Variety Review: Running Man Episode (a bit of 589 +) 590

Apr 12

Apr 12 Variety Review: Running Man Episode (a bit of 589 +) 590

Guests: Eunhyuk (Super Junior member), Bae Seulki (singer, actress), Hong Sooah (actress)

My Entertainment Score: 7 out of 10 laughs

The games in this episode surprised me by being funnier than expected and the guests all seemed to enjoy themselves which I love. I had a good time and wasn’t able to guess the ‘spy’. Mysteries are always fun.

What Happened:

Theme: Myth of Dangun in the Year of the Black Tiger Race

**Somin broke her foot and needs to stay seated as much as possible for a while until she heals. We’re wishing her a speedy recovery!!**

Opening/Guest Introductions (1:06:38 of ep 589- 1:18:37)

The members gather and greet three guests that are all born in 1986, the year of the tiger, in keeping with the race’s theme.

Race Explanation (1:18:37- end of episode 589)

The guests, along with Somin and Sechan who were also born in 1986, will make up the tiger team. The rest of the members are in the bear team. The three members with the most points at the end of the day get a prize while the bottom three will face punishment. Each game will be played in pairs, with one bear and one tiger on each team. They will earn points based on their team’s performance. Points are given as garlic cloves in keeping with the legend of Dangun where…if I have understood it correctly…a bear and a tiger prayed to become human and were given by a god garlic cloves to eat exclusively and were told to stay out of the sun for 100 days so that their wish could be granted.

In a twist, there are going to be 2 poachers disguised as animals: one bear and one tiger. Those members will automatically take half of the garlic cloves from their partner in each round. First and second place in each game will be able to check someone’s identity and also change partners if they wish.

At the end of the race, each person will have a chance to guess the poacher’s identities. If they are correct, they will earn an additional 20 cloves of garlic.

The partners are chosen through a cute little basket game, where the tigers can put a plushie in a basket lowered by one of the bear members. This was mostly not aired. The starting partners are: Somin and Jaesuk, Eunhyuk and Jongkook, Seulki and Seokjin, Sooah and Jihyo, Sechan and Haha.

The episode ends with the members choosing a card to see if they are the poacher. We learn right away that Eunhyuk is the poacher amongst the tigers and are left with a preview showing his difficult battle in episode 590.

First Mission: Furious Race (4:36 ep. 590- 15:42)

In this game, each member picked a toy car and set it at the front of a treadmill. The treadmill was set on slow and the car that stayed on longest won. A team was only out when both member’s cars fell.

After the race, the winners do their checks. The first place team gets to see their garlic and know each other’s identities. In the second place team, only one member gets to check. Both the first and second place teams have the option to trade members into new teams. They don’t show this at length for most of the episode, so I’m not going to separate it out, but this game does have a decent chunk shown.

Second Mission: Bodyguard Cham-Cham-Cham (15:42- 40:50)

You all know cham-cham-cham, right? At the end of cham-cham-cham, each person picks a direction. If they match, the attacker wins. In this variation, one partner plays while their teammate sits beside them and watches. The winner’s partner has to quickly grab a blow-up sword to attack the other team’s player. The defending team’s partner must quickly grab a pot lid to block the sword with. A hit landed is a point. For the final round, they threw cups of water at each other.

This was soooo much funnier than I expected.

Lunch/Product Placement Ad Game…hehe (40:50- 53:35)

The game is related to the product that they are advertising: Pizza. The tigers (Sechan, Somin, and the guests) will take turns calling anyone that they want. For 100 seconds, they must talk to the person and eat pizza. Their game ends the second the other person asks if they are eating something, or anything similar. The teams will get garlic based on how long they remained undetected and how much they ate (Weight of remaining pizza + the seconds left on the clock when they are caught). Again, this was funnier than I expected.

Third Mission: More and More Foot Volleyball (53:35- 1:06:00)

Jongkook, Sechan, Seokjin, and Sooah played as one team. The others all played as the second team, with one person sitting out and Somin acting as ref because of her broken foot.

For this game, each volley was worth points equal to the number of touches made. So, passes among players, passes over the net, and headers all add up until someone misses. The other team gets that many points. They played for 15 minutes and then tallied the scores. Rock, paper, scissors was used to pick the team’s placement.

Fourth Mission: Heart Attack Quiz (1:06:00- 1:19:28)

One member of each team sat under a metal tray which would drop to bonk their head in the case of an incorrect answer. It was almost entirely unnecessary, but I like the effort.

A question was given which had multiple parts for a correct answer. For instance, it could be correctly guessing all the words in an acronym or all the presidents on Mount Rushmore. As long as one word (in the case of an acronym) or name was correct, the tray would not be dropped. However, if the entire answer was not correct, it would open up to the others to answer. They had to add more correct to avoid the tray and the team that got the most or all of the answers correct would get a point.

Final Vote for Poachers/ Results (1:19:28- end of episode)

Each person votes for the two people they believe are the poachers. Only if they get both correct, will they get an additional 20 garlic cloves. Also, each vote the poachers receive will remove two garlic from their total.

The prize for the top 3 is a ribs and croaker meat set for the lunar New Year. The penalty for the bottom 3 is to mince the garlic that they earned over the course of the game.

Preview: Running Man Country Club with guest Pak Seri. The female members are both absent for this golf special.

!!!Spoilers!!!

Furious Race

Seokjin, Seulki- 10 garlic each
Jongkook, Eunhyuk- 8 garlic each
Haha, Sechan- 6 garlic each
Jihyo, Sooah- 4 garlic each
Jaesuk, Somin- 2 garlic each

**Remember, the poachers automatically take half of their partner’s winnings each game. Since we know Eunhyuk is a poacher from the start, I can reveal that Eunhyuk actually has 12 at this point while Jongkook has only 4.**

–No team changes–

Bodyguard Cham Cham Cham