Variety Review: Running Man Episode 601
Guests: Park Gyeonghye (actress), Byeon Wooseok (actor), Joo Woojae (model)
My Entertainment Score: 7 out of 10 laughs
I could have done completely without one of the games but I’m still rating it pretty high for the drama of the name tag ripping game and the floating mat battle, which is one of my favorites.
What Happened:
Theme: Runningmon One Punch Battle (I know it sounds weird, but there are puns in there)
Opening/Guest Introductions/Team Formation (start of episode- 17:00)
The members arrive to a punching machine. They each take a turn and record their scores for a scoreboard that already has three scores on it…with nicknames rather than actual names. The three guests played earlier.
After the round of punching, the members with the 3 lowest scores get to pick first which team they’ll join based on the nicknames and scores of the guests (who are the team leaders for the day). Then the other 4 choose as well. The guests then arrive and announce their nicknames.
The teams are:
Gyeonghye: Haha and Sechan
Wooseok: Seokjin, Jaesuk, and Somin
Woojae: Jongkook and Jihyo
Race Explanation (17:00- 21:11)
They made a lot of pokemon puns in this episode, some of which took me WAY too long to get. Each team is given a “Runningdex” also known as a sticker book. There are 10 different stickers they can collect (one for each Runningmon present). In Korea there is a type of bread that includes a sticker in the package, a bit like the toys or fake tattoos you used to be able to get from boxes of cereal. For the race today, the staff prepared 300 breads with stickers of the Runningmon. The teams will play games to earn breads so that they can ‘catch’ all the Runningmon (collect all 10 kinds of stickers). In every game, first place gets 7 stickers. Second place gets 5 stickers and third place gets 3 stickers.
They start off earning bread based on the average score of their punches.
First Mission: Debate (21:11- 44:11)
The members are given the first topic to debate. After the conclusion of that topic, they have to come up with their own topic to debate. The staff will listen to all their ideas as they debate and vote “okay” or “not okay” on the situation. The members will vote after the staff. The members that match the majority of the staff will get a point.
Personally, I didn’t like this whole segment. Perhaps it's my personality which tries to avoid conflict, but I was either uncomfortable or bored. This could have been WAAAAY shorter in my opinion.
Second Mission: Strategic Floating Mat Battle (44:11- 1:06:37)
Travel (44:11-50:13)
This is played in 4 rounds. For each round, the members playing for their team will start on their team’s floating mat. Then they will try to push each other off into the water. The team that lasts the longest in each round gets 3 points (2 points for second, 1 point for last). They predetermine who will play in each round without knowing the other teams’ choices. Round one is 1 v 1 v 1. Rounds two and three are 2 v 2 v 2. Round four is 3 v 3 v 3. I’ll list the players in order by team as follows: Gyeonghye v Woojae v Wooseok.
Round 1 (50:43) Sechan v Woojae v Wooseok
Round 2 (56:24) Gyeonghye and Haha v Jihyo and Woojae v Somin and Seokjin
Round 3 (58:53) Haha and Sechan v Jongkook and Woojae v Jaesuk and Wooseok
Round 4 (1:04:50) ALL play except one….this round is mostly unshown.
Third Mission: Final Runningmon Catching Spree (1:06:37- end of episode)
This is the final push to fill their Runningdex. There are two ways to do that. First, stickers are hidden around the building to be found. Second, stickers can be stolen from other teams. To do that, they have to purchase the right to eliminate a player on another team and IF that member is carrying the Runningdex, a sticker can be taken. The ‘payment’ is in repeat stickers that the team doesn’t need. Only the person that buys the elimination ticket can tear the name tag and steal a sticker. However, the cost per person varies based on what other teams decide. For example (and yes, that’s what actually happened), if Gyeonghye’s team is worried about Jongkook, they can set his cost to purchase an elimination ticket at 10 and make Woojae and Jihyo’s cost 1 each. I’m not going to chronicle the costs because it didn’t play a HUGE role. The teams carefully planned eliminations and helped the member with the lowest cost to rip the name tag even if they were the weakest.
The game ends when one team completes their Runningdex.
A very brief glimpse of the winning team getting prizes is shown before the preview.
Preview: Enemy Cha-cha-cha. The next episode takes inspiration from a drama called “Hometown Cha Cha Cha”, which I haven’t seen, so I have no idea what exactly it’s spoofing. The setup is a battle between half the members over “long-held grudges”. Guests Yuri and Hyoyeon of SNSD (Girl’s Generation) and Cho Junho and Cho Junhyun (the Judo Twins), join the crew to battle out their grievances.
!!!Spoilers!!!
Punch Score Averages
Gyeonghye Team - 894 average - 7 bread (Woojaemon, Jaesukmon, Jihyomon, Sominmon, Jongkookmon earned with 2 repeats. 5 out of 10 slots filled)
Woojae Team - 876 average - 5 bread (Jaesukmon, Woojaemon, Sechanmon, Gyeonghyemon earned with 1 repeat. 4 out of 10 slots filled)
Wooseok Team- 732 average - 3 bread (Sominmon, Jaesukmon, Gyeonghyemon earned- no repeats. 3 out of 10 slots filled)
Debate
Wooseok Team - 7 bread (Hahamon, Jihyomon, Woojaemon, Jongkookmon acquired. 7 out of 10 slots filled)
Gyeonghye Team - 5 bread (all repeats. 5 out of 10 slots filled)
Woojae Team - 3 bread (all repeats. 4 out of 10 slots filled)
Floating Mat Battle **I’m going to list the teams in the same order for every round so that the total scores are easy to tally up mentally and only give a total score at the end rather than a running total for each round.**
Round 1: Woojae Team 1 point, Wooseok Team 2 points, Gyeonghye Team 3 points
Round 2: Woojae Team 2 points, Wooseok Team 1 point, Gyeonghye Team 3 points
Round 3: Woojae Team 2 points, Wooseok Team 3 points, Gyeonghye Team points 1 point
Round 4: Woojae Team 3 points, Wooseok Team 2 point, Gyeonghye Team 1 points
Overall Scores: **They announce the winners, but not the scores, so I think they based it on how long people held out since the points were even.
Woojae Team: 8 points - 7 bread (Seokjinmon acquired. 6 out of 10 slots filled)
Gyeonghye Team: 8 points - 5 bread (Sechanmon, Gyeonghyemon acquired. 7 out of 10 slots filled)
Wooseok Team: 8 points - 3 bread (Wooseokmon acquired. 8 out of 10 slots filled)
Runningmon Catching Spree
This got a bit messy, so I’ll only announce the final result.
The first Runningdex completed belonged to…..*drumroll*.....Team Gyeonghye! Congrats!
