Running Man: Episode 268

by gummimochi

Our cast will return to school this week to get to know their deskmates with whom they’ll eat lunch, play games, and try to prevent one another from winning. The pairs will be looking for legendary couple rings known to keep its wearers together forever. With tasty food, unique roll combinations, and frightening teachers, will our cast be able to make it to the end of the school day, or get caught for playing hooky?

EPISODE 268. Broadcast on October 4, 2015.

Welcome back to Running Man High, where our guys take their seats in the classroom. Heh, Jong-kook sits in the back. Cue their teacher, actor Jung Kyung-ho, who clarifies that he’s the OLDER Jung Kyung-ho (not the younger actor from Falling for Innocence and Heartless City).

The guys are excited by the news of a transfer student, but then in walks actor Yoon Park (What’s With This Family?). Upon hearing that Suk-jin commented that his full name sounds like two surnames, Yoon Park tosses back, “Why do you have two noses?”

This class also has a female teacher: actress Hwang Seok-jung (She Was Pretty), who greets everyone in a Most-esque way. She brings wonderful news—today’s classes will be co-ed.

I love how she tells the young hot-blooded men to curb their hormones when the girls arrive, knowing how guys can be at the sight of beauty. After the teachers take their leave, Gary is appointed to prompt the rest of our guests to enter.

They all fall back when the “class president’s girlfriend” aka Ji-hyo walks in. She and the rest of the ladies have packed lunch for their deskmates today. She parks a seat next to Yoon Park, to Gary’s dismay.

All the guys rush over to greet Park Han-byul who has brought her lunch (a mix of homemade food and dressing up store-bought kimbap) and matching hats for her teammate. They chant “One Star” (since han means “one” and byul means “star” in Korean), and she chooses Jae-suk.

Their next guest shrinks back when Haha spits out her name: “Hey Stephanie!” It’s been some time since we’ve seen her on variety, but she’s here to promote her solo comeback. A video shows her preparing her packed lunch the previous night, and though her oppas Haha and Jong-kook are happy to see her… she chooses Jae-suk too.

Jae-suk doesn’t say no right away, which prompts Han-byul to ask if she can be cast away that quickly. He even returns the hat, but agrees to have Stephanie sit temporarily until the next guest arrives. Needless to say, the other guys AREN’T happy about it.

Next is an athlete, climber Kim Ja-in whose petite size leaves all the guys in shock. Her healthy lunch seems perfect for Jong-kook, though Haha says they would make a great match, yunno, height-wise.

She offers a gulp to Jong-kook… only to pass by him and choose Haha instead. LOL. There are still more to come with Red Velvet’s Joy, whose age of 20 has Gary muttering about the large age difference between them.

Joy says she had someone specific in mind, but a small peek has Jae-suk wondering if ALL the girls prepared fried tofu rice balls. After ruling out Suk-jin, Joy moseys her way over to Kwang-soo to whom her personalized lunch is for.

Gong Seung-yeon (Heard It Through the Grapevine) enters with her lunch, which she admits that the pickles were leftover from her pizza order. In her video, she admits that she has yet to cook for herself despite living on her own for a year.

When Jae-suk unearths the container of green grapes, he asks if Seung-yeon split with Joy, who also had grapes. Kwang-soo can hardly contain himself when she chooses him. Their last guest is comedienne Park Na-rae, who gets upset over the lack of enthusiastic welcome.

Because of her short stature, the podium comes up to her neck, giving us an unintentional visual gag. Although they’re wrapped in foil, Na-rae has brought an impressive menu. Man, that marinated octopus kebab looks good. While everyone else has other intentions, she’s looking for a husband.

To everyone’s surprise, she also chooses Kwang-soo and points out their staggering height difference. Aw, she barely comes up to his chest. Na-rae is the first to get cut, followed by Seung-yeon, which leaves him with Joy.

It’s a rejection parade as Jae-suk boots Stephanie, who then teams up with Jong-kook. Seung-yeon moves over to Gary, and Na-rae pairs up with Suk-jin.

While our pairings enjoy their packed lunches outside, so do our teachers who have a picnic of their own. Haha, guess they weren’t kidding about that date. But at least they make for some interesting expository fairies to tell us about today’s theme: Legend has it that whoever finds this special couple ring will be together forever with their true love.

Kwang-soo tries to create an alliance with Jong-kook while Suk-jin vows to make his once-a-year win come true today. Our expository teachers hilariously twist the “I’ll pluck a star out of the sky for you!” trope into “I’ll pick up a fallen star” which leads into our very first game.

But before they start that, the group decides to break down into a little dance time. After Stephanie shows off her moves, Joy misses her cue to the chorus too early twice. Ha, at least it gives us some hilarious headbanging and shameless dancing. They let her redo it, but she struts out into a zombie walk.

Ji-hyo joins in with Han-byul’s random dance, but it’s Yoon Park who shows off some talents of his own, starting off with a fan dance and ending with a split. Whoaaaa. When it’s Ja-in’s turn, she backs away… so that she can climb a pole? Hahaha, she’s told that she need not go that far.

Back to the game, where our couples must try to retrieve as many fallen stars as possible. Yoon Park and Ji-hyo topple over, so Yoon Park resorts to crawling on the ground.

Each team step over to their baskets, and with Suk-jin’s suggestion to knock Kwang-soo’s basket over, Yoon Park does just that and charges. It helps because Kwang-soo and Joy only have three versus their seven.

In the finals, Jong-kook hoists Stephanie onto his back so that he can be free to pick up stars. Yoon Park won’t give up that easily, and then Suk-jin knocks Jong-kook’s basket aside. Yoon Park nests over his basket until time runs out.

He and Ji-hyo are given separate hints, and they mix up the pairings except for themselves and Suk-jin and Na-rae. So now it’s Gary and Jae-in, Kwang-soo and Stephanie, Jong-kook and Han-byul, Haha and Joy, and Jae-suk and Seung-yeon.

Following another break with our teachers sharing ice cream, the guys are greeted by a giant Plinko board with various ingredients listed as outcomes. Here, the girls will eat kimbap rolls according to whatever ingredients they get which ought to give us some interesting flavors.

To make things interesting, the guys suggest that the three icons of bad luck (Suk-jin, Kwang-soo, and Jae-suk) go first. Of those, Kwang-soo steps up and his first ball looks like it’s going for the donkatsu… but then falls into a dud.

But that’s not all—his second one’s a dud too. Then with his last ball, he’s gonna get a whole lot of salted shrimp.

Suk-jin is up next and gets artificial crab meat and chocolate and coriander. Jae-suk gets gummy worms, chocolate… and wasabi. Yoon Park lets go of three balls simultaneously, and only one lands on an ingredient: fish. At least he gets donkatsu to even it out?

Jong-kook’s combination of raw garlic, cream cheese, and coriander sounds not-so delicious, and Haha’s donkatsu and radish combo gets ruined with artificial crab meat.

The guys sit down to roll their special kimbap for their ladies, and there’s a nice layer of salted shrimp on Kwang-soo’s. Yoon Park pays extra attention to his (he just so happened to appear on the cooking show Mr. Baek, the Homemade Food Master recently).

When they bring it upstairs, Ji-hyo loves the fish and fried pork combination. Ja-in remains neutral and matter-of-fact about hers, and Joy eats up hers. Stephanie is astounded by the fish bones Kwang-soo has used as garnish. She eats it and has Kwang-soo eat some too. But it’s Na-rae who reels at the chocolate-artificial-crab-and-coriander roll.

We skip ahead where we see Jae-suk and Han-byul driving over while the picture-in-picture tells us that Jae-suk and Seung-yeon won the previous game.

While they drive over to the final mission location, our teachers return to an empty classroom. They wrangle some muscle and head out to find the students.

Speaking of whom, our couples are briefed on their mission: find and open the box that contains the legendary couple ring and get into the safe zone to win. Na-rae shrieks at hearing that it’s a diamond ring. But that’s not all—their teachers are on their way; if they’re caught and their paper links detach, they’re out of the game.

Both Ji-hyo and Yoon Park have half a hint, though he supposes that the first hint describes the shape of the key whereas the other suggests the box’s location. Haha and Seungyeon find a red-colored heart key on the fifth floor, which isn’t the green-colored heart they should be looking for.

As Jae-suk and Han-byul head downstairs, they hear the unmistakable sound of bells in the distance. Teachers Hwang and Jung roam the halls, and when Teacher Hwang pulls back the curtain in the tiny theatre, she gasps at seeing her own reflection. Lol.

Gary and Ja-in make a run for it when they’re spotted by Teacher Jung. They’re caught in the stairwell where Teacher Jung takes them out.

In order to avoid the bells, Kwang-soo and Ji-hyo hurry into the elevator where Jong-kook and Stephanie are. But the sound of bells await them downstairs too, so they close the doors.

Suk-jin and Na-rae try hiding under the curtain, but I’m sure that large lump and visible shoes are abound to give them away. Ji-hyo and Kwang-soo find the room that contains the chest but neither of their keys work.

It’s slightly awkward when they run into Haha and Seung-yeon, but their key doesn’t work either. They try to quietly leave, when they find that the door to the outer room is locked. That’s because Jae-suk has locked the door because he thinks it leads outside.

Jae-suk breaks into a smile at the desperate pleas coming from the other side to open the door. He thinks it’s one of the teachers, but an aegyo-dripping plea has him thinking otherwise.

When he opens up the door, they tell him about the inner room that contains the chest. So Jae-suk and Han-byul try their hands at the yellow and red keys, to no avail.

Teacher Hwang spots Kwang-soo in one of the security cameras, and gives him and Ji-hyo a fright right outside the elevator. She tears their paper links, eliminating them from the game.

Another picture-in-picture teaches us that Yoon Park and Joy were eliminated, and Suk-jin asks for their hint. Kwang-soo and Ji-hyo do the same for Haha and Seung-yeon, though he tries telling them that they have to look for a red key.

But Haha won’t be fooled and gathers from Ji-hyo’s account that they need to find a green-colored key. They continue the hunt and find a box buried in the dirt—aha, it’s the green key they need.

When they run back to the chest, the lock clicks open. Haha and Seung-yeon put on the rings. Elsewhere, Jae-suk and Han-byul climb into the elevator, which makes an unexpected stop. The doors open… and Teacher Jung enters, saying that he’d been waiting.

Jae-suk tries to reason with him, and Teacher Jung agrees to give them a head start. Running downstairs only leads to more trouble with Teacher Hwang waiting for them with open arms. Needless to say Jae-suk and Han-byul are eliminated.

An abrupt cut takes us back to Haha and Seung-yeon, who make a run for it. The teachers and Jae-suk and Han-byul wait by the elevators. But when the doors open, Jong-kook and Stephanie are already inside. I love how Teacher Hwang nestles herself into Jong-kook.

Haha and Seung-yeon watch all of this unfold and dash to the other side. Too bad Teacher Jung has spotted them and gives chase. They try the rooms down in the first floor basement until they finally spot the heart-shaped safe zone.

Haha and Seung-yeon celebrate their win and have Ji-hyo to thank. Teacher Hwang reenacts her ninja stance while chasing her targets, sending chills down everyone’s spines.

To top it all off, Haha and Seung-yeon sport their diamond rings that commemorates their shiny victory.

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