Running Man: Episode 92

by gummimochi

If you don’t mind your jjajangmyun bowl taking all day to be delivered, you can put in an order at the Running Man Restaurant. Careful it doesn’t come with a side dish of betrayal and make sure to wash that down with a tall glass of hijinks.

EPISODE 92. Broadcast on April 29, 2012.

Five seconds in and already Kwang-soo gets a beatdown about getting overly enthusiastic. Haha reminds him that it’s been nearly 2 years with the undertone that he should get how RM runs now.

Rubbing salt into the wound, Jae-suk recalls the Hyungnim Race and blames him for the abbreviated air time because they were teamed up together. Jong-kook jumps in that he’ll put him to use. Or put him in a time-out corner for half a day if you ask me.

Big Nose Hyung mines Kwang-soo too, but in so doing, makes Ji-hyo spill her coffee on her bosom. Kwang-soo immediately turns to help with good intentions, but the hyungs flare up at the inappropriate gesture. Rough start for the Giraffe. Kwang-soo: “[I only helped] ‘Cause she’s like family…”

The cast start tossing out ideas about who today’s guests might be, using their attire and current location at Chinatown as clues. Haha deduces that given recent weeks, they’re bound to have girl idols grace them with their presence.

Figuring that it’s not likely the RM staff would be THAT generous (a safe assumption I’d say), they lazily trudge towards the doors they’re instructed to wait outside of. Suk-jin: “I liked the hyungs!”

SpartAce and Haroro get a dud (Hi maknae FD!) while Jae-suk and Gary suspect they’ll end up with a gorgeous guest, like Suzy from idol group MissA. So they’re completely baffled to see a man greet them from the other side: actor Chun Jung-myung (Man of Honor, Cinderella’s Sister).

Gary blusters that Jung-myung’s actually pretty as Jae-suk butters the staff up that he’s best buddies with Jung-myung.

In the next room, however, another mystery guest whispers, “Call Suzy over here quick!” Flustered, he proposes whether he should dress up like a woman. What? So you can fulfill their desires for a female guest?

Outside, the Easy Brothers ready themselves to greet their guest. Once the doors open, both parties are equally frozen in shock and disappointment at the sight of the other. If you haven’t figured it out yet, say hello to Park Jin-young, or JYP.

He’s so wonderfully earnest from what we’ve previously seen, admitting that he was quaking in his shoes, afraid that they’d be disheartened by seeing him: “You wanted a female guest and at least Jung-myung is pretty!” Kwang-soo adds that he even blurted out an apology as soon as they saw each other. Super pop mogul afraid of what the Running Man think?

The cast asks JYP to sing a few bars of his new single. Then Haha basically rips him a new one when JYP’s voice cracks (not enough almonds in the morning?) telling him, “It’s half-singing and half-breathing,” a common criticism he dishes out on K-Pop Star.

And they run that clip between the two shows – it’s both hilarious and humiliating when your own criticism is slapped back in your face like that.

Woah, I had no idea that Jung-myung appeared on X-Man either. Jae-suk refers to his days as Mr. Kkong ’cause he used to hold lots of grudges back then. You’d think that it’d be a nickname he’d like to forget, but then he recalls the exact year. Dude, you miss it.

Anyway, today’s race is a Jjajangmyun Race where the winner is the first team who delivers their customer’s order. The prize? Gold chopsticks.

Everyone chows down rather happily and Jae-suk is at unease, thinking it odd the staff would just let them eat. But an order comes in and they race to grab the phone.

JYP picks up the call and has a hard time hearing the garbled voice on the line. He repeats just to clarify (to his teammates Sssh!s) and make sure to pick up a jjajangmyun before they head out.

Jong-kook confirms the location all like, Okay got it. Let me write it down on my fancy schmancy LG Optimus Vu! Helllloo product placement!

The restaurant’s phone rings nearby and Gary picks up, ready to take the order, when Jung-myung shows him the LG phone that’s actually for them.

Haha playfully pretends to rip off Jung-myung’s name tag, which nearly scares the bejesus out of him. He simply smiles, “Oh, so this is what it’s like! You can’t be careless!” No, no you can’t.

I love it when RM gets guests who are unfamiliar with the show’s format as the Easy Brothers try to convince JYP that their “Feel! Touch! Cross!” catchphrase is super popular. Pffffftt.

JYP adds his own little spin and the guys laugh over how his voice squeaks again: “sPEed!”

Jung-myung shares that he’s still very much Mr. Kkong, citing that his competitive nature is so strong that he’d even refuse to shake hands with his opponent after a jujitsu match. And then he’s like, “I realized the importance of shaking hands!” as if it was some great revelation.

Jae-suk points out he sure didn’t act so merciful earlier to Haha, mimicking an elbowing gesture.

SpartAce and Haroro belatedly realize they’ve got the real noodles (whereas the other team are currently delivering fakes) but their happy faces grow dim when Mr. PD informs them that they’ve forgotten the wooden chopsticks. Uh-oh.

No worries, though – they can pick ’em up at the next mini-mission. ‘Cause God forbid that you just swing by a convenience store. Heh.

They arrive at their wooden chopsticks detour stop which is right by the ocean. The mission here is to identify an object inside the metal delivery box. Problem is, it’s too far to correctly discern the item. However many ‘steps’ or ‘moves’ they make equate to that number in mm. Suk-jin: “100 steps = 100 mm?” and JYP chirps, “That’s 10 cm!”

Myuk PD slides open the lid for less than 2 seconds and closes it. He’s like, you saw it right? Dumbfounded faces greet him back. He’s having wwwayy too much fun at their expense.

After all the teams shout out wrong answers (JYP’s crew gets shut down for failure to answer quick enough), Kwang-soo thrusts his team flag in frustration. It breaks and they scramble to stick the broken pieces back into the sand. HA.

In any case, it’s dancing time to JYP’s former hit “Elevator.” They all look like they’re legitimately having fun. SpartAce’s team churns out some impressive numbers (it only gets them about a meter) as well as Jung-myung’s team.

HA – JYP starts whining about how you’re supposed to dance with the beat. He points out his 130 and declares, “Any number higher than this meant they were off-beat!” But it’s not as sad as Kwang-soo’s pathetic 36.

Is utilizing Kwang-soo’s tall stature to your advantage a display of your need of efficiency? After another dance time filled with blocking others’ dance moves and a shot of Kwang-soo’s solo to a seagull, they weigh in.

Gary’s team guesses the item (ramyun) correctly, even grabbing the real chopsticks to boot. Then Mr. PD calls in again – this time, the customer wants lots of danmuji. So it’s off to a boat ride to acquire yet another item.

Back on the beach, JYP’s team’s faces fall after choosing fake chopsticks. I love how instead of yelling at each other, they just sigh, “JYP don’t pick anymore.”

What’s impressive, however, is that JYP makes up a short theme song for the Easy Brothers: “We’re Easy, but we’re not easy. We’re going to win today.”

The fog settles in at Muuido and Gary asks the questions I’ve been wondering as well: “Why is it so tiring to deliver one measly bowl of jjajangmyun?!” The mini-mission here is pretty absurd as well: Find 2 matching items while one team member submerges their head underwater.

The more I watch, the more I realize that Jung-myung’s been paired up pretty well with Jae-suk. The nation’s MC does a great job of making whatever his guest said interesting and uses their unique qualities as entertainment.

Case in point: Jung-myung simply laughs at the mission, taking it all in at face value and Jae-suk reminds him that he can’t be that innocent when it comes to Running Man. Staff be ruthless fo sho.

HAHAHA – the “Under the Sea” soundtrack is so appropriate here. Jae-suk doesn’t last very long and JYP’s team comes waltzing in bragging about their new single “Easy Brothers” Gary admits it’s cool but it basically falls apart when JYP isn’t singing it.

The others tease JYP from the sidelines and Jung-myung just bristles his feathers by calling him, “Yangjangpi” which uses the letters of his name and refers to a cold vegetable salad. He lasts nearly 2 minutes (!!) before coming back up for air.

Kwang-soo jokes that he didn’t last THAT long and JYP squeaks again, “Then YOU do it!”

Heh. When Jong-kook goes under, his face is so ridiculous the captions read: “Jjang-gu?” like the famous cartoon character. But a little prod from Kwang-soo is enough for the tiger to surface again and snap at the giraffe.

*sigh* Oh Easy Brothers, when will you ever learn? They spend most of their time swinging around and around because they didn’t link themselves properly. Lesson? JYP can hold his breath for a while.

Jae-suk interprets Jong-kook’s respect not to distract each other anymore as exclusively towards him which means he has the full freedom to annoy his other teammates and chases after them. But the Ace doesn’t tolerate that kind of behavior and whacks him away.

Despite the other team’s best efforts, the SpartAce team finishes first anyway. They pick the real danmuji and Mr. PD informs them of an added caveat to their delivery – they need 3 Running Man stickers in order to get paid. Jeez, like it wasn’t hard enough as it is.

Oh, Jung-myung you were soooo close!!! Jae-suk and Gary crumple to the ground, shouting that it was like a scene straight from a movie. Jung-myung responds, “How’d I do? Did I bring the scene to life?” You can say that.

To make matters worse, it happens AGAIN, victory snubbed at the last moment because Jung-myung bursts into laughter. In a happy-go-lucky voice full of pride, he says, “I lasted 10 more seconds! I laughed because I imagined you two running towards me!”

Jae-suk reminds him that they were the first ones who got here, remember? Yeah, but you also screamed out, “We’re HERE!!!” like 200 feet away. Third time’s the charm (I held my breath when Jung-myung almost came up for air again) and they snort at the danmuji-like sliced lemon.

The teams travel across the bridge to hide their real food items and acquire their needed stickers. The SpartAce and JYP teams run into each other and establish an alliance. Haha makes it a point to inform JYP of RM’s Betrayal Mascot: Kwang-soo.

Jung-myung points him out right away and they pounce on him like the easy prey he is. But Suk-jin and JYP hold poor Gary hostage. They have good reason to be nervous, since Gary holds their sticker. Thankfully, they do a fair and safe exchange for their respective hostages.

Meanwhile, SpartAce and Haroro keep watch.

JYP’s team decides that they need a fake alliance to take out the stronger team (Jong-kook’s) and ever the betrayer, Kwang-soo adds that it’s the perfect time to eliminate Spartakooks.

But Jung-myung and his hyungs come racing down the hill, being chased by Jong-kook and his team. Jung-myung instinctively crouches to a jujitsu stance that everyone mocks.

Jung-myung jumps down and faces off against Jong-kook. It quickly escalates to this confusing brawl where JYP hovers over Jong-kook… and Suk-jin gets eliminated. But Big Nose Hyung accepts the anti-climactic elimination in leisure and announces the real start to the game.

Just because he’s out, however, doesn’t mean he can’t dole out advice to his teammates. Jong-kook relates it to the team’s guardian angel (in jail?) or like that annoying kid who keeps talking after he’s killed off in Mafia.

Looks like those jujitsu moves come in handy, wrapping his foot around Jong-kook’s. Too bad things are so jumbled in the mob that it’s ineffective.

Aww, Jung-myung is so adorably excited about the game that he keeps asking, when are we gonna go against them? I wanna go fight ’em! Hahaha.

It’s damn near impossible to fool Jong-kook, however, because as they try to lure him in, he asks from a distance: “The guy behind the wall – is that Jung-myung or Gary?” Well, sort of, because it’s Kwang-soo’s shadow (he’d been trying to sneak up on Jae-suk this entire time).

Even all of that, down to Kwang-soo’s feigned surprise is an elaborate plan to catch Jae-suk. But Gary goes after Kwang-soo while Haha aims for Jae-suk and in the aftermath, SpartAce and Haha make a break for it.

AHAHAHA – Poor Jung-myung attempts to sneak attack the other teams, but the door’s firmly locked and when he finally jumps across to the other side, his other team members are already eliminated.

So he’s got no choice but to ally with JYP. Their target? Jong-kook.

The new alliance gets their target cornered and attacks. Ji-hyo jumps in against JYP, but loses, handing over their sticker.

This leaves Jong-kook in a more vulnerable state as all three zero in on him. Then suddenly Kwang-soo’s hand firmly grasps onto Jung-myung’s back…and he’s out.

There’s got to be a reason for his betrayal right? Haha baited him with a message that if he betrayed his alliance, he in turn would take out Jong-kook. And you believed that?! Silly traitor.

And JYP just throws up his hands in disbelief, “Why’d he do it?! I don’t get it!” Jung-myung sits in his chair in jail, sighing that there were a plethora of ways the situation could have been more entertaining. HA – are you an amateur variety producer on the side?

JYP has a heart-to-heart with Kwang-soo not to betray his own and he simply just nods along. I dunno… Incriminating Kwang-soo can get pretty ruthless with the right kind of bait.

Well I think that threat of, “You see that tiger hide over there? You don’t want to end up like that, right?” should keep you safe.

They lure Jong-kook and Haha out to the beach and JYP proposes that they pit Haha vs. Kwang-soo. Wait, is this going to be like last time?

It takes a few taunts, but Haroro steps to meet his match. Kwang-soo starts off, feigning concern that there’s broken glass… PUAHAHAHA. It’s so much better than they’re last match ’cause they basically twirl around and around, neither stronger than the other.

After what seems like forever and a day, Kwang-soo rips off Haha’s name tag.

But that leaves him open for Spartakooks to hunt. So JYP bolts to save his teammate and rips off Jong-kook’s name tag which secures the victory for his team.

On the other end of the beach, Haha cries, “I lost! To the Giraffe!”

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