Wild Idol, Episode 5: Everything is terrible.

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(Written on April 10, 2024)

You can’t win, you can’t break even,
                    And you can’t get out of the game…
                    … and the world has got no shame,
                    You can’t win, child, you can’t break even,
                    You can’t get out of the game.

           --  “You Can’t Win” written by Charlie Smalls
                                   sung by Michael Jackson on The Wiz Soundtrack, 1978

Just a warning:  This was a difficult episode to get through.  It’s only ninety minutes, shorter than the last one, but it’s a LOT.  Let’s get to it.

This episode’s opening montage is about how wolves symbolize teamwork.  We are told wolves are born fighters that work as a team, and just as I’m wondering if this show knows that lone wolves are a pretty common thing, we get footage of a pack of wolves tearing apart a deer carcass, and now I’m off my sandwich and don’t really care anymore.  Is there more footage of the alligator attack?  That was cool.

We go back and re-watch Jooan making his decision to leave Team A.   His team is panicking.  The panelists are disagreeing with his decision.  Have they learned NOTHING from Keanu Reeves?  They probably never saw anything after the first Bill and Ted movie.

We finally get a confessional with Jooan talking about his decision, and it sounds like he regrets it already.  He says, “The biggest thing was that I didn’t want to see the other teammates leave.  It was my greed.”  This is immediately followed by The Cadet in a confessional, saying, “Jooan being in Team A was why I lined up for the team.  So, to be honest, I felt disappointed.”

So this show wants us to see Jooan’s decision as a mistake.  But I just can’t.  I only see the benefits.  The Cadet would make a better leader and should take over Team A.  Other teams could use a vocalist for the upcoming Talent Missions.  Team A is angry, and I get it, but I wonder if they’ll feel differently once the anger burns off. 

Time for the teams to choose the new teammates.  Changsun’s team   (Team B) immediately chooses Jooan.  (Called it.)  Proving his insight and maturity yet again, Changsun doesn’t just stand there and say Jooan’s name.  He walks over, shakes his hand, and leads him back to his new team.  It’s a heartwarming moment. 

 

The panelists are still upset, and I’m starting to wonder if this is a cultural thing.  Am I not seeing Jooan’s actions as shameful because I’m seeing them through American eyes?  It’s not just that Team A is upset.  It’s that Jooan seems truly ashamed.  As he stands in the back of the line of his new teammates, he keeps his head down.  If this were an American show, I think this would play differently.  At any rate, Team B is all TAN members now:  Changsun, Taehoon, Jaejun, and Jooan. 

 

Team C, still home of The Brat, replaces Baby Hercules with Aquaman.  Team D, Sunghyuk’s team, chooses Baby H, which means that Hyung Seok, who has been through so much already, now deals with the indignity of not being chosen at all and having to join an already upset Team A by default. 

I hate this so much.  It feels mean-spirited.  I know it’s all about survival and being in the wild and yadda yadda yadda, but I’m not sure how forcing the teams to do this proves which ones are best suited to be in a K-pop band.  This, by the way, is a thought that I will have several more times by the end of the episode.

Now that the traded players have brought their individual scores with them, time to see the new team rankings.  It must be two in the morning by now. 

The team order is B, C, D, A.  Jooan is now part of the highest-ranking team.  Okay, I do get Team A being really pissed about that, especially since their team is in last place.  That does suck.  Although they do have the nerve to tell us it feels like Jooan planned it that way.  Um, guys?  You kind of forced his hand.  None of you could decide to leave either.  Any one of you could have ripped off your badge at any time.  Baby H did it.  So did Hyung Seok.  Also, Jooan didn’t choose the top-scoring team.  They chose him. 

This is a giant mess, and in case I haven’t made it perfectly clear, I hate it.

The four traded players are instructed to move their things out of their current team tents and move in with their new team.  At least they get to do this alone and not surrounded by angry teammates.  The others wait by the Tower until being told to go back to the tents.  Please let them sleep.  I swear, if the drums start beating again tonight, I will send over Junho from 2pm to break their drumsticks, and they’re NOT going to like how he does it. 

Aquaman is waiting outside the tents to hug his former teammates, Changsun and Taehoon.  It’s a nice moment.  An even better moment comes next when Hyung Seok’s former teammates greet him with a hug as well.  At least his awful day ends on a pleasant note. 

Then we look inside Team B’s tent, and Jooan is sitting alone.  He doesn’t want to come out.  I’m sure he’s beyond thrilled about having a camera in there with him.  In a confessional, he says he started as Team A’s leader, but he’s now the former leader of the last-place team, and he has the lowest individual rank.  He is crushed. 

Team B returns to their tent.  I’m hoping some TAN bonding will help.  They smile, bow, and welcome him.  Changsun tells him, “No one can be perfect all the time.”  He tells the team, “Let’s save Jooan.  Let’s bring him up.  What do you think?”  They agree.  Along with being a strategic CEO, Changsun is going to be a great dad someday.

Over in Team A’s tent, they’re still bummed.  Especially The Cadet.  I’m relieved when everyone just goes to sleep.  We need to re-set the mood, and the beautiful morning shots of nature definitely help.  

Then, first thing in the morning, the drums start beating.  Our idols sprint for the Tower.  Once they arrive, the Tower announces that it’s time for the Talent Missions.  The boys walk to a clearing in the woods, where they are greeted again by the rap coaches from before, Bizzy and Tiger JK.

The first challenge is to make up a rap for the song “Black Happiness,” by Yoon Mi Rae.  They play some of the song, a woman rapping about overcoming a childhood of discrimination because she’s of mixed race.  I really like it.  She sounds like Queen Latifah.  I need to check out more of her stuff.

Bizzy and Tiger JK want our idols to make their own raps to the song, opening up about the challenges in their own lives.  This is what I’ve been waiting for.  We’ve learned a bit about Jooan over the past couple of episodes. I want to learn about the others.  They have thirty minutes to write, and then they will perform as a group.  

The teams sit together as they work.  Team A is still bummed and can’t really focus, and I just want to tell them to snap out of it.  This show keeps comparing the contestants to wild animals.  Wild animals would have long gotten over it by now.  I’m pretty sure I remember that from Paw Patrol. 

Tiger JK notices the dark cloud hanging over Team A and tries to cheer them up, saying that writing lyrics should be fun, not homework.  You know it’s bad when a famous rap idol can’t lift their spirits.  I’m sure it doesn’t help that they can see how inspired Team B is.  

We move over to Team B and get some insight about Jaejun.  Changsun suggests that Jaejun write about his dark skin and how it gave him an inferiority complex when he was little.  I remember when I first saw a TAN music video, I wasn’t sure if he was Korean.  Jaejun, who is definitely Korean, is often mistaken as a foreigner in his own country because of his looks.  I did some Googling and couldn’t find much personal history on him.  But since South Korea is really big on skin lightening, and he doesn’t do that, it may be why he faced some isolation.  I’m glad he seems proud of it now.  He likes when fans call him their dark-skin idol. 

Changsun is leading Team B well.  I Googled again.  He is TAN’s leader.  (The maknae, or youngest, is Jiseong, back on Team A.)  Jooan is fired up and starts contributing.  He’s not hunched over anymore with his head down.  He’s inspired.  The team gets louder as they rehearse, and Team A looks pissed off.  My patience for Team A is really wearing thin.  But they use their frustration to get motivated, and they finally start writing.  

The show is clearly setting up a showdown between Jooan on Team B and his former teammates on Team A.  But Team C (home of Aquaman and The Brat, another great radio morning show duo), has its own drama.  The Brat is digging his heels in on what he thinks the theme should be, and the others disagree.  They suggest linking his idea to theirs as part of a bigger picture.  He refuses.  Good thing they aren’t near the river, because his teammates look ready to smack him with an oar.  They move away from each other and start writing on their own.  Looks like they might be taking the lowest team ranking from Team A.

Before we know it, writing time is up.  Team D will go first.  It’s Sunghyuk’s team, which includes Baby Hercules, Surfer Dude, and a guy named Jae Chan.  Jae Chan is fired up and has reddish hair, so I’m going to call him The Spark.  They do really well.  It’s hard to get specific insight from the lyrics, as they are vague references to chasing their dreams.  But there is one standout moment.  Baby H has never really rapped before.  To help keep him on the beat, Sunghyuk pats the rhythm on his back when he does his part.  This teamwork impresses the coaches. 

 Time for Team B, and I sit up straight.  Here we go.  Jaejun begins by telling us how he was called so many names as a kid because of his dark skin.  He distracted himself by focusing on his dancing, sometimes dancing all night, and chasing his dream.

Taehoon raps about the bullying he endured as a kid.  The English translation of his lyrics are, “Swallow all the memories about being mistreated, don’t back down, straighten your shoulders … stop being scared and walk forward.”  As a survivor of childhood bullying myself, this really hit home.  Forcing myself not to cry in front of those who hurt me was crucial to getting through it.  Not the healthiest way, but crucial.

Jooan raps about finding confidence through practicing his dancing and becoming strong and flexible.  Even    Team A is bopping their heads to this, and I’m so happy to see his old enthusiasm back.  But when the song ends, the judges tell them this was supposed to be a rap, and they did more singing than rapping.  They’re right.  That counts against them.  My heart sinks.  To make matters worse, now it’s Team A’s turn.

Team A stands up, and right away I realize that they never chose a replacement leader, which is foolish.  The Cadet should have taken the reins.  I immediately forgive them for this when we get the specifically revealing lyrics that I’ve been waiting to hear.  The Cadet raps, “I started cheerleading, people judged me, saying it was only for girls.”  He goes on to rap about how he rose above it. 

The coaches love it.  I love it.  They could win this.  Jooan looks bitter, and I feel torn.  Yes, I want this win for Jooan, but Team A is finally shaking off the resentment and being productive, and I want to see them rewarded for it.

Finally, Team C’s turn.  Team Leader Gun Wook doesn’t time his breathing right, which throws off his rhythm.  (Again, anyone who thinks rapping isn’t a real skill should try it sometime.)  Their team also has a weird vibe.  They come across as people who worked on their parts separately and are now being forced to work together.  Thanks to The Brat, that’s exactly what happened, and the coaches notice.

I’m positive that Team C will be ranked last.  But no, It’s Team B, Jooan’s team.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  I hit pause as soon as the coaches made the announcement because I dreaded seeing the look on Jooan’s face.  This is so demoralizing.  I don’t think they deserved to be in last place, because at least they did rap as well as sing, and Team C was worse, with a bad performance and no teamwork.

But no, Team C is in third place.  First place is Sunghyuk’s Team D, which puts Team A in second place.  If Team B had been in third place, I might feel happier for them.  This is the second straight episode of watching Jooan fail, and it’s getting really depressing.

The coaches announce that this mission was just a warm-up.  Next, the teams will write lyrics, but only one person will represent the team and perform.  The way things are going, I predict Jooan will be the one to rap for Team B, and while he’s performing, a flock of passing birds will crap on his head and a tree will fall on him.  Out of nowhere, I remembered the Michael Jackson song, “You Can’t Win.”  I know that Jackson is another of Jooan’s favorites.  Nice to know that Jackson recorded what would later become the theme song for one of his South Korean fans.

It turns out that the rap coaches wrote a second song for the Wild Idol soundtrack called “Take the Free Fall.”  The winner of this challenge gets to perform their rap in the song.  The teams have thirty minutes to write the lyrics and presumably battle each other to the death over who gets to perform it.

Team A is done feeling sorry for themselves.  They choose Jiseong as their rapper and start writing.

Team B consists of all TAN members, but they don’t have a rapper in their group because centuries ago, someone back in Jooan’s family line angered a god who has now decided to get payback through a South Korean survival reality show. 

Teams C and D have the opposite problem.  On Team C, The Brat is butting heads with his teammates over who gets to rap.   Team D has two solid rappers, Surfer Dude and The Spark, and they both want it.  Team A is going to win this round, aren’t they?

With five minutes left, everyone is stressing out.  Teams C and D are breaking down.  Over at Team B, Jooan has been chosen to do the rap, even though he’s more of a vocalist.  Over in North Carolina, I am chewing on my hair.  Please let Jooan win this one.  I don’t think I can handle watching him get shot down again.

Team D goes first, with The Spark rapping because Surfer Dude has lost his confidence.  The coaches like the performance.  I’m not really paying attention because I’m still worried about Jooan.  Team A is next.  Jiseong does fine.  Next, here we go, it’s Team B’s turn.  Come on, Jooan.

It’s ominous from the start.  Jooan steps forward, and Team A smirks.  Jiseong tells us in a confessional that Jooan’s a vocalist, and he’s a rapper, so he’s confident he’ll beat his former leader.  The rest of Team B is starting to look worried, and Changsun is already regretting his decision.

We do not get a plot twist.  Jooan also misses the beat with his breathing, and he rushes through the end.  He’s not going to place high.  How the hell does he wind up making it to the final seven?  Do the others get mauled by bears?  This isn’t fun anymore.  I’m frustrated and tired of watching Jooan go through this. 

Time for Team C, the team of The Brat, whose parents clearly didn’t spank him enough.  Gun Wook is rapping while a bitter-looking Brat stands behind him.  Gun Wook does well and gets good feedback from the coaches while The Brat sulks.  Listen, Brat.  I will happily wave a magic wand and put you in Jooan’s place instead.  Just keep this up.

Now for the ratings.  I can’t bear to watch.  The winning rapper is Gun Wook from Team C, although the coaches argued a bit on this one.  Bizzy didn’t like how The Brat’s attitude affected the team spirit.  You don’t say.

Second place is Team A.  Third, Team B, and at least they’re not last this time.  Sunghyuk’s Team D comes in last, and I hate everything.  

The contestants then report to the Tower, which displays the individual rankings all at once on a chart, but I can’t read Korean.  All the show will spell out is that first place is a tie between Gun Wook and Changsun, a ranking that will become very important in a few minutes.  Jiseong from Team A is in second place. The Cadet from Team A is in fourth place.  Poor Hyung Seok, also in Team A, is in eleventh place.  Jooan appears to be somewhere near the bottom.  I seriously hate everything. 

But it gets worse.  This show suddenly takes a bewildering turn. 

The Tower announces that the Number One ranked position gets to take away fifty points from any of the other contestants.  Gun Wook is tied at Number One with Changsun, but since Gun Wook is listed first, he is the one who will choose the person who loses points.  And this is where I got really irritated.

I do not understand how stealing points helps get the best possible artists for the final group.  This honestly feels like a stunt.  The singing, dancing, and rapping missions are important.  The physical challenges like rolling logs across a mudflat and grabbing flags from a boat can maybe, MAYBE be justified.  But stealing points from other competitors is just ridiculous. 

Jiseong sums it up in a confessional:  “This show is getting crueler.  Isn’t this too big of a benefit?”  Yes, Jiseong, it is.  But more importantly, it’s pointless and mean-spirited.  This episode is about teamwork, and now the show is deliberately having the contestants do something that promotes a lack of fair play, which does not help teamwork. 

What I’d love to see is Gun Wook refusing to do it.  I know it won’t happen.  But what if Gun Wook realized how stupid this was and told the Tower where it could shove those fifty points?  What would happen?  And yes, I’m very aware of how American I sound right now.

Gun Wook is told to step forward.  The Brat bitches to us that he wishes he could have been in that position instead.  Okay, now I know where I’d like those fifty points to get shoved. 

Hear me out.  No Mercy could get really cruel sometimes, but at least every challenge was meant to weed out those who weren’t a good fit for the final group.  I can’t believe I’m about to defend this guy, but K.will was so focused on getting the right balance of talent in the final group that he brought in a totally new player near the end, because they needed more rappers.  What, exactly, is the strategy here?  There isn’t one.  Wild Idol does not seem to care about the final group.  They just want to goose the ratings at the expense of young people who desperately want to debut.  This really sucks.

Back to this dumpster fire of a moment.  Gun Wook is ordered to choose someone.  He chooses the one he is tied at Number One with – Changsun.  Changsun now drops to a five-way tie for fourth place.  Not because he did badly in a talent mission.  Not because he lacks endurance or dancing ability or the people skills needed to work in a team.  Just because he was unlucky enough to be listed second in the first place position he had rightfully earned. 

The Team rankings are now C, B, A, and D, in that order.  If the show were smart, it would call it a day and start again tomorrow.  But no, the drums beat again, right when everyone is reeling from the Great Points Robbery and I am still fuming at my keyboard. 

New coaches are coming.  One is Kim Jong Kook, one of the panelists who is also a K-pop star from some group I’ve never heard of but was really popular and I’m just too pissed off to look them up.  The other is Minho from SHINee, a band I’m mentioning only because I remember our No Mercy trainees performing one of their songs.  They’re here to announce a physical strength mission. 

According to Minho, a K-pop concert can last up to two hours.  So this will be an Infinite Dance Mission.  The contestants will dance to the chorus of the “Born to be Wild” theme song on repeat and will be evaluated on how long they can dance while maintaining the quality of the performance.  And it’s a team mission, so if one team member gets eliminated, the whole team does, because in a real K-pop concert, one member’s poor performance can drag down the rest of the group.

Okay, this makes sense as a mission.  I hate that Changsun is handicapped by fifty points going into it, and that whoever wins this thing through genuine talent and endurance could just get those points taken away on the whim of a freaking tower, but sure.

Minho ups the ante.  The contestants have to put two kilogram weights on each leg and one kilogram weights on each arm.  Again, a bit extreme, but directly related to the eventual goal of being strong and having enough endurance to make it through a live show.  

Then Wild Idol punches us in the face again.  This time, it doesn’t directly affect the contestants.  It’s just a stunning display of tone-deafness from a show purporting to put together a musical group.  And like most things that suck about this show, it involves the panelists.

A female K-pop idol on the panel cheerfully tells a horrifying story that makes me never want to listen to K-pop again.  She says that as part of being a trainee, she and her bandmates had to wear weights while going on a diet.  She then says, “We would eat half an apple a day and wear a winter jacket with the heater on for eight hours.”   The other panelists act surprised at this, but they can’t be too shocked, as this is something entertainment companies are known to do to their trainees, especially the female ones. 

Now, I’m not shocked, either.  I’ve heard these horror stories before.  It’s just that they were treated as horror stories when I heard them.  Here, the panelists just play it off as part of the job and see it as justification for putting weights on the contestants as they perform.  They even laugh about the panelist’s story.  It’s like me hosting a reality show where contestants try to kill each other and cheerfully telling the audience that it’s appropriate because my brother once shot me in the face over a game of checkers, so it’s fine.  On with the show!

So now I’m just feeling sick, and I also feel guilty because this starvation and overworking of K-pop idols is something I’ve tried to ignore because I love the music so much.  But here it is, on top of everything else about this episode, and now I’m wondering if I even want to watch the rest of this series. 

Let’s at least see how this one episode ends.

Changsun is one of the contestants who has practiced with weights before, so he gives advice to his teammates.  Then they all start the challenge, and I just realized they have to listen to this song over and over again, just like they did back in the earlier dance challenges.  They must be in hell.  This is an actual hell loop.

After a few rounds, Minho stops the music.  Hyung Seok pulls his team down yet again.  He was struggling and unable to keep up with the dance moves while wearing the weights, so all of Team A is eliminated.

I did some Googling to make sure Hyung Seok didn’t go on to throw himself off a bridge after this show.  Thankfully, he’s still alive and signed to Will Entertainment.  Also, he survived leukemia in 2019, before going on this show.  I felt better after reading that.  If he survived leukemia, of course he could survive this.  The guy is already a rock star.  He is devastated right now for letting down his team yet again (God that poor kid), but I know he’s going to be okay.  

The challenge continues, and Minho stops the music again.  Both Surfer Dude and Baby H were unable to keep up, so Team D is eliminated.  Baby H is the biggest, strongest, and most intimidating of the group, so yeah.  Wow.

Teams B and C are left.  I know that Jooan is going to dance until he drops dead, rather than fail again.  At this point, I find this fact more depressing than inspiring because I’m seeing this show in a new light and feeling bad about everything.  

Minho stops the music.  Oh God, the look on Jooan’s face. 

Team B wins.  I’m relieved.  If you had told me at the beginning of the episode that Jooan would finally get a win, I’d be jumping and cheering.  But now I’m just quietly relieved that the losing streak is finally over.

We move on quickly to another endurance mission.  Each contestant has to sing while doing jumping jacks.  I’ll cut to the end.  Jooan wins.  Again, I’m just relieved.  

Suddenly, we get the Golden Box graphic on the Tower again.  This show is cramming as many things into ninety minutes as it can, and I’m worn out.  The idols race to the river, and Baby H wins again, earning twenty more points for Team D.  He opens the box.  I’m hoping it’s a grenade launcher he can use to take down the Tower.   But no.  It’s iced coffee for the team.  Yay.  The show finally, mercifully ends.

I have to think about what to do next.  I might need a break from this show for a few days.  

Episode 6:  Beef and Circuses

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