Running Man: Episode 86

by gummimochi

It’s the first-ever Running Man Championships where rivalry is serious, the tears are real, and the competition is tough. The all-day event tests their physical, mental, and psychological limits. So make sure you’re ready to go or you’ll miss your mark!

EPISODE 86. Broadcast on March 18, 2012.

Outside the SBS Center, the first-ever Running Man Championships are being held. It’s time to introduce our competitors!

It’s apparent that none of them are fully aware of what’s going on but as they arrive, their descriptions are hilarious – like about Jae-suk’s trademark tight pants (and again he wears skinny athletics), to Jong-kook’s weakness to women. And just to test it out, the female announcer asks what he thinks of her. You mean as compared to Yoon Eun-hye?

Aww… and they call Gary ‘ex-Monday Boyfriend‘?! Drive that nail into my coffin harder why don’t you. HA – and Haha’s wearing a lightning bolt tracksuit. Then there’s Ji-hyo who really looks like she rolled out of bed. Hit or miss each week, this girl.

Kwang-soo zooms in with the fastest entrance ever and I love how his hobby description is annoying the Tiger, aka Jong-kook. Adding insult to injury, the announcers praise him for winning the “Gary Knows” special… but no one cared. Poor puppy.

We’ve got two guests today! Say hello to returning guest Gaeko (Dynamic Duo) who mentions that he’s been called here on a rush. And here to light the torch is none other than Ha Ji-won (The King 2 Hearts, Secret Garden). Cue the boys go fanboy crazy. That is a legit torch and Ji-won screams as it sets ablaze. The boys may as well have hearts in their eyes as she speaks.

Time to pick teams. Mr. PD, Secret Garden was so 2011, and if Ji-won is here to promote her new drama, The King 2 Hearts, where the heck is Seung-gi?! *hides from girlfriday* Maybe that’s too much star power in one episode.

The boys get all caught up that if Ji-won accepts theme via famous Secret Garden sit-up, they’ll be on their team. Haha’s so quick on the uptake here: “Accept us as in our lips…?” Oh you wannabe playboy, you.

He goes first, and Ji-won leans in… and she pushes him down with her finger. Rejected! Pffft and that’s such a bad angle for you Gary – but Ji-won accepts him anyway. There’s hope yet for the ex-Monday Boyfriend!

Jae-suk volunteers himself while the others groan for his familiar relationship with Ji-won. And he waits expectantly with his eyes saying, ‘Come on, Ji-won! We’re friends!!’ But once she sees him sans glasses, she cowers in surprise and yelps loudly: “It’s a different person!!”

The members say that he looks like another MC, Park Myung-soo, and it takes all of Ji-won’s resolve to hold back while Yoo Myung-soo tries again, with “Sea Prince” playing in the background. His eyes are a world of a different from Binnie, but luckily for Jae-suk, she chooses him.

Our teams: Red (Jae-suk, Gary, & Ji-won), Blue (Haha, Ji-hyo, & Gaekho), and Yellow Safari (Tiger Jong-kook, Giraffe Kwang-soo, and Impala Suk-jin.

In the car, Jae-suk asks after how old Ji-won is. Oof, careful there – you be treading treacherous waters. But Ji-won serves him back an order of aegyo that melts the men in the car into a puddle of goo.

There’s a huge crowd waiting for our cast at the first mission location and what in the what? That’s a freakin’ bowling lane constructed on the street. Here, they need to get at least two strikes to move on. Haha is completely amazed and so am I.

Jong-kook misses the strike by two pins, so Kwang-soo revs up… and as expected gets a gutter ball. And Haha learns not to take his sweet ol’ time or the cheers for him will be drowned out by screams of Jae-suk’s arrival. Can’t compete with the nation’s MC.

Speaking of whom, Jae-suk sets himself to bowl, but it slips out of his hands. HA! Mm, it’s hard to tell whether he was trying to pull a funny or because of the awkward bowling glove. And there goes Haha again, trying to slip in his playboy antics by showing Ji-won how to bowl.

It’s the Yellow team who succeeds first (thanks to Kwang-soo’s strike) and the Blue Team follows in close succession, running a victory lap in glee.

Ji-won is so adorable. She falls to the ground after another gutter ball, letting out a cry of forlornness. The boys tease her for her comic book heroine-like reactions, like how her feet kick up in the air after Gary gets a strike for their team. And Jae-suk seals the deal calling upon the Green Grasshopper Gods.

A good ol’ game of badminton is next and after a wary start about where the serve should start, the shuttlecock gets caught at the net of rice bags. And Ji-won scoops it right up and tosses it right over (that’s still in?!). Then Haha’s plan to coax her backfires on him and Ji-won pushes it to the other side. 2:0.

The score turns to 10:6 for the Red Team, and Haha sends his other teammates away, his Haroro temper flaring through his nostrils. He gets ready to face-off the other team, but he loses the very next turn.

What do you know – Big Nose Hyung is actually good at something (Apparently, he’s the head of a badminton society)! And all is NOT well in the safari because Ji-won sends the shuttlecock flying through Kwang-soo’s legs and the giraffe gets a beatdown from his hyungs, eventually getting ushered OUT of the court.

Seeing the Red Team get along so well, the captions read how Kwang-soo wants to change teams.

Ji-won calls out “oppa,” which reddens all three faces on the Yellow Team. She serves it directly to Jong-kook and the shuttlecock hits his nose. HA – I need a gif of this. Score’s 3:6.

The “oppa” attack seriously messes with Jong-kook’s head enough that they trade him out for Kwang-soo (“I’ve never seen anyone play badminton so poorly in my life!”) The Easy Brothers bring the score back up to 9:9, and soon Kwang-soo’s sneak attack brings them one point to winning it. But Ji-won will see to that and it’s a match point tied-game at 10:10.

The Yellow Team wins it, and everyone’s already dead tired, checking the growing dark circles under their eyes and head to Myungdong.

Round 3 is a high jump where they collectively have to jump 4 meters or higher. Everyone is a bit nervous, but Jae-suk attempts his jump… and clears 1.5m. Awesome! But Gary fails to clear. Boo!

HAHAHA – I love it how Haha tries to cut in so that he can jump the 1m and Ji-hyo asks in astonishment, “Are you asking ME to jump 1.5 meters?!” I bet those chompers help in the intimidation department.

The Blue team is at a disadvantage since they’re all similar heights. They send out Gaekho who makes the height but grabs onto the bar, so no go.

1.5 meters is no big for Spartakooks and 1.4m is nothing for 190cm tall Kwang-soo. And after a close call from Suk-jin, the Yellow Team pulls ahead again.

Poor Jae-suk. The combination of anxiety of jumping and that they’ve been hauling their butts all day causes him to squirm that he has got to go. He runs and jumps… the pole shakes… but it stays. The Red Team moves on!

Ji-won asks if he’ll be okay when they’re in the car, worried that the crowd and traffic will make waiting it out unbearable. Jae-suk’s face grows pale and he struggles to speak, his mind and bladder packed. Gary: “There’s a coffee cup back here…”

He manages however to say, “Ji-won – in a worst case scenario, pretend you didn’t see anything!!” And sweetly enough, she mirrors his actions to help bear the suffering.

Back at the high jump, Haha keeps failing, calling upon his time-controlling abilities, reversing time by himself while his teammates die laughing in a corner. At least you’re giving it your baekpercent, Haha!

Ji-hyo rolls over the final 1m and to the final mission location they go.

It’s a Death Relay, as in a relay so tough that you might wanna keel over rather than run it. The first leg looks absolutely brutal as they have to run a lap around the park and then run to the 6th floor, the second to the rooftop, and finally your classic rip-each-other’s-name tag off. The catch? If the baton holder is eliminated, so is your entire team.

They’ve got varying sizes of name tags and for the Blue Team who pulls in last… you might as well have them hug YOU.

If it looks arduous, I can only imagine how difficult it is for the members… and their poor VJs. Captions: “What sin did they commit to deserve this?”

An out of breath Jae-suk arrives first and starts to search the floor for Ji-won’s name tag. She comments that she’s touched that he ran so quickly. He hunts hers down soon enough and is too tired to grab the PD’s neck when he’s told that he must accompany his team throughout the race.

As if luck was on their side, all the teams find their own name tags by chance and when Mr. PD issues the warning about elimination again, Haha hands the baton to the Ace. Smart boy.

They enter the barren 13th floor, careful to look out for the Red Team who found all of theirs first. But as they enter a narrow hallway, someone reaches over and rips off Haha’s name tag.

Aha! So the Red Team lied in wait for the other team, grasping an opportune moment to attack. The noise alerts Gary down the hall and rrriiipppp within 1 minute, two-thirds of the Blue Team are eliminated.

They use the same tactic with the Yellow Team as Jae-suk reaches for Jong-kook’s back… but he whisks around faster than lightning. Kwang-soo tells him, “We didn’t find all of our name tags yet!” It’s a smart bluff as they took their time to set up a strategy to trap the other teams.

Ji-hyo’s first to smell something fishy going on – they already found their name tags! But the others believe Sparatavatar until Gary suggests that they pull off the name tags – it wouldn’t hurt, right?

Wrong. They catch on at Jong-kook’s knee-jerk reaction to protect Kwang-soo and Jae-suk tries to usher Ji-won to the sidelines. She whines, “I can fight too!” HAHAHAHA.

After they regroup, the Yellow Team notices that Ji-won’s gone missing. She’s hiding in the room next door, wishing that she could tear their name tags from here. But just because the windows are frosted doesn’t mean that she’s invisible and Jong-kook calls out, “Look, you can see Ji-won’s red sweater from here!” Busted.

Soon Jae-suk is eliminated and the Yellow Team runs off. The ladies head upstairs, followed by Sparatavatar, while Gary searches for Suk-jin in another part of the building.

The ladies spot Sparatavatar from the other end of the room, so they slip into the hall, waiting for the boys to come to them and it’s Kwang-soo who comes through the door first.

Ji-hyo lurches forward… and Kwang-soo’s eliminated. And there in his pocket is a baton. With one fell swoop, the entire Yellow Team is out.

In good sportsmanship, Ji-hyo tries to hand over Kwang-soo’s name tag, which is when Ji-won rips Ji-hyo’s off too. Red Team for the win!

Time for the medal ceremony with the Yellow Team winning the bronze, the Blue Team with silver, and the Red Team snatch the gold.

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