-close to you, and I had him, and he had me.

Jim Bent: In a game like Beast Games, there’s a lot of loose alliances between people who’ve just met. And even though we’d just met, I always felt like we had the strongest alliance, because the two of us were in love, and we were playing the game 100 percent for each other at all times.

But you two did also balance each other out. Monika is always very calm, while Jim, how did you maintain such a high energy level most of the time?

Jim: I’m an optimist, but also, I’m a huge MrBeast fan. I’m one of the OG subscribers; I subscribed back in 2016. I’ve been watching this guy for years. So everything that we did was just the most exciting thing of all time for me. I was definitely having a fanboy moment.

Monika: His energy is always super-high. He’s always got a huge smile on his face. And there were times where I definitely [felt] like I had to reel him back, but we did a great job balancing each other out, and he occasionally pulled me out of my shell at times where I otherwise might not have.

How much of that was also the free Starbucks?

Jim: Oh my gosh, yeah, so we had infinite caffeine in this city. Let’s not ignore that fact. People see me and they’re like oh, this guy’s always so energetic, why? Dude, we have infinite coffee. [Laughs.]

Monika: Not only the coffee, but it was multiple cake pops a day, too. So the caffeine and sugar was just constant.

Competing in Beast Games is enough to focus on, but then you’re also building your relationship along the way. What was it like to have your personal lives play out in front of the Prime Video cameras?

Monika: I think once we got into Beast City itself, it took me about a week to kind of get used to the whole routine and not necessarily notice the cameras and production as much.

Jim: I never stopped noticing them. [Laughs.] It was the least romantic thing you could possibly imagine. You’re trying to have a serious conversation and talk about your future with someone. You see the conversations on dating shows and stuff, and trying to get to know somebody and talk about real things that people talk about when they’re dating is so not romantic when there’s a camera being shoved in your face.

You did have the accomplishment of meeting each others’ families in one episode. How did you prepare for that milestone, especially while at that crucial part of Season 2?

Monika: I think based on our budding relationship in the show, and during our time in the city, we were already prepared to meet each other’s family as soon as filming was over. So that wasn’t necessarily an issue for us. We were already ready for it.

Jim: I feel like the time we spent together in the city, we were so close and so comfortable with each other. I really didn’t feel any kind of intimidation. I felt very welcomed, to be honest. Especially by [her] mom.

Monika: At the beginning of the show, I think in Episode 1, you get to see a conversation between us on the porch. I’m acting a little bit awkward. I’m getting used to everything. But I tell him hey, you’re coming home with me. So I felt very early on strongly about that.

What have been your proudest accomplishments in Beast Games Season 2 so far?

Monika: I win the strongest person in the city, and that was just a really amazing feeling. Because not only was I beating men, I was beating super strong women as well. It was really an amazing feeling to just prove to myself that I can keep up with people who are a lot bigger than me, who look a lot tougher than me. So that was probably my proudest moment.

Jim: My proudest moment was probably in the Cubes, when I flipped cards to keep Monica safe. I removed Monica from that equation, and I just played a 50/50 game with JC, and bet my stake on the competition for that. I felt like I had proved that what we were doing was real and the love was not a facade.

Jim, you bring up a good point in that a lot of people in Beast Games seem to get along, but how much do those relationships persist? Where are you two now, both together and as far as talking to your fellow competitors?

Jim: We’re still in contact with everybody from the show, of course, but I feel like me and Monika, our gameplay was so focused on just each other. We spent most of our time there just talking to each other. So we’re friends with everybody, we still keep in touch, but we’re not texting every single day. We just spent time with each other; we were on Monika and Jim Island the whole time.

Monika: I would agree. I would say our closest connection always was and still is with each other. But you know, recently, with the show airing, a lot of the Top 10 have been in communication, and it’s really fun to just digest everything and relive it with some of the other people you spent the most amount of time with.

Jim: We do TikTok Live with a lot of the other contestants. We call it Beast Games After Dark, and we get on there with them, and we just chop it up about everything that went down.

We’ve got a YouTube channel, so if people want to go and see more of what our life looks like outside of the games, they can come and subscribe. We’re really excited to get that going and let people see what our off-camera lives look like and how we interact.

Monika: I think a lot of people are still curious. [They] want to know more about the story of how you met. [They] want to know, who liked who first? Did you guys go on a date in Beast City? Kind of answer some questions that we keep getting over and over. Give people a look into our outside lives outside of the games. And just try to create some content that people are excited to follow and keep up with.

Beast Games streams Wednesdays on Prime Video. Photo Credit: 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.