Guests: None
My Entertainment Score: 9 out 10 laughs
I was SO happy to move away from finance games! The games this week had me in stitches and inspired a full hour of play time for my kids. On top of that, I really enjoyed the puzzle and mystery of trying to figure out where the birthday gold was hidden. It was a well structured episode that kept me entertained from start to finish.
What Happened:
Theme: It’s Time to Find the Gold Race
Race Rules (start of episode- 3:36)
There was a brief recap of the gift giving from the members last episode before the game was explained.
The chief of Running Village hid gold as a birthday present for Seokjin. Seokjin is given a special hint to start him toward the present. He’s allowed to pick two members to be on his team. If his team finds the gold first, they can share it. The rest of the members play as individuals and can keep the gold completely to themselves if they find it first.
If Seokjin’s team finds the gold first, he can pick two members to get the punishment for the week. If a different member finds the gold, they will choose two members of Seokjin’s team to get the punishment.
Seokjin chooses Jongkook and Kwangsoo for his team mates.
**This was explained as the episode went on, but for the purposes of this review, I’ll tell you here one more thing. There were 2 main games and 3 rounds of finding hints about where the gold is (or finding the gold if they could).**
Hint Finding Time (3:36-14:12)
Rules Explanation (3:36- 4:24)
The members will go separately to rooms/places in Running Village that they believe the gold might be hidden. Once they are in position, the tracking device of the person closest to the gold will go off (it rings like a phone’s ringtone). They will then be able to look for hints about the location of the gold for 15 minutes after that.
First Hint Gathering Time (4:24- 14:12)
There are various hints in rooms that are labeled around Running Village as “Jaesuk’s Room”, “Jihyo’s Room”, etc. One member also found an envelope with a picture from a previous episode in it.
I thought I had an idea of where the gold is hidden already at this point, but it was tentative at best because the amount of information available was so sparse.
First Mission (14:13- 34:15)
Gathering Up and Chatting (14:13- 15:39)
The members come together from all over Running Village and chat. The room they gather in is the same one pictured in the hint picture that one member found. That is brought up briefly as well as more Happy Birthdays for Seokjin.
Game Explanation (15:39- 19:32)
“Daring Rats” is the name of the game. It’s an upgraded version of a game from a show that Seokjin hosted a long time ago. In the original game, the first player would announce the number of rats to be caught. Then, the game would proceed through the line of people, each saying either “I caught it” or “I missed it”. Once enough rats had been caught, in other words enough people had said “caught it” on their turn, everyone had to shout “HOORAY”. The difficulty in the game was speaking quickly enough on your turn and keeping count of the caught it's so that you hoorayed at the correct time.
In the upgraded version, they added the option of “it got away”. This option essentially means that an already caught rat escaped and is now needing to be caught again. To make it a little simpler... If there are 4 people, the game would proceed with A saying “4 rats”. B: “caught it” (1 rat in custody) C: “missed it” (still 1) D: “caught it” (2) A: “it got away” (back to 1) B: “caught it” (2) C: “caught it” (3) D: “caught it” (all 4 in custody). Everyone: “HOORAY”.
A person can make mistakes by missing their turn or saying something that doesn’t make sense on their turn (such as it got away when there are no mice to get away or caught it when you are supposed to be saying how many rats there are). They can also say hooray before all the rats are caught or fail to say hooray when they are.
As we all know, the running men have some issues with counting in games and getting tongue tied in games, so this was perfection in my mind.
Game: Daring Rats (19:32- 34:15)
The first round was a practice round because the results were so controversial among the members. Haha. This was very entertaining. After watching a bit of it, one of my kids asked, “Is it really that hard?” so we tried it out. We loved it, but didn’t have nearly as much trouble as the Running Men did.
Hint Finding Time (34:15- 44:30)
This time, the members were given 15 minutes to search first, then only the 3 winners of the Daring Rats game were given the chance to have their trackers go off if they were closest to the gold. Several members found hints this time and some started to make some inferences...some not so good.
My initial thoughts on this could still work, but some of the hints aren’t fitting into place, so I began to think I must be wrong.
Second Mission (44:30- 1:05:51)
Lunch (44:30- 46:08)
This was prepared in honor of Seokjin’s birthday.
Second Mission Explanation (46:08- 47:51)
The second game is based on an old game called the “Rice Barley Game”, but they have upgraded it and called the new one “In a Split Second”. This is a game of speed, concentration, and trickery if you can manage it. The game is played in one on one pairs. There is the attacker and the defender. The attacker is trying to pass through a specific spot while saying ‘rice’ to get points. If they say barley, it doesn’t matter if they get caught, no points are exchanged. The defender is clapping in that spot, trying to catch the attacker. I believe this was originally played with just the hands. One person would slice their hand down between the other person’s and would be out if the hand got clapped in between. Running Man is a special place though and they decided it should be played with their head nodding down as quickly as possible while the defender held soft pads drowning in flour. *giggles*
Each player when they attacked would have 5 chances to say ‘rice’. Each successful rice pass was a point and each failure was negative one point. Only the four winners would be allowed the tracking chance.
In A Split Second Game (47:51- 1:05:51)
I felt bad laughing so hard at this, but some of them were so much better at it than others!
Final Gold Hunt (1:05:51- 1:15:52)
The clues came together for various members and they rushed to beat each other to the gold. There were a couple BIG twists in here.
My first thought wasn’t right. *Sad face* But I was on the right track. I missed something pretty obvious, actually that could have made me solve it right at the start. How did you guys do? Did anyone guess it before the reveal?
Final Results (1:15:52- end of show)
The result reveal was fun thanks to the twists in the final gold hunt. Then the winner got to choose the two people to do the punishment for the week. The punishment was to create a Happy Birthday video for Seokjin set to a Turbo song which would be put up on the Running Man social media accounts.
The punishment clip was super short and started at 1:20:23. It was followed immediately by the preview for next week.
Preview: Records of Running Dynasty and the Appearance of Evil Spirits with guests Jang Dongyoon, Keum Saerok, Park Sunghoon, and Kim Dongjun. This preview made me excited. I have super high hopes for next week!
!!!Spoilers!!!
First Hint Time
Sechan is closest to where the gold is hidden and finds a hint picture.
Daring Rats
1st Place- Sechan
2nd Place- Somin and Kwangsoo
Second Hint Time
Several members found hint pictures. This time, Somin was closest to the gold.
In A Split Second Game
1st Match Up: Kwangsoo v Sechan
Kwangsoo scores -1 against Sechan (2 success, 3 failures)
Sechan scores 5 against Kwangsoo (5 success, 0 failures)--teehee.
2nd Match Up: Jihyo v Somin
While they did show several attempts at this, they did not make the final score clear.
Somin won the battle.
3rd Match Up: Jaesuk v Haha
Jaesuk scores -5 against Haha (0 success, 5 failures)...teehehehehehe.
Haha scores against Jaesuk (5 success, 0 failures)....OMG! *laughing so hard!*.
4th Match Up: Jongkook v Seokjin….oh dear!
While they did show several attempts at this, they did not make the final score clear.
Jongkook won the battle...as if we didn’t already know that.
Final Results
Jongkook found the gold WAY at the beginning of the last gold search after being closest to the gold in the tracker chance and was going around meddling with other people until someone else figured it out. Thus, Seokjin’s team won and got to share the gold! This broke Seokjin’s 6 week run of getting the punishment. I bet he liked that for a birthday present.
They chose Haha and Jihyo to do the punishment.
