Running Man: Episode 266

by gummimochi

If you’ve missed the trademark qualities of Running Man that made this show shine, I’m happy to report that this year’s Chuseok special puts the last few weeks to shame. Get ready for a 90-minute adventure filled with reversals, betrayals, and genuine laugh out loud moments as our cast tries to keep the multitude of gifts from escaping their sight.

Words can’t fully describe how much fun this week’s episode is, so if you haven’t seen it yet, go ahead—grab some popcorn and watch it before you read. ‘Cause seriously, the words can wait.

EPISODE 266. Broadcast on September 27, 2015.

We open on a beautiful autumn day, joined by our guests: Super Junior’s Eunhyuk whom Suk-jin greets with “You’ve been discharged from the army, right?” Eunhyuk: “I’m gonna go [to army] soon.” Heh, wrong Suju Oppa, Big Nose Hyung.

Aw, Running Man will be Eunhyuk’s last broadcast appearance before he heads off to army in October. When asked why he and their other guests fit the Chuseok theme, Eunhyuk guesses, “Perhaps because people often give dried anchovy sets…” (His nickname “Anchovy” lends from his skinny frame.)

LOL, actor Im Joo-hwan seemingly pops out of nowhere. Heyy, you can only do that on Oh My Ghostess. Also, why didn’t you bring your buddies Song Joong-ki and Jo In-sung with you? Tsk, tsk.

He gets asked the same question—his answer? “Chestnuts.” Hee. Someone else comes running just then: trot singer Hong Jin-young. Known for her overflowing aegyo, she fires it on Jong-kook.

Part 1 of this Chuseok special is entitled “Rest Area Representative Menu Tour” and traveling along the Yeongdong Expressway, which holds special memory to Jae-suk, who put on a music festival with the rest of his Infinity Challenge cast members.

Shown the delicious offerings from the top 5 places along this expressway, Jin-young excitedly points at the beef soup with rice (“That’s so good! That’s delicious!”). But everyone seems to know the famous dishes from these spots… and now I’m hungry again.

There are only three available spots per rest area, and almost everyone lines up for the steak. Jin-young, however, invites Jong-kook to accompany her to the donkatsu stop. Good luck trying to convince the health nut to do that.

Jong-kook: “We can go have some at Namsan!” Jin-young launches into her aegyo: “I’ll cut it up for you!” And then Jae-suk offers to be the third wheel.

Aw, both Joo-hwan and Kwang-soo are so tall that they actually eclipse Eunhyuk, who needs as much screentime as possible. Somehow Kwang-soo gets pushed into becoming the third wheel, and when he’s ousted from it, he exclaims, “I’ve always been tagging along with you guys!”

“The three of us have gone out to eat before! Because it was awkward for just the two of them to be together. Have you been using me up up until now? I thought you liked me!” HAHAHA, oh man, I’ve missed Incriminating Kwang-soo.

The four people who want to eat the beef soup play rock-paper-scissors for it. Gary lets out a triumphant yell, only to realize that his scissors doesn’t beat their rocks. So he walks to the donkatsu pair… and then draws back at Jong-kook’s glare. Oho, somebody wants to go on their date alone.

Speaking of alone, Eunhyuk ends up being the odd one out of his group. He looks genuinely shocked by the outcome, and gets invited to join the donkatsu couple. Then Gary asks if Ji-hyo can’t join him. Yay Monday Couple!

In the car, Jin-young gets a call from Suk-jin, who says that he and Haha totally support the possibility of romance between her and Jong-kook. When Eunhyuk picks up the phone, he says he doesn’t really have to play Cupid because Jin-young is doing fine on her own. Yes, yes she is.

They play the “telepathy game” and while their first two answers are the same, they give different answers between jjajangmyun and jjamppong. Haha: “You can just order half-and-half!”

The Monday Couple drive up to Yongin Rest Area, and are given the green light to go ahead and eat their soybean paste bibimbap. In fact, they can eat to their hearts’ content, but they’re still wary even when they’ve got their food.

Over at Dukpyeong, Haha tells the viewers that his reactions are totally genuine, then practically dies at the delicious beef soup plus kkakduki combo. Suk-jin says he never overreacts, but then once he has some, he acts as if the heavens have opened up. Haha cowers in embarrassment.

Our donkatsu trio orders their food in Yeoju, and Jin-young insists on keeping her word of cutting up Jong-kook’s food for him. And then she offers some like one would for a toddler. Eunhyuk just cuts up his food and pretends like he didn’t see anything.

I especially like how Jin-young makes sure she gets every last drop of sauce on her last piece of meat. Hehe, girl after my own heart. Cut to: the steak trio who have yet to arrive at their rest area.

Having finished their meal, Gary shows everyone what a great boyfriend would do: get his girl some water at just the right temperature without saying a word. Ji-hyo is impressed, and then remarks on the half-filled glass: “You had some on the way over.”

Now they’re told about the rules of the food tour and gift buying race: They’ll be heading to Gangneung, but they’ll be choosing their teammates on the way. Since there can only be a total of five per team, some will be abandoned along the way. If they are, they’re required to hitchhike the rest of the way.

Jin-young cries, “But I’m really shy [around strangers]!” How come I don’t believe that? Jong-kook explains that another cast member’s car could come pick her up, but that doesn’t make her feel better: “Why are you explaining that to me?!”

So Jong-kook decides that they won’t betray one another, and Eunhyuk wonders if everyone else is saying the same thing. Bingo. Haha swears he won’t abandon Suk-jin, but is it just me or is there a hint of deceit in those eyes?

Jong-kook is sure the Monday Couple won’t part ways, since they even kissed on stage not too long ago in Shanghai (for the show’s five-year anniversary fan meeting). So when Haha calls, Haha is willing to abandon his soup and rice brother.

Suk-jin calls up Kwang-soo and refrains from telling him about the mission since he’s still on the road. Jong-kook calls too, and Kwang-soo admits that it feels kinda nice to be so popular.

Gary looks a bit nervous while Ji-hyo’s in the batting cage. Don’t you know you should be IN THERE teaching her on a date? Instead, he’s all, Keep your eyes on the ball! Their resta area date continues, but when Gary says his shoulders hurt, she just totally blows past him. Aww.

He’s slightly disappointed at how she’s changed, but she gives him a massage soon enough. So he delivers her coffee… and then gets locked out. HEEHEHEHEHEHEE.

She’s currently on the phone… with the Beef Soup and Rice Brothers aka Suk-jin and Haha. Muhahaha. She’d been invited over just minutes before, so when Ji-hyo locks Gary out of the car, her betrayal oppas couldn’t be more proud of her. This is awesome. This is totally awesome.

Poor Gary thinks that she’s just toying with him, which is kinda true ’cause she’s gonna leave him behind. “If you betray me, there won’t be anybody for me to trust in this world!” And then she backs up the car. LOL.

Man, I feel so bad for Gary right now. He’s left to hitchhike the rest of the way and the cars just pass him. Ooh ooh, I’d let you sit in my car!

While the donkatsu trio keep telling themselves that they looovee this setup, Haha calls to update Jong-kook: Ji-hyo’s on her way, and they want to pick Jong-kook up. And then Jong-kook says he’s on speakerphone.

Haha and Suk-jin are joined by Ji-hyo, news which shocks the rest of them. Suspicious and traumatized, Eunhyuk says he can’t trust Jong-kook. Furthermore, he wants to go to the bathroom but he can’t bring himself to. Aww, I haven’t seen Eunhyuk this timid ever since his early days on variety.

Meanwhile, Haha decides that they’ll just picking up the donkatsu couple and leave the third wheel behind in Yeoju. As soon as he’s out of earshot, Suk-jin asks Ji-hyo if she wants to take off together. All these offers of betrayal are seriously cracking me up.

Haha’s sharp enough to realize what’s going on, pointing out that he’d been gone for five seconds. To Ji-hyo: “Look, I even bought you bread!” Caption: Busting (or bbang) a gut.

As her betrayal sunbae, Haha acknowledges that these turn of events make things interesting. What would make it even better is if Haha doesn’t have the keys to the other car. While Haha rambles on, Suk-jin and Ji-hyo realize that they have a choice because there are three people at the other two rest areas.

Once Suk-jin explains the situation, Haha hurriedly jumps into the car and races off after them. He immediately calls Jong-kook again, screaming that he’s been abandoned. He’s going to pick up Gary first before heading to Yeoju so they BETTER be waiting for him.

While all that’s going on, Jae-suk, Joo-hwan, and Kwang-soo finally make it to Hwengsung and told of the mission. Their eyes turn into saucers at the word “hitchhiking”, which Gary is still doing. Someone agrees to give him a ride, and he explains that Ji-hyo left without him.

Let’s just take a minute to take in the beauty of that beef before going back to Yeoju, where Jin-young refuses to take a nap, lest she be left behind. That’s when Gary arrives and Haha arrives a minute later, and their team is complete.

In order for Eunhyuk to feel safe about going to the bathroom, they all head over hand-in-hand. At the same time, the other five members are enjoying some post-lunch snacks before heading out.

Both White (Jae-suk) and Black (Jong-kook) teams pull up to Gyeongpo Beach, where the beautiful ocean and lovely gifts sets await them. This is where they’ll be playing Part 2: Playing the games on the board to win the expensive luxury gift sets.

The Hanwoo beef is the first to be up for grabs, won by whichever team can pull a tube over to their side. Best two out of three wins. This kind of strength game is great for Jong-kook’s side, and Eunhyuk’s pretty athletic himself.

Joo-hwan finds himself up against Jong-kook, and he looks ready to unleash that hidden competitive spirit… which he unleashes with full force. Whoa. Despite losing his footing a few times, Joo-hwan stays latched onto his tube…

… and then Jae-suk points out that he’s wearing pink underwear. Joo-hwan loses his footing and he goes flying across the line.

Before the ladies begin their match, Jae-suk and Jong-kook get into a tiff about where the center is. Jong-kook wins with force. Jin-young says she only slept two hours last night, to which Kwang-soo says that Sleeping Beauty Ji-hyo only slept 10 hours yesterday.

Jin-young turns out to be pretty strong, but she loses her footing in the sand. She isn’t willing to go down without a fight, but Ji-hyo ultimately drags the tube towards her side.

That leaves Kwang-soo vs. Haha, who jumps into the tube as soon as the whistle blows. Kwang-soo throw it at him in retaliation, and the battle becomes a dirty one, with sand-throwing and spitting. They’re both given warnings, but when they start over, Haha jumps inside the tube again. But this time Kwang-soo manages to pull him across to his side.

For their next game, they’ll be doing a relay race of which team can slide the sliced radish on their forehead and eat it (using only their facial muscles) the fastest. Jong-kook eats his in seconds, but then Eunhyuk loses his slice. Twice. I mean, three times…. or four.

So he bows out so Gary can speed things up for the Black Team, and soon Kwang-soo is the last one left for the White Team. Just as Jin-young steps up, the radish falls into Kwang-soo’s mouth.

Jae-suk takes a minute to point out Eunhyuk’s rising stress levels as well as the huge lead (2:0) they’ve taken. We skim through the next two games, which the Black Team wins, and then the White Team wins the next one to pick up the ginseng set… which then gets handed over to the Black Team. So much for luck.

For their final game, they agree to put the rest of the gifts on the line and see whoever can chuck their shoe the furthest. Gary’s flies pretty far, but Jae-suk chucks his too high, much to everyone’s amusement.

Haha’s lands near Gary’s, and then Kwang-soo’s shoe knocks into the camera. “Who put that there! I could’ve chucked it all the way to Seoul!”

Dramatic operatic music plays before Eunhyuk’s turn, and his shoe flies wayy past the others. Jong-kook is determined to do even better than that, but his slipper flies way too high and lands short, which prompts Jae-suk, Suk-jin, and Kwang-soo to roll in laughter.

It’s all down to Joo-hwan to beat Eunhyuk’s record, and he revs up… then his foot gets caught on the sand. AHAHAHAHA.

Both teams load their boxes on to their trunks, feeling good about their haul. When they arrive at their next destination at 6:30 PM, they’re told to take an hour nap (likely for two reasons: as a PSA for drivers not to drive when they’re tired, and to set up their next mission).

Everyone is given blindfolds and the staff walk off so the cast can catch a few winks in peace. It’s dark outside once the hour is up, and Joo-hwan wakes. So do Kwang-soo and Jae-suk and Joo-hwan shushes them. Oooh.

The three are led to another group of cars and promptly given a choice: either surreptitiously confiscate all the gift sets or wait until the others wake to share the loot amongst everyone. Kwang-soo’s the first to answer: “Sure.”

But our thieves have their work cut out for themselves: they must find both the boxes and the pop-up post office truck to send the gifts sets back to themselves. So they head back and quietly remove the boxes from the back of the trucks and load them into the car.

In the car, Kwang-soo guesses that they’ll be eliminated if any of the others tears off their nametags. Jae-suk says he hates being chased whereas Kwang-soo says he likes being the chaser.

Not long afterwards, the others are woken up to sirens. Haha immediately notices the empty trucks, and are told about the robbery. Good news is, the culprits’ car can be tracked and they simply need to tear off the thieves’ nametags to get back their goods.

Not everyone is quite awake enough to understand what’s going on, but they divide up into two teams (Suk-jin, Ji-hyo, and Gary vs. Jong-kook, Haha, Jin-young, and Eunhyuk) to go catch the thieves.

When asked if the three thieves knew about the robbery all along, Haha hits it on the nail that they were probably presented an offer. The robbers arrive at their first stop a little after 8 PM and hurry to find the R-stickered box.

The chasers are closing in when Joo-hwan finds it, and the thieves run to their car by 8:15 PM. But that’s when Jong-kook’s car pulls into the lot, and so they pull out with the other car hot on their tail.

The cars drive outta there so quickly that the flustered VJs ask themselves, “What the? What car are we supposed to take?” It isn’t long before Jae-suk’s car happens to pull up next to Ji-hyo’s and both cars have the thieves surrounded.

Since they can’t break any traffic rules, the chasers taunt the robbers instead. Eunhyuk wonders if they caught the perps too quickly, and is left in awe about how great technology is these days.

Joo-hwan asks if they can’t try to lose the chasers somehow, but Jae-suk shuts down the idea since they can’t endanger any lives on the road. Expectation: Epic Car Chase Reality: Follows Traffic Laws. The only chance they have is to drive around and hope that they run out of gas first.

So all three cars follow the traffic laws and pull up to the lit-up stadium. Ji-hyo’s car spots the pop-up post office truck and decides to wait there. Jae-suk realizes that not all of them can get through this, so one guy has to run and make sure their boxes get to their homes safely.

Joo-hwan volunteers to be the runner, but Haha already supposes that that’s what the thieves will do. So he tells Eunhyuk to take care of the runner.

The robbers arrive and drive around the lot, and when Kwang-soo gets out of the car, Eunhyuk is told to stay put because he’s only the distraction. Then at Jae-suk’s prompt, Joo-hwan makes a run for it. And I mean he blasts out of that car like a roadrunner.

Joo-hwan hurries to jot down an address on the shipping label (why won’t you just take that first and fill it out someplace safe?). As Eunhyuk closes in, Ji-hyo pops out of her hiding spot.

Eunhyuk pins Joo-hwan against the truck, but when he gets pushed back, he already has Joo-hwan’s nametag in his hand. With their star runner out of the game, Dumb & Dumber are left to carry out this mission themselves.

They pull up to the pop-up truck where everyone else is waiting for them, and Kwang-soo asks Jae-suk if he doesn’t want to pocket something small. The chasers are willing to eliminate just one of them first, but it ain’t over ’til it’s over, and Jae-suk murmurs to Kwang-soo to get out when he tells him to.

Kwang-soo opens up the door a crack, which Jong-kook uses to crawl in and grab Kwang-soo in the backseat. Suk-jin takes a few boxes off of Kwang-soo’s hand, then takes out a shipping label to hand over. LOL, typical.

So Gary goes ahead to rip off Suk-jin’s nametag. While the others are busy laughing, Jae-suk takes the opportunity to try and run to the truck. It’s a futile attempt since Jin-young rips off his nametag anyway.

Now that the chasers have own, Jong-kook gets the robbers down on their knees to beg for forgiveness. Behind them, Suk-jin gets caught carrying out another box for himself. And because karma’s a bitch, our traffic laws abiding robbers and Suk-jin are excluded from going home with the loot. Happy Chuseok, and see you in two years, Eunhyuk!

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