MaryMeKpop

The latest Running Man episode was a fun and exciting one to watch so I decided to recap it. The two guests for the episode was none other than Lee Ha-na (Voice) and Im Soo-hyang (My I.D. is Gangnam Beauty). This episode was full of charm, quirks, and expected betrayals. What is Running Man without those characteristics?

Running Man Episode 422: Legendary Captain Race

The episode begins with our Running Man cast members at a botanical garden in the nice fall weather. They immediately notice Kwang-soo and Jeon So-min’s matching outfits and grow suspicious of the two. It’s not until a few minutes later that Ji Suk-jin (who had been absent this entire time) joins the rest of the cast members in the opening scene. LOL. Ji Suk-jin’s odd behavior and questions confuse the cast members (like usual) and they attack him with some harsh jokes. Haha.

The PD goes on to explain the rules for the episode: they will divide into two teams – a Team Face and a Team Voice. Upon hearing the news, everyone immediately walks over to the booth labeled ‘Team Face’ while only Jong-kook waits patiently at the Team Voice booth. LOL. After a few back-and-forth conversations, Haha decides to join Jong-kook in Team Voice while the remaining six members stay with Team Face.

We’re then introduced to the two guests for the episode: Im Soo-hyang from ‘My I.D. is Gangnam Beauty’ and Lee Ha-na from ‘Voice.’ The cast members point out Soo-hyang’s first appearance on the show which was a few years back. After many years, she’s finally on the show again. As for Lee Ha-na, she confesses that she’s been a long-time ‘Running Man’ fan and that her favorite episode was the one with Lee Kwang-soo’s fan. When asked about Ji Suk-jin’s special ‘Sherlock Holmes’ episode, Lee Ha-na admits that she doesn’t remember that episode in particular. LOL.

After interviewing the two guests, they move on to forming teams. Since there’s six members on Team Face, two members are transferred over to the other team through a game of Running Man’s favorite ‘Race Wits’ and Im Soo-hyang’s personal pick. Ji-hyo ends up losing in the ‘Race Wits’ game and Se-chan is personally chosen by Im Soo-hyang to leave the team. Thankfully, Lee Ha-na accepts both members gracefully into her team and our two teams are established. Team Face consists of Captain Im Soo-hyang, Yoo Jae-suk, Jeon So-min, Lee Kwang-soo, and Ji Suk-jin. Meanwhile, Team Voice consists of Captain Lee Ha-na, Kim Jong-kook, Song Ji-hyo, Haha, and Yang Se-chan.

The theme for the episode is ‘Legendary Captain Race.’ After three rounds, the team with more money wins a reward while the losing team will be penalized. However, the one with the most money in the losing team will be excluded from the penalty while the one with the least amount of money in the winning team will be penalized.

Before the start of the first round, the PD explains that each team can also vote to elect a new captain if they wish. They just have to write their name on a ballot and hand it to the cameramen. If a new captain is elected for the team, the new and former captain will have to switch bank accounts and the authority to divide money among the team members will be given to the new captain. Team Face jokes that they’ll be voting often then and Kwang-soo even takes out a ballot with his name already written on it upon hearing the rules. LOL. Jeon So-min grabs his ballot and quickly rips it apart in front of him. As if that wasn’t enough, the rest of the members tease Kwang-soo for looking like the huge statue laying right behind them (“even their hair looks similar!”. Lol).

In order to make any bets, the teams will have to borrow a loan first. The amount of money in which they can borrow depends on the results of the first game: Wrap Monster (LOL I C WHAT U DID THERE RUNNING MAN). Using frames wrapped in plastic wrap, the two captains will have to use their head to break through the plastic wrap. For each frame that they break through, they will get $50. Lee Ha-na is uncertain as to how she’s going to accomplish the game, but she learns a few tips thanks to Yoo Jae-suk who whispers to Im Soo-hyang some advice. Just like in ‘Voice’, Lee Ha-na can easily hear things from the Running Man members too. LOL.

Lee Ha-na starts first and just like her team members noted, she is quite the competitive type. She forgets about her image as an actress and quickly and easily breaks through the plastic frames. She’s so fast and good she manages to break 8 plastic frames within the short amount of given time. LOL. Captain Soo-hyang feels the pressure to do well on her part and unfortunately she pales in comparison to Captain Ha-na. She manages to only break through 3.

While Team Face voices their disappointment in their captain, Jeon So-min decides to play around a little bit. She grabs one of the frames and sticks it right in front of Kwang-soo’s face. His face leaves behind an imprint on the plastic wrap and Yoo Jae-suk immediately goes into auction mode. Each of the cast members bid on the plastic frame with Kwang-soo’s face on it and the auction suddenly ends at Ji Suk-jin’s $70. Even Suk-jin himself wasn’t expecting to be the winner, but he wins and he’s not so happy. LOL. They’re so silly sometimes I swear.

It’s then time for the captains to decide whose name the loans will be under. Captain Soo-hyang puts the entire loan under Ji Suk-jin’s name while Captain Ha-na’s decision is unknown.

The teams move on to the next game: Sleeping Bag Express 999 Karaoke. Each team will be put in sleeping bags that are connected to one another. When the PD recites lyrics from a song, whichever team recognizes the song first must run up to the microphone and state the artist as well as title of the song. Before they start the game, each team must make a decision on how much money they want to bet.

While both teams consider their options, Ji Suk-jin accidentally farts out loud causing everyone to run away from him. LOLOL. This part is seriously so funny! Kwang-soo goes off to hide behind Yoo Jae-suk while Team Voice stare at Ji Suk-jin confusingly. Even the staff member at the loan bank not too far away laughs at Ji Suk-jin. HAHAHAHA. After a few minutes, each team makes their bet: Team Face bids $140 while Team Voice bids $110. As a result, the winning team of this mission will receive twice the amount of both bids combined which comes out to $500 ($140 + $110 = $250 x 2 = $500).

The game finally starts and the lyrics to the first song are recited: “Love / A new love.” Captain Soo-hyang immediately recognizes the song and jumps up to the microphone with the rest of her team. She guesses the song as PSY’s ‘New Face’ which she gets correct. The song plays afterwards and she and her team dance to PSY’s ‘New Face.’ Captain Soo-hyang is especially familiar with the song since she danced to it in ‘My I.D. is Gangnam Beauty.’ Meanwhile, Team Voice walks back to the starting line and devise a new plan to defeat Team Face: Kim Jong-kook will push the other team as they run to the microphone. Lol.

The lyrics to the next song are recited: “Think twice / I can’t act nice.” Both teams immediately jump their way to the mic, but as noted last time, Kim Jong-kook pushes Team Face along the way. This then allows Team Voice to arrive at the mic first, but their first guess of Kim Hyun-jung is wrong (I immediately knew what song it was upon hearing the lyrics LOL). Team Face finally makes their way to the mic afterwards (while dragging Kwang-soo to get there of course) and make guess Miss A’s ‘Bad Girl Good Girl.’ However, Team Face’s guess is incorrect so Team Voice gives it another try: Black Pink’s ‘Ddu Du Ddu Du.’ The guess is correct and the win goes to Team Voice.

It’s the final song for this mission: “I’ve been waiting for today.” Just like last time, both teams jump towards the mic and Team Face is pushed to the ground by Jong-kook. Team Voice manages to answer first correctly with Uhm Jung-hwa’s ‘Invitation.’ Team Voice ends up winning the first mission and receives $500 as a reward.

Captain Ha-na visits the bank to distribute the prize money. She quickly makes her decision and allows for Se-chan to check his personal balance out of all the team members. Upon seeing his balance, he’s a little confused considering that his team just won $500. Lol. When that is done, the PD makes a grand announcement: two individuals from Team Face has submitted ballots for a new captain. These two candidates are none other than Kwang-soo and Jeon So-min. LOL.

With two new candidates and the current captain, the three try their best to appeal to Ji Suk-jin and Yoo Jae-suk in order to get their votes. Jeon So-min vows to split their money 4:4:2 while Kwang-soo continually gets teased by Yoo Jae-suk. Captain Soo-hyang makes her appeal as well. The voters make their final decision and elect Jeon So-min to be the new captain. As a result, Soo-hyang and So-min’s bank accounts are switched and Ji Suk-jin and Yoo Jae-suk can check their balance account since they voted for Jeon So-min. Ji Suk-jin discovers that he has a debt of $150 in his bank account which throws him off. Lol.

Our teams move to the next location for the next mission. Before they start, Team Voice holds a secret meeting without their captain. Since Se-chan was able to check his balance, he points out to the remaining 3 members that someone in the group has no money at all. Maybe they should change captains after all.

Before the start of the second mission, they must play another game to take out another loan. This time, the game is called ‘Burning Forehead.’ One team member has to slap another team member on the forehead. For every decibel they get, the team will earn $10. While Yoo Jae-suk and Lee Kwang-soo are the perfect duo for this from Team Face, Jong-kook points out that Ha-na seems like the perfect team member to also participate since she’s been into boxing lately. LOL.

Kwang-soo and Jae-suk start first. Kwang-soo throws a small fit at first for having to be the one who gets slapped, but he gives in when Soo-hyang calls him ‘cool.’ LOL. Jae-suk eventually slaps Kwang-soo’s forehead and achieves an astounding 83.5. They earn a whopping $840 just based off of the slap alone.

It’s Team Voice’s turn. Captain Ha-na is chosen to slap Jong-kook on the forehead. The only problem is that she does slap him.. but in the eyes instead of the forehead. LOLOL. Everyone freaks out upon witnessing the slap and worry for Jong-kook’s eyes. They even note that this was their first time ever hearing Jong-kook make a noise after getting hit. LOL. I shouldn’t laugh, but this scene was so funny. The pain is well worth it as Team Voice earns $830 from the slap.

With the loans borrowed, both captains of each team distribute the loans. They then move on to the next mission: Flour Puck. There’s a table set up with flour spread all over. Each team receives 100 paper pucks and are to take turns blowing at the stack of paper pucks. The team who blows all 100 paper pucks away first wins. The losing team will be doused with a water bomb as a penalty. Furthermore, the prize money for this round will be a total of $2,680.

In the first battle between Kwang-soo and Se-chan, Se-chan manages to take the lead by blowing over 22 paper pucks while Kwang-soo flips over 6. Our two guests battle it out against each other. While receiving lessons from her Team Face members, Soo-hyang notices that Kwang-soo’s lips are bleeding. LOL. He didn’t feel anything so he wasn’t aware of it. LOLOL. The two guests move on to playing the game themselves. Ha-na flips over 5 pucks while Soo-hyang flips over 2. Team Voice has 73 paper pucks left while Team Face has 92 respectively.

Ji Suk-jin goes up against Se-chan next. Se-chan manages to only flip over 4 paper pucks thanks to Ji Suk-jin’s great defense. Ji Suk-jin himself proves to be an expert at the game as he manages to flip over an amazing 42 paper pucks. LOL. This leaves Team Face with 50 paper pucks left while Team Voice has 69.

Jong-kook decides to step up to help his team win. With his impressive skills, he flips over a total of 25 paper pucks excluding the ones standing up which Team Face claims doesn’t count. Ace players Suk-jin and Jong-kook continue to play against each other and eventually reach a score of 7:15 with Team Face in the lead. Kwang-soo and Se-chan decide to play the last few rounds. Se-chan flips over 3 pucks while Kwang-soo flips over 6, leaving just one left to flip over. Jong-kook substitutes in for Se-chan again and flips over 9, leaving just 3 left.

In Kwang-soo’s last hopeful attempt to flip over the last puck, he blows on the puck only for it to stand up. As mentioned earlier, a standing puck doesn’t count so Team Voice receives another chance in winning. However, thanks to So-min’s great defense, Jong-kook flips two out of the three pucks so Team Face has a shot at winning. In an intense and unexpected match, Jeon So-min flips over the last paper puck causing Team Face to win and Team Voice to be drenched in water.

Captain So-min distributes the $2,680 prize money among her team members. Soo-hyang is allowed to check her balance and finds that So-min only gave her $200. Lol. Meanwhile, Team Voice has a new candidate in the running to be team captain: Haha. He submitted the ballot himself in hopes that he can become the new captain and help his team win. Lee Ha-na attempts to defend herself and claims that she’ll help her team laugh if they vote to keep her as captain. LOL.

Team Voice eventually decides to vote for Haha as the new captain. However, unlike what he expected, he discovers that his balance consists of just loans and debt even after switching accounts with Ha-na. Ha-na had placed all the loans under her name just in case a new team member was elected captain and it just happened to be Haha’s luck that he was selected as the new captain. LOL. So much for wanting to be the captain Haha.

We then move on to the third and final round: Legendary Treasure Hunt. Each team is given 20 minutes to find a hidden cash prize. The other team will attack and rip off the defending team’s name tags in order to eliminate them in the race. For every cash prize that the captain finds, the amount will be doubled. However, if the defending team all gets eliminated before the time is over or the captain of the team gets eliminated, then the race is over.

The treasure hunt starts and Team Voice sets off to find the cash prizes. Ji-hyo finds one worth $500 a minute into the game while Haha finds a $300 cash prize thanks to Jong-kook. Meanwhile, Team Face all stick together as a team and worry about Jong-kook. There’s no way they’ll be able to eliminate Haha since Jong-kook is most likely protecting him. More importantly, who in Team Face will protect So-min when it comes to their turn? LOL.

Team Face eventually finds Haha searching for cash prizes and as they had predicted, Jong-kook is indeed with him. Jong-kook sacrifices himself to distract Team Face so that Haha can run away. Although Haha manages to escape, Jong-kook is unfortunately eliminated.

While the remaining Team Voice members discover a few more cash prizes, Haha is eventually eliminated by Kwang-soo and Jae-suk without Jong-kook there to protect him. The round finishes and it’s now Team Face’s turn to find cash prizes.

Before the round starts, Team Face warns Soo-hyang to be careful of Jong-kook. He’s probably angry at her for ripping off his name tag, lol. The chemistry between Team Face is well and alive and they find their teamwork fascinating. Meanwhile, Team Voice brainstorms different methods and strategies to defeating Team Face. The round eventually starts and our two teams are on their ways with different goals.

So-min and Kwang-soo decide that hiding behind the bathroom trailer would be the better and safer option than going out to search for the cash prizes. They’re close to getting caught by Ji-hyo, but she merely misses the two slightly. Meanwhile, Jong-kook gets his revenge on Soo-hyang and rips off her name tag just like how she did to him in the round prior.

Team Voice eventually finds So-min’s hideout thanks to Ha-na’s thorough searching. While Kwang-soo fends off Se-chan, Ha-na runs after So-min and eventually rips off her name tag. The round finishes and the two teams are reconvened again to receive the results to the final mission.

The captains of each team last distribute the last of the cash prizes that they discovered during the last mission. Team Face’s total amount of cash prizes amount up to $1,200 while Team Voice’s cash prize totals up to $890. The win is Team Face’s and they receive books as a reward. Yoo Jae-suk jokes around that Ji Suk-jin should read the book titled ‘The Last Leaf’ since it’s more suitable for his age. Kwang-soo and So-min take the ‘Crime and Punishment’ books while Soo-hyang is gifted the ‘My Sweet Orange Tree’ book. Yoo Jae-suk gets to keep the ‘The Great Gatsby’ book and as an extra gift, Ji Suk-jin is given ‘The Old Man and the Sea.’ LOL. Ji Suk-jin decides to be kind and gives ‘The Last Leaf’ to Ha-na. Lol.

The PD reads out the ranks in Team Face to determine who has the least amount of money:

1. So-min
2. Soo-hyang
3. Kwang-soo
4. Ji Suk-jin
5. Yoo Jae-suk

As the one with the least amount of money, Yoo Jae-suk is to be penalized. Meanwhile, for Team Voice, only the person with the most amount of money will be excluded from the penalty. Haha decides to be a kind and giving Captain and gives Jong-kook, Ji-hyo, and Ha-na an equal amount of money which means they are all exempt from the punishment. This leaves only Haha and Se-chan to face the penalty, lol. Poor Se-chan.

There are only 2 cannons equipped with whipped cream as part of the punishment, but three members are subject to the penalty. As a last resort in deciding who exactly will be punished, Se-chan immediately starts a game of ‘Race of Wits’ in which he and Haha participates in. This leaves Yoo Jae-suk as the loser of the game and he is one out of the two to get punished. LOL.

Since he’s already chosen for the penalty, Yoo Jae-suk gets to decide on the last member to also be penalized with him. Haha attempts to use the ‘Infinity Challenge’ reason to appeal to Yoo Jae-suk’s emotions, but that’s exactly the reason why Yoo Jae-suk choose Haha (Yoo Jae-suk and Haha were on the show together). Haha and Yoo Jae-suk face the penalty together and get their faces whipped with whip cream.

My Thoughts:

This episode was a pretty entertaining one throughout so it was definitely a hit for me. Running Man episodes have always been sort of hit or miss for me with some episodes being a mix of both. For the most part, this episode was a decent one and there were many different scenes that provided me with so much laughter.

I prefer Running Man episodes without guests, but this was one episode where I didn’t mind the guests. While I found Lee Ha-na’s competitiveness at times off-putting, she was generally cute and funny with her great listening skills and constant complimenting of her team members. She was also smart with the way she put all the loans under her name so that the new captain would suffer and inherit all the loans. Lol. That was a great plot twist.

Im Soo-hyang was so charming and endearing with her appearance in this episode. Many years later, she’s finally returned after hitting success with recent drama ‘My I.D. is Gangnam Beauty.’ Soo-hyang is an actress who I’ve known about for long now with past projects like ‘I Do I Do’ and ‘Inspiring Generation.’ I would say her career has been an interesting one so far, but it’s great to see her rising again with her latest drama (which was great by the way). She was just so cute all around and you can tell that she had fun with Team Face. It was nice to see her return to ‘Running Man’ again.

This episode was hilarious for a few reasons: the chemistry between the cast members and the guests, Ji Suk-jin’s surprise farting, Kim Jong-kook’s pushing of Team Face during the karaoke game, the ending ‘Race of Wits’ game between Se-chan, Haha, and Yoo Jae-suk, Kwang-soo and Jeon So-min’s betrayal to become captain as well as their hiding behind the bathroom trailer, and Yoo Jae-suk’s ‘booing’ of Kwang-soo as Kwang-soo was explaining his reasons for wanting to become the team captain. As Running Man has been a show for many years now, it comes as no surprise that the members have great chemistry with one another. They still manage to keep up to this day and it’s so great to see them still maintain these hilarious and comedic interactions with one another. Ji Suk-jin in particular has been naturally funny the past few episodes so while he might still be known as the weaker member of the team, I would like to think that he’s also rediscovering himself again on the show.

The games in this episode for the most part were fun to watch. I wished they had done more of the karaoke game and less of the paper puck one (that game took so long lol). The treasure hunt was fun to watch as well because it was simple and easy to follow, but still stayed true to its root with the name tag elimination. Running Man has long distanced themselves from the name tag elimination game because of how intense and rough it can get sometimes, but I like how it still pops up in Running Man every once in a while. The name tags will always be iconic, but I also don’t miss the name tag elimination game as much. It’s nice to see Running Man trying different games that aren’t as physically demanding and exhausting but still fun to watch.

I will forever be a dedicated and loyal watcher of ‘Running Man.’ Even if the show might not be as big or popular as it once used to be, I still heavily enjoy the show because of the cast members. Even if the missions and games for each episode might be difficult to follow or a little over-the-top, the cast members know how to make each episode entertaining and that’s the funnest part for me. I hope the show never ends.

Bonus: Extra screenshots from the episode 🙂

This slideshow requires JavaScript.