Running Man: Episode 265

by gummimochi

When our cast travels to a far-off island this week, they’ll be faced with great challenges of rediscovering their name, measuring their knowledge of their survival skills, and trying to get off the island before the next guy. It’s each man and woman for themselves, including our brainy guests who will need much more than their booksmarts. Will they make it off the deserted island in time or spend the night with only their thoughts to occupy them?

EPISODE 265. Broadcast on September 20, 2015.

Today’s opening takes place at the crack of dawn at a marina in Incheon. Jae-suk admits that he was shocked by the guest lineup, which has Ji-hyo guessing that there’s a female guest.

After making fun of Jong-kook’s gym rat status and his lover “Proteina,” our first guest is introduced: top student of his entire school, won a Math Olympiad in high school, and known as the math genius among idols, Super Junior’s Kyuhyun.

Kyuhyun himself is embarrassed to talk about his decade-old achievements, even if his father isn’t (“Even if he isn’t a genius, [my son] is still brilliant.”) While other idols might be admitted to school for other reasons (sometimes to boost the school’s popularity), Kyuhyun got into Kyunghee University with his college entrance exam score.

Our next guess was always first in her class: Wonder Girls’ Ye-eun (aka Yenny), who was known to always be studying even while on the road. She says she’s weak in math, and Haha tosses back that she can go out with Kyuhyun then. Leave it to the marrieds to try and set people up together.

Furthermore, she was also accepted in Kyunghee, and Haha cries out that they can be a campus couple. There are more brainy guests in store, including John Park who says that he’s on his fifth academic year hiatus.

None of the cast members take him too seriously, joking that he hasn’t graduated and that his IQ of 138 doesn’t even qualify for Mensa. John explains that he was planning to pursue a joint music and economics degree, and then guesses that the people at Northwestern were a little lenient when it came to qualifying for the economics department.

That has the others thinking that he’s not as brainy as his qualifications make him out to be and Kyuhyun jokes, “Are you sure you weren’t mistaken in casting him for this episode?”

Our final guest falls into the top 1% of the entire nation with his IQ of 148 and knows English and Japanese: BTS’s Rap Monster (Kim Nam-joon). His high IQ score is a result of taking an intelligence test once in high school, and Jong-kook says he wouldn’t be able to get that score even if he took the exam more than once.

As far as I know, his English language skills is self-taught and he achieved a 850 (out of 990) when he took his TOEIC in middle school. So Suk-jin demands that he introduce himself in English, and all it takes is a simple “yes, sir” to get him to back off.

This week’s mission is simple: Survivor. They must escape the island, and the losers will take the first boat out tomorrow morning. So it could be a wee bit of a problem for anyone planning to work tomorrow.

Since they’ll be needing some crucial essentials such as water, they play a warm-up game by trying to beat the Seoul University grad PD in an IQ test. When the group hears that three people have beat the PD, Jae-suk realizes that one of their brainy guests didn’t make the cut.

John is one of them thanks to his quick reactive skills and high social and language skills. Kyuhyun is relieved to be counted among the pack, and so is Rap Monster. Out of the rest, Jae-suk had the highest score thanks to his high levels of focus.

On their way to the boat, the others pull back so that the cameras can spot the three coordis Kyuhyun has to look after him. They realize that they don’t have any nametags and Ye-eun gasps at the thought that this could turn out to be a Hunger Games-esque special.

Haha is genuinely curious as to who was in the bottom three, and so the PD announces the last names: “Lee,” “Kang,” and “Ha.” LOL. Gary wonders if they should ask who came in dead last, and that’s Haha. Awww.

Even if his IQ isn’t very high, you have to agree that he’s incredibly street-smart. So I’m going to go ahead and guess that Haha will do just fine on the island.

Everyone goes silent at the possibility of not leaving until tomorrow, and Gary says he has to wrap up his album in the next few days, no matter what. They step off onto the uninhabited island with its sandy beaches and nameless vests.

It’s currently 11:44 AM, and the staff confiscate their phones and watches. The last boat out departs at 5 PM — if they don’t make it, then they must catch the boat at 6 AM tomorrow morning. In order to escape, they must find all the letters to their nametag.

Furthermore, it must be their given names, not their stage names. So that’s Jo Kyuhyun, Park Ye-eun, Ha Dong-hoon (Haha), Kang Hee-gun (Gary), Park Sung-gyu (John), and Kim Nam-joon (Rap Monster). Guess we’re not getting into full given names if Ji-hyo isn’t looking for Chun Sung-im.

They’re given 30 minutes to try and find all the consonants and vowels to their names in order to leave on the next boat. While a few find the ones they need, Jae-suk discovers characters that aren’t in his name.

John shares his water with Gary and Ye-eun in exchange to trade characters later, though Ye-eun says they share too many characters. Kyuhyun keeps finding pockets two seconds before Kwang-soo (he even accidentally crashes into the VJ).

Gary gets a bit annoyed when he has into walk into water to retrieve a pocket, only to find out that it’s a character he doesn’t need. Once time is up, Gary says one of his characters rubbed off.

Jae-suk goes around asking if people are working tomorrow, and when Kwang-soo says he isn’t, he’s told to just stay on the island then. Jae-suk doesn’t buy that Jong-kook has an important appointment with the gym equipment, and tells Rap Monster that he can go see his mother tomorrow.

Kyuhyun swears that he’s supposed to go celebrate his mother’s birthday tonight, and the group wishes his mother a happy birthday. Gary gives Jae-suk a little kiss to soften him up, and Jae-suk bursts out laughing at Ji-hyo’s reason: she has a skincare appointment.

Ji-hyo, Kwang-soo, and Kyuhyun are the closest to completing their nametags. It’s already 12:47 PM, and as a bonus game, they’ll be able to get whatever character they want if they call out the time at the right time. Desperate, Gary becomes a human timer, singing one of his songs and knowing exactly how long it is.

For their next game, the group will be playing in real-time with participants outside of the SBS building. If the participants’ ranking is the same as theirs, they’ll get whatever character they like. The first pair of passersby are told to rank the group from who looks the smartest to the dumbest.

The group ranks themselves while the participants on camera do the same. The girls have ranked Rap Monster to appear the smartest, though the rest of the rankings leaves them all surprised.

Kwang-soo is flattered to be considered as fourth whereas Jong-kook is ranked in tenth place. Haha comes in dead last. As the only two who matched the participants’ rankings, Rap Monster and John pick up a character.

The second question is who they would think would be able to best survive on this deserted island. SpartAce is placed near the top, though the young man considers Gary to be in first place. He must be a Monday Couple because he ranks Ji-hyo next, followed by Jong-kook.

Ji-hyo picks up her last character which means she gets to leave, and on the boat, she says she’s happy to leave but even happier that Gary didn’t pick up on a thing. Huh?

We roll the clocks back to the opening when Gary had raised his hand because he’s working the next day. During the first mission on the island, Jae-suk and Jong-kook is pulled aside individually and reminded of the “Tru-Gary” special a few years back.

That was Chuseok 2011 (and when Jo PD was still around *sniff*) and the cast will try to fool Gary once more. Their mission: escape the island without Gary’s notice and leave him behind. They’ll win once they all gather at the other side of the island.

So it’s up to Jae-suk and Jong-kook (who came in first and second place after the brainiacs, respectively) to let the others know as surreptitiously as possible. Jae-suk knows that Gary’s got a one-track mind and is incredibly determined today. It’s not gonna be easy.

Haha doesn’t believe the mission when he hears it, primarily because it’s coming from Jae-suk and Jong-kook’s lips. During lunch, Jae-suk whispers the plan to Ji-hyo and word gets around to the others.

That explains why everyone was trying to place Gary among the top spots when they were ranking smartest to dumbest, the opposite of where the participants would place him. The group had gotten lucky when placing him in third place for the next question, and then sent Ji-hyo off.

Once out of earshot from the group, Ji-hyo says she saw Gary’s expression darken. The group is given an extra 20 minutes to find more characters (so that the staff can set up the next game) and Gary doesn’t even wait for the others.

Kwang-soo picks up something of use to Gary, but he lies about it when Gary walks past. There’s a full-on black market of exchanging characters under Gary’s nose, and Kwang-soo conveniently drops something Haha needs. While all that’s going on, John stops to take in the view.

It’s close to 2:28 PM when the group gathers together again and Ye-eun has everything she needs. Haha calls out if anyone needs an “h,” then tries to remain calm when Gary says he needs it…

… but then changes his mind. Interesting. For their next game, the person who can keep a match burning for at least three seconds gets the character they want. Gary steps up first, and the others complain about the windy conditions. Unfortunately for him, it goes out before he can count to 3.

He gets annoyed when Haha’s attempt keeps burning past the three seconds, so Haha hands him the “h” character. A few others get their matches to keep burning, and when Suk-jin misses striking his match, he’s told that his turn is up.

When it’s Jae-suk’s turn, both Suk-jin and Jong-kook blow at it. More people leave the island, leaving just four: John, Suk-jin, Gary, and Jae-suk. And well, Kwang-soo it seems because his sticker ripped.

The PD can barely keep it together when he tells Kwang-soo that there were just two “wa”s made… and one of them can be found somewhere on the island. Gary tries guessing 3 PM, but he’s off by about 10 minutes.

The only choice Kwang-soo has now is to find that lost “wa” character because the staff doesn’t have any extra. That succccckkkkkss. However, they do agree that collecting two vowels can add up to what he needs.

Their next game is to try and achieve the highest decibel by screaming into a meter. Suk-jin gets a fairly high number, and Gary’s scream beats it with 130 dB. When it’s Kwang-soo’s turn, Gary pokes him, and Jae-suk gets tickled too.

Everyone has either one or two characters left to find, and on the other side of the island, Haha worries that Kwang-soo will be left behind.

Back on the island, they must tie a knot while holding both ends of the rope. Jae-suk tries calling out 3 PM, but is told it isn’t yet. Moments later, John tries too and he succeeds.

While all trying to figure out knots, the other four whisper over who should leave first. Poor Gary’s trying to wrap himself with the rope and keeps getting slipknots. Everyone stops just to watch him try and fail over and over again.

So Suk-jin steps up and starts with his arms crossed to get a knot at the end. Jae-suk does the same thing, and both mat-hyungs get to leave the island.

Since there are three of them remaining, the PD offers a deal: if they can guess where north is, then they’ll get a character they want. For anyone who isn’t confident in completing this task, they can go and find more characters. Kwang-soo takes off.

Gary and John try to guess, and it’s Gary who gets it right. They’re given one last time to search the island, and all need one last character to complete their nametag. John finds his final character, leaving Gary and Kwang-soo to search.

And if you can believe it, Kwang-soo has found the other “wa” character. He carefully peels it back to place it onto his nametag in order to leave.

Gary comes out empty-handed when 5 PM hits, and he figures that his upcoming album will have just nine tracks instead of ten. Once he’s on the boat, he says he’d love it if this was a hidden camera prank. Oh but it is.

Furthermore, his title track is “Get Some Air,” which couldn’t be more apt for this occasion. The boat ride continues and instead of traveling to what he believes is his sleeping quarters, he finds the others enjoying themselves with snacks instead.

He seems utterly relieved and runs towards them. Being told that this special is an extension of the Tru-Gary show a few years back, he asks if he can go finish recording his album now.

When asked if Rap Monster had the character he needed, Rap Monster admits that he did. “If this wasn’t a prank, I would’ve been so upset with you!” Thankfully everyone gets to leave the island together, and hey look—Gary will be coming out with a full-length album and all ten tracks, after all.

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