1 Night 2 Days: Episode 424

by javabeans

EPISODE 424. Broadcast on February 3, 2013.

javabeans: Time to return to our history-themed winter special. Baekje and Silla have had their beard-yanking war, with Baekje winning (both the game and the victory lunch). How like this show to contradict history in a history-centric exercise.

girlfriday: Right? It wouldn’t be 1N2D if they were all obsessed with trufax.

javabeans: Or, you know, knew any. They make it to basecamp and sit around waiting while the crew sets up, staring lasers at the covered dinner table in the middle of the yard.

girlfriday: They finally get to uncover the table, and it’s a huge spread. They count seven servings of rice, and Bird confirms that this is an all-or-nothing mission for the whole group. Is that good or bad? Doesn’t that mean they could ALL starve?

javabeans: That would be so sad. Maybe they’d get rice balls? That’s not much better.

girlfriday: Bird explains their task: Escape Your Room, divided into four separate mission rooms where they each have to complete some task in order to get out. The whole team has to make it out, and for every five minutes that passes, one dish goes off the table. Eeee. If even one of those rooms has a jaegi or a jumprope, they’ll starve.

javabeans: Tae-woong actually whines in this high-pitched voice, “Just let us eat!!”

girlfriday: Hee, it’s super high-pitched and exasperated.

javabeans: As a concession, Bird allows a little extra time for the guy who has to go solo. Su-geun heads inside the room that’s empty… until the PD claps and a whole crowd of guys starts trooping in. There must be at least 20 or 30 of them, and they storm Su-geun’s room all scary and Terminator-like.

girlfriday: And they got like the burliest dudes on the crew. What terrifying game is this? Su-geun immediately starts screaming, “Save me! Seung-woo hyung~!” It’s this tiny room and it’s filled wall-to-wall with guys. What?

javabeans: His only instruction is to leave out of the door he came in. Ha. I wonder if they’re allowed to hold him back, in which case this mission is pretty much impossible, or if they’re just there as roadblocks. Maybe he could climb on top of their heads and crowd-surf?

girlfriday: Apparently they can actively block him, but they can’t use their hands.

javabeans: On cue, they all take off their socks to get better grip on the wooden floors. (And in the background, you can hear Jong-min starting to scream from his room next door. Lol.)

girlfriday: Su-geun does try crowd-surfing on top of their heads, but that lasts about two seconds before he’s pushed back. This is going to be a long night for him. Seung-woo and Shi-kyung enter their room and find random exercise equipment. Their mission: Collect a capful of sweat and tears.

javabeans: Omg. I love this. Shi-kyung immediately starts doing push-ups. I’m like, just punch each other and get the tears over with quickly.

girlfriday: I know. They seem to be going for the sweat, but if it were Joo-won, couldn’t he just cry a bucketful?

javabeans: I feel like tears would be way easier. I mean, I can cry a bunch just yawning and pinching myself, and maybe thinking of sad Hallmark commercials. Exercise, on the other hand… bye-bye dinner.

girlfriday: Yeah they’re doing it the hard way. Joo-won and Tae-woong get to their room and are told to sort 200 pairs of socks. What on earth? What is even the point of that?

javabeans: It’s just a time-suck, is what it is. It’s an easy task, but not necessarily a five-minute one. I have visions of Joo-won holding up one sock, then going through 199 others to match it, and on and on.

girlfriday: Oh dear. Over in Tae-woong and Jong-min’s room, they get a noraebang challenge, to get a combined score between 176-180. At least this one will be entertaining.

javabeans: Haha, the first try gets them a combined score of 154 (73 and 81). They’re gonna have to up their game big-time.

girlfriday: The first five minutes pass and Bird removes a dish. I love the random things we hear in the background: singing on one side, and Su-geun screaming, “Save me!” from the other side.

javabeans: I wonder how bad Su-geun’s room of feet actually smells. He looks like he’s dying, and he starts pleading to leave just to get away from the stink. He needs some sort of strategy, because the brute force method is just not working.

girlfriday: Over in the sweat ‘n’ tears room, the boys put on parkas and start exercising like crazy, literally stopping to scoop up every drop of sweat as it falls. This is so inefficient, but kinda funny.

javabeans: I love how annoyed the sock sorters are getting. ‘Cause clearly they can DO this, it’s just incredibly tedious. Oh, can Su-geun actually eliminate his blockers by passing them? That’s much less terrible. He’s still struggling with a handful of guys left, but the room does feel much more maneuverable now.

girlfriday: Maybe they changed the rules when it looked nearly impossible the first way. Hilariously, his own manager is the last man standing, and they have this really long wrestling match before Su-geun finally makes it out alive.

javabeans: They’ve lost two dishes so far, of course the yummiest ones (beef and fried side dishes) and just as he emerges, the 15-minute mark passes and they lose bulgogi. Tear. At least the singers finally get their required score and burst out of the room in victory.

girlfriday: Next out is Team Sweat, which I kind of can’t believe. Did they really collect that much sweat?

javabeans: So. Gross. It looks like they’re so exhausted they don’t even have the energy to be excited.

girlfriday: By the time they’re out, another dish goes, and Shi-kyung gives Bird this death glare that makes him scamper away guiltily. Hee.

javabeans: That is hilarious. And if I were Bird I’d watch my back tonight. At least the boys get three dishes for dinner, which isn’t terrible. It’s japchae noodles, steamed rice with squash, and beef galbi.

girlfriday: Yummy. After dinner, Su-geun and Jong-min decide to play a game of ohmok for forehead flicks.

javabeans: They invite Bird to play, and at first he hangs back, not wanting a part of this forehead pain. But then Bird actually gets this glint in his eye as he joins them, and the captions name this his “revenge,” which means he’s gotta be pretty confident. Especially since he was so embarrassed to lose to Jong-min that last time (and Bird had the advantage then).

girlfriday: Ha, I love that he can’t resist the urge to beat Jong-min and reclaim his wounded pride.

javabeans: Jong-min loses, and Bird has this suuuuper smug smirk on his face as he delivers his flick… and then gets one in turn when he loses to Tae-hyun minutes later. Haha. Then we cut to a few minutes after that when Su-geun beats him too, and Bird actually tries to crawl away. It’s Jong-min who grabs him back and holds him there.

girlfriday: Lol, Bird walks away muttering that he’ll edit out the losing footage and just keep his game against Jong-min in the episode. They go outside for sleepytime bokbulbok, and stare suspiciously at the plastic greenhouse-looking thing next to them. Bird says they’ll earn the chance to move up with each game, from the plastic house to the tent, to the platform in the inner yard, to the living room, and finally the bedroom.

javabeans: The first task involves drinking cola in under 15 seconds, and holding back your burps—success to be determined by the audio PD. Haha. So you can’t make a sound, or hardly any just to be safe, but you have to drink fast.

girlfriday: They go about ten seconds holding it in, and then Su-geun lets out his hilarious cartoon-perfect BUUUU~RP. Hahaha.

javabeans: Wait, is sleepytime bokbulbok over already? Just like that?

girlfriday: No I think it means they can’t make it to the bedroom for sure, but they can still win their way up. Bird says their next game is guessing headlines from actual newspaper stories in 1993. Joo-won: “Er? From when I was six?”

javabeans: They try to argue with Bird, which is hilarious because it’s totally illogical. Su-geun: “Do you remember where you lived when you were six? Did you even know your name?” Joo-won shakes his head no. Seung-woo: “Joo-won doesn’t even read papers NOW, how would he know something from then?” Bird’s caption: “So?”

girlfriday: Somehow their illogical whining works, because Bird says that any of the members can answer then. Whew.

javabeans: Thankfully Jong-min remembers who got married then, and answers correctly. His caption: “Stunned he knew it.” Shi-kyung’s caption: “Stunned he didn’t.” Hilariously, the next one is so easy because they leave the photo uncovered (Bill Clinton), and offer it to Joo-won to answer. But put on the spot, suddenly he hems and haws… and they’re like, uh, never mind don’t answer. (It turns out he didn’t know. HA.)

girlfriday: At least the others are on a roll, all the way to the finish. That turned out to be an easier game than I anticipated. They move one sleeping location closer to indoors, and get blindfolded for the next game: Naming Kimbap Ingredients.

javabeans: They have to name the different rolls by taste alone. Ha, while they’re blindfolded Bird sneaks a bite, but they can tell from his mumbly answer that he’s eating and tear off the masks to accuse him. Ha, I love when Bird sneaks food. He’s so bad at it.

girlfriday: This is a hard game. They only get one bite and each have to name a different ingredient, and one of them is chili peppers, so they just taste nondescript and spicy. They lose pretty quickly. Haha, when Bird shows them the kimbap after they’ve lost, they all grab handfuls more, after complaining about their taste.

javabeans: The next and last task—to move from tent to the courtyard platform—is naming songs. Number 1’s from 1997. Seung-woo looks worried (he was 29 then, the show tells us).

girlfriday: Now this is a game I’d have a chance in hell of maybe winning. Still, titles can be hard, even if you know a song. They get to pick a starting point (like 50 seconds in) and get to hear ten seconds of the song before they have to name it.

javabeans: They breeze through the first six in a quick montage, and the fact that we stop for the last one makes me nervous.

girlfriday: Jong-min is the last up, and he really should know all the songs from that year backwards and forwards. It starts… and it’s Kim Jong-gook! Turbo!

javabeans: He runs around excitedly singing the rest of the song and dancing and running circles around trees, literally, while Bird counts down and his teammates yell at him to answer the question. Bird actually is lenient in letting him answer after the count is down, only to have Jong-min yell, “I dunno!” HA. He doesn’t know the title. Omg. Tae-hyun hazards a guess and gets it wrong—they all KNOW the song, but they don’t know what it’s called!

girlfriday: Aw man. See, this is the kinda thing that always gets you. I never know the correct titles of songs.

javabeans: So the tent it is. Well, it’s better than nothing. Or that weird clear vinyl hut.

girlfriday: Before bed, they get told that their morning mission is more of an all-night mission. There’s a stamp in between the two tents, and they’re allowed to get up at any point during the night and stamp each other’s faces. (The stamp reads: “Rice.”) The two members with the most stamps gets to wake up early and make breakfast for everyone.

javabeans: The first one out is Shi-kyung, who has bunked right next to our snorer of the night: Tae-woong. Shi-kyung stamps his cheek quietly, and Tae-woong’s none the wiser. He comes back out for another dab at the inkpad, saying, “There was no rule that you could only stamp one person!” Into the neighboring tent he goes… and Seung-woo pops up to stare at him, wide awake. Shi-kyung caaaaarefully pushes aside the bag next to him and successfully stamps one face, but gets denied by Su-geun.

girlfriday: Tae-woong wakes up and groggily stamps whoever is sleeping next to him. I’m assuming it’s Joo-won, just because, where else would he sleep?

javabeans: But Possibly Joo-won moves in his possible sleep, and Tae-woong jerks back quickly and pretends to be sleeping. Heh.

girlfriday: Seung-woo gets someone in the nose, but we don’t see who. Haha, when it’s wake-up time, Tae-woong stumbles out of his tent with TWO stamps on his nose.

javabeans: My prediction: Tae-hyun’s gonna have a half-dozen RICE stamps in the face. He’s been shooting a drama the longest, he’s tired, and you know, that’s just his luck. Heh, I like that the morning wake-up song is “After Everyone Was Sleeping.”

girlfriday: They all have at least one, so then they have to count, and it turns out that both Tae-woong and Jong-min have three stamps, while the rest only have one or two. That’s unexpected. Also… aren’t they like the two worst cooks in the group?

javabeans: Uh-oh. Breakfast might be a sad affair for everyone. But maybe they’ll all get little toys made of food they can wish were real food.

girlfriday: So while the rest of the boys go back to sleep, the two losers zombie walk to the kitchen and decide the breakfast menu. Oh lord, Tae-woong can’t even manage to open a can of SPAM. This is going to be a disaster.

javabeans: I do think that kimchi chigae is foolproof, but I hesitate to use such strong words.

girlfriday: I know. At first when they decided on that, I thought it couldn’t really be messed up. Now I’m not so sure.

javabeans: He and Jong-min aren’t really seeing eye to eye on the preparation technique either, so they bicker back and forth about how to “fix” it. I foresee seven grumpy faces at the table. Let’s just hope Jong-min doesn’t mess up the rice. Ha, so when Tae-woong is cooking, Jong-min looks confused, and when Jong-min is cooking, Tae-woong looks confused.

girlfriday: Tae-woong seems especially obsessed with adding seasoning powder, in alarming amounts. And Jong-min seems to be cooking for sport rather than for actually cooking the food.

javabeans: They produce what may be the most unappetizing series of dishes ever. Things are alternately burnt and droopy and crispy and mushy.

girlfriday: They present it to the boys, and I’m wondering if maybe they just look bad but taste okay… but alas, the reactions are as expected. At least it’s not inedible? I think this time breakfast was a punishment for all.

javabeans: I feel like the word inedible here needs an asterisk to denote that it’s edible in the sense that they can, literally, eat it. But not edible in the sense of you want to eat it.

girlfriday: Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Tae-woong busted out his snack box and ate the contents of that instead, while everyone else had to eat his breakfast?

javabeans: Well, that might end in ugliness. I’m sure the newlywed groom would like to go home to his wife at the end of the day.

girlfriday: After breakfast the boys enjoy some down time and Tae-hyun steps outside to make a phone call. Suddenly his expression changes. What new trickery is this? It turns out there’s a staff member standing at the front door, holding up a sign: “Going Home Bokbulbok: Quietly grab one teammate and leave in a car.”

javabeans: I wonder how he’s going to separate one of his teammates without tipping off the others. HA. That’s the downside of a show like this—any rogue action immediately flags suspicion. After he gets his co-conspirator onboard, they’ll make their way to a pagoda for a mission.

girlfriday: Haha, the first thing Tae-hyun does is circle the yard talking aloud to himself, arguing that he’s done everything he could to repay Jong-min for that last betrayal, so that he doesn’t have to have Jong-min as his teammate. Pffft.

javabeans: Why is it that every time we see Joo-won he’s leaning on Tae-woong and making puppy eyes at him?

girlfriday: Because that’s what he does at all times?

javabeans: You know that dog friend video? He’s totally the dog.

girlfriday: Fitting then, that he’d be Tae-woong’s friend. Tae-hyun comes back into the room, and then takes out his phone, wondering aloud if the number he has for UEE is the right one. HA. Smart! He leans over to Joo-won pretending to look at his phone, and whispers oh-so-quietly for him to come outside.

javabeans: Joo-won gets up right away while Tae-hyun lingers behind, waiting a few moments before joining him outside. The thing is, it’s suspicious enough to get the others looking up and it sounds like they’re about to say something, but they manage to get into their car and read the first mission clue. The others continue to rest and chat, but then AW, Jong-min gets up grinning—he got a text from Tae-hyun tipping him off that there’s a bokbulbok in the yard.

girlfriday: How cute. He must’ve felt bad after all. Jong-min texts Tae-woong to come out quietly. I wonder if he chose Tae-woong knowing his phone would be in his hand.

javabeans: Or he felt bonded after their breakfast cooking mission? I love how adorable these guys look when they realize they’re in on something the others don’t know. So sneaky and boyish.

girlfriday: I know. And that they’ve been chosen for someone’s team above the rest. It’s so cute.

javabeans: In the car, Jong-min gets a little bloodthirsty and declares that this is revenge for being stamped and made to cook.

girlfriday: The last three — Shi-kyung, Seung-woo, and Su-geun — just lie around without a clue, so long that Bird finally opens the door and just shows them the mission card. Ha.

javabeans: Haha, they didn’t even get suspicious. Granted, I’m sure this must happen when they have downtime and people might just wander, but still! They were clueless until they were given the sign, and then they all immediately jump up to begin.

girlfriday: Tae-hyun and Joo-won arrive at the first stop, where they have to get these cute fake passporty things that say they’re Baekje people, before starting their tour/mission.

javabeans: HAHAHA. Tae-hyun writes this math problem with a random string of numbers (5 x 25 x 16 + 18 + 26 x 10 x 3 = ?) and asks the ajumma to give it to the next cast members who come by. What a way to buy extra time, making them think it’s a part of the task.

girlfriday: It’s so the mindset too, when you’re in a hurry and playing a game. You’ll just solve whatever riddle is given to you, without asking questions. Hee. They arrive at the first historic landmark and find a poem waiting. Oh they have to memorize it? Well they’re two actors, so how hard could it be?

javabeans: Tae-hyun jokes that it’s a good thing he didn’t bring Jong-min after all, because he would’ve collapsed from the increase in blood pressure. They’re busily memorizing when they get an unpleasant surprise: Jong-min and Tae-woong are here. So soon! (They got their passport docs at a different office, bypassing the math trap.)

girlfriday: I love that Jong-min runs up in Interruption Mode, all crazy, and then belatedly realizes he has to memorize the poem and freezes. After some fighting, they get to memorizing and each fail the first try.

javabeans: Tae-hyun and Joo-won get pretty far along, but there’s this harrowing moment when Joo-won blanks before he finishes the verse. Phew!

girlfriday: Thank goodness. That was hard. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but Tae-hyun learned that really fast. I’m thinking Jong-min, on the other hand, will be here all day. Haha, it turns out that Tae-woong is the one who keeps flubbing his lines, but I think it’s because he memorized like 80% of it.

javabeans: Yeah he’s definitely the MVP there. It takes a lot of run-throughs but he finally makes it, while Tae-hyun and Joo-won (“There’s another mission?!”) move on and take a boat ride. Ack, so the last phase requires a climb up a mountain and five game points along the way, like rock-scissors-paper or mook-jji-ppa.

girlfriday: Oh noes, you have to climb back down to the last stop every time you lose?

javabeans: Why do I suddenly recall that one really long day when Seung-woo discovered gambling?

girlfriday: LOL. That was a dark day. They climb up the steps to the first rock-paper-scissors stop… and Joo-won loses. This is a bad start. They go all the way down and come back up, (they offer to have their VJ wait down at the bottom, heh) and lose again. Oh dear. They finally pass this station on the third try and move on up, just as Tae-woong and Jong-min arrive down below.

javabeans: This game setup really means that anybody could win, since the time it takes to walk up and down negates a lot of the head start advantage. Of course, Tae-woong also loses the first hand so he also has to walk back down…

girlfriday: Their losing streak lasts even longer than the first team’s, and they go up and down four friggin’ times. Joo-won and Tae-hyun huff and puff up to the second station, and run into some kids on the way. Kid: “Use your powers!” Joo-won: “He can only use them on Wednesdays and Thursdays!”

javabeans: I love that Tae-hyun just draws that kid into the next game (dibidibidip), because he does that with kids everywhere, getting along like they’re pals.

girlfriday: Sadly, he loses the game, which means it’s back down for them.

javabeans: Hehe. He can’t punish the kid, but he’s like, “Yo. You’re coming back down with us.”

girlfriday: He happens to have the same name as Bird, so they have some fun with that.

javabeans: They actually pass Tae-woong and Jong-min who are on their way up. Ooh. Let’s see if they can swing a reversal.

girlfriday: Nope. Wouldn’t it be funny if the last team arrives and just zooms past them all? Tae-woong and Jong-min trudge back down.

javabeans: By now they see the boat pulling in with the last team, and that adds a sense of urgency to the proceedings.

girlfriday: Oh man, crazy reversal time. Shi-kyung’s team lands, and within minutes, they beat the first two stations on the first try.

javabeans: The tone gets all dire as the boys all pass each other on their various paths, with Su-geun leading the “Traitors! How could you not even let us know?” charge, with Seung-woo and Shi-kyung chiming in, “I’m really disappointed in you.”

girlfriday: I love that they’re all burning with revengey motivation.

javabeans: Tae-hyun and Joo-won are not that much ahead of them, but they start winning and past three and four, going for the last game up top. It’s Joo-won vs. Bird in mook-jji-ppa.

girlfriday: I wonder if Bird’s a formidable opponent, enough to stick him at the top. But he beats Joo-won, so they have to go back down to the last stop. But crap, they lose there, so they have to go down again. Ack! They have to go down another, so they just went from 5 down to 2, all in one bad streak.

javabeans: Lol, by this point everyone’s just everywhere, crossing paths and stuck at the same points in the middle. Amazingly, Joo-won and Tae-hyun somehow manage to fall all that way and still make it back up to 5 first.

girlfriday: That’s surprising. The others must’ve been losing REALLY badly then.

javabeans: Plus, Tae-hyun is by now burning with the need to crush Bird. That’s fueling him the whole way. I’m gonna die laughing if he loses right away. They barely scrape through, and Tae-hyun wins with one eye half-closed.

girlfriday: Omg, why is Tae-hyun’s version of playing mook-jji-ppa so nerve-racking?

javabeans: It’s like Rocky.

girlfriday: He’s clearly holding on by the thinnest string, like on the verge of losing every single hand.

javabeans: That means they get to leave, but they stick around to watch Tae-woong take on Bird. They rejoice all over again when he wins, and Tae-hyun is practically beside himself with glee. The last team arrives just as they’re leaving… and Shi-kyung beats Bird pretty swiftly. Hee.

girlfriday: Ha, how funny — they filmed each pair’s closing speech in parts and CG’ed them together, probably because they thought the boys would be much farther apart in the game than they ended up. Next week: Olympian guest stars!

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