Wild Idol, Episode 9: Beautiful Pain and Kitchen Sink Pizza

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(Written on April 18, 2024)

I’m glad we’re not doing another cold open about wild animals and how their existence is just like what our idols are doing.  The show knows it ended on a serious moment in the last episode, so we pick up where we left off. 

We see Hyung Seok break down again mid-song.  He’s only 23 at the time of filming this show, and he’s already been through more trauma than most people experience in their whole lives, and now he’s on a survival reality show. Taehoon tries hard to help him pull it together.  Hyung Seok fights to keep the song going, but he sobs into the mic and puts it right back down.  Then, with Taehoon looking right into his eyes, he tries again.  They sing the final line together.

Hyung Seok tells us in a confessional that he knew this challenge could be his last chance of surviving on the show.  It could be his last performance.  He’d just lost the rap challenge, and he’s at the bottom of the rankings, so yeah.  He says he started thinking about his entire journey so far on this show and became overwhelmed. 

The coaches are very kind to him.  They explain that they can’t let the emotion influence their score, but they do understand why he reacted like that.  They add that they were actually leaning toward voting for him until he lost control, so now they are voting for Taehoon.

I have mixed feelings about this.  I wish they had allowed a do-over, giving Hyung Seok a moment to pull himself together, especially since they were leaning toward voting for him anyway.  But then there’s the whole “surviving the wild” theme of this show, not to mention that if he’d been performing a live show and broken down like that, he wouldn’t be given a do-over.  I also have to wonder how Taehoon feels, knowing he would have lost this challenge if it weren’t for his opponent having a breakdown.  This just sucks for both of them. 

The coaches tell Taehoon he can now take fifty points from Hyung Seok, and Taehoon does not look happy about it.  He has already established himself as the Loyal Idol, several episodes back.  This is not the kind of win he wanted.

We cut to a beautiful scene of the sun setting over the mountains.  The coaches are ready for the next round, and the trio volunteers.  After what just happened with Hyung Seok, I think I’m going to stop making fun of Ki Joong, especially since I know he won’t win in the end either.  So coming up, we have Ki Joong, Jiseong, and Surfer Dude, singing “Every Day, Every Moment,” by Paul Kim. 

Surfer Dude starts a little unsteadily, maybe from nerves.  Jiseong goes next, and his voice is more strong and focused.  I can feel the warmth behind it.  Same with Ki Joong.  For all the crap I’ve given him, he definitely makes himself heard.  His voice has sweetness and vulnerability behind it.  I think this battle is only between Jiseong and Ki Joong.  And the more they sing, the more I think the winner will be Ki Joong.

But the coaches are leaning a different way.  As much as they love Ki Joong’s voice, they feel more emotion from Jiseong.  One of the coaches said he didn’t know this song had a groove to it until he heard Jiseong sing it.  The coach said he was surprised the song could sound that way, which is one of the biggest compliments we’ve heard on this show so far.  

Jiseong is the winner.  Our future TAN man has beaten two competitors at once.  He’s won both the rap and vocal challenges in this talent mission.  Now he has to choose which opponent to take fifty points from.  He already took fifty from Surfer Dude in the rap battle.  He chooses Ki Joong this time, which surprises me.  Taking another fifty from Surfer Dude would knock his opponent down in the rankings. Then again, it would also put a target on his own back if Surfer Dude wins next time.  So maybe Ki Joong really was the better choice.  

Next up, Sunghyuk and Baby Hercules sing “I Want to Fall in Love” by Jung Seung-hwan.  Baby H begins, and he sounds way more mature than his actual age of twenty-two.  His voice reminds me of Julio Iglesias from the 80s.  Sunghyuk’s voice is younger, more yearning and romantic.  It’s an interesting contrast.  I think they’re equally talented, but Sunghyuk’s voice is more suited to a K-pop idol.  Baby H should sing on movie soundtracks. 

The coaches seems spellbound by both of them, but in the end, they disagree with me and choose Baby H.  I can’t even criticize them.  It comes down to style preference.  I hate to see the TAN guy lose, but I get it.  One of the coaches then says that these two are the best vocalists he’s heard so far.  I actually said out loud, “Really?  Better than Hyunyeop?”  I want that coach to explain himself, but we’re moving on. 

Only one team left.  The main event.  Jooan vs. The Cadet.  I am on the edge of my seat for this.  The panelists and the other idols are excited.  The pressure on these two must be intense.  

The coaches ask if they can order fried chicken for this show.  The Cadet laughs.  Jooan does not look nervous AT ALL.  Ignore the hands knotted into each other and total lack of a smile.  He’s chill.  (Seriously, I’m worried that he’s about to throw up.)

Jooan tells the coaches they will be singing “Last Love” by Kim Bum Soo.  He sounds like he’s talking through gritted teeth.  Jooan, I really need you to win this, so maybe have a shot of Bacardi and UNCLENCH.

The music starts.  Jooan takes the first line, and of course, it’s spellbinding.  Sitting among the other idols, Taehoon is transfixed.  The coaches close their eyes and smile.

The Cadet takes the next verse, and it’s pure bliss.  There’s a tremor in his voice, but not from nerves.  He’s performing with a slight waver in his voice because this is a song about holding back the tears when the love of your life is breaking up with you.  I looked up the English translation of the lyrics, and they are sadder than “All By Myself” and “She’s Out of My Life” combined.  Maybe the reason Jooan was so serious before starting was because he was trying to get himself in the right frame of mind. 

Jooan and The Cadet keep trading lines, and it’s beautifully painful.  Their voices express anguish without getting overwrought.  Jooan is better at the facial expressions, so you truly believe him, while The Cadet is clearly performing, but that is the only edge that Jooan has over him.  I had to pause it for a moment so I could pull myself together. 

The Cadet’s singing is so good, that for just a moment, I can understand how selfish he was during the team challenges and why he was so desperate to leave Team A.  If I had this kind of talent, I would fight like hell just for myself, too. 

But it’s Jooan, with his passion, energy, and spirit that absolutely stuns me, and yes I’m partial, but I’ve been a TAN fan for several months and have seen just what this fascinating artist is capable of.  And God, I want him to win this challenge.

The coaches applaud, and I’m feeling just as tense as Jooan looks.  The first coach says he made his decision based on one part of the song, the way The Cadet sang the last line.  So the first vote is for The Cadet.  The second coach chooses Jooan.  The third coach needs to break the tie, and I’m about to have a heart attack. 

We cut to the panelists, and they agree that Jooan’s performance had more depth.  Can we give THEM a vote?  Jooan looks like he’s about to pass out.

Finally, the third coach speaks.  He has positive and negative things to say about both singers, and if he doesn’t just say who he voted for, I’m going to punch a hole in my computer screen. 

It’s Jooan.  He chooses Jooan.  Jooan looks stunned, and I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I let it out and got dizzy.

Baby H says it best:  “It was like a match between a dragon and a tiger.”

In a confessional, Jooan says, “I was delighted,” with the same serious expression that tells me he still doesn’t believe it and is waiting for the coaches to say they made a mistake.  He says the win helped him gain confidence.  He’s pragmatic.  He’s the most pragmatic artist I’ve ever seen. 

Our challenges have ended, so we go back to the Tower.  It looks like it’s lit up from the inside, so now I think it’s made of a light material designed to look like stone.  I have the feeling I will be obsessed with this for the rest of the show. 

Now that the winners have taken points away from their opponents, it’s time for the rankings.  Taehoon moves to first place.  But then there are more changes, and the Tower just displays them in Korean.  I don’t know who ranks where, and I know it’s a lot for the translators, but I really wish they had just put the English text on the screen next to the Korean names.  Netflix does that whenever there’s text on the screen that the viewer needs to understand, when it’s crucial to the plot.  LIKE NOW.

No more time to dwell on that.  Time for the next mission, even though it’s clearly in the middle of the night.  The idols go back to the clearing.  A new coach awaits.  The idols start freaking out because it’s Mr. Kim Dong Hyun!  Wow, Right?  Yeah, I have no idea.  Apparently six months of being a K-pop fan not only doesn’t make you fluent in Korean, you also remain woefully ignorant about the rest of Korean pop culture.

Kim Dong Hyun is a mixed martial artist whose Wikipedia page could wallpaper my entire apartment.  The show calls him a “Stamina Master.”  Our idols have been through the emotional wringer, and it’s way past their bedtime.  But sure, let’s make them fight or run or whatever this huge man is going to have them do.  It’s not like a good night’s sleep is crucial for taking care of your voice.

Mr. Kim says he’s going to teach them how to have grit and stronger willpower.  I guess he hasn’t seen any of the episodes up to this point, which include Sunghyuk almost getting swept away in a river while while carrying logs and everyone doing ocean sprints while being yelled at by the Bickering Twins.  Our contestants don’t need more stamina.  They need sleep.

But what do I know?  What Mr. Kim thinks they actually need is to participate in a tournament where two people at a time will hang from a bar and try to knock each other down.  I have watched several K-pop concerts online and don’t remember any of the performers having to do this, but okay.  Also the matchups will be decided by their rankings instead of their weight class, which makes even less sense.  Respectfully, I think maybe Mr. Kim has taken too many blows to the head. 

Because we have an uneven number of contestants, the top-ranked idol automatically moves up to the next round.  That’s Taehoon, so I guess he’s still Number One.  Wait – we get a chart showing the lineups, and the chart also has the rankings with the photos, which is VERY helpful.  Hyunyeop has moved all the way up to Number Ten!  Jooan is at Number Two.  I think Hyunyeop is our lowest-ranked TAN man, so things are looking up for the group.

Our idols spend the next thirty minutes with Mr. Kim.  I’ll get more into this later, but I don’t know why they are doing this.  Now that we’re in the last few episodes and focusing on who should be in the final group, shouldn’t we be focusing on the talent missions? 

Also, I’m a little nervous about this hanging from a bar contest because it looks like someone could get hurt.  The contestants fight with their legs while hanging on for dear life with their hands, trying to force their opponent to drop, and it’s far enough of a drop that someone could break an arm or land on their head.  Who approved this?  I don’t care who wins, I just don’t want them to die. 

For the next several minutes, we watch our idols knock each other off the bars.  

People win, people lose, I don’t care because I don’t see the point of this.  But I do notice something interesting.  In some scenes, it is pouring rain, and then when they cut to another angle of the same scene, it’s not raining anymore.  Mr. Kim will be shown talking to the idols in a torrential downpour, and then we cut to the idols listening, and there’s no rain.  This goes on all during the stamina challenge.  I can just imagine what weather reports sound like in the Sobaek Mountain Range.  “Here’s tonight’s forecast.  It’s currently raining.  Wait, no it's not.  Wait, now it is.  Wait, no it’s not … “

We get to the final round:  Aquaman vs. Jaejun.  When we see Mr. Kim announce the match, the weather is fine.  Cut to Aquaman’s reaction, and it’s pouring rain, and his hair is slicked down on his head.  They are standing maybe ten feet from each other. 

Anyway, on to the final match.  Jaejun is called the Black Bear Trainee, and … well, I guess if he’s fine with that, then I am too.  It’s a brief struggle on the bar.  Aquaman wins.  When he jumps off the bar, it’s a perfectly clear night.  When he lands on the ground, it’s pouring rain again.  Yes, I know that it’s a continuity thing in reality television filming.  But they’re making no effort to hide it, and it looks like the South Korean wilderness is in the middle of a celestial battle of good and evil, and maybe these mere mortals should just call it a night and get the hell out of the way.

Mr. Kim asks the contestants what they thought of the tournament.  For what it’s worth, my opinion is that other than the bizarre weather and the fact that this sport has nothing to do with K-pop, and it’s probably two in the morning by now, it was fine.  

Next up, Mr. Kim announces a nametag-stealing battle.  A circle is marked in the middle of the field.  Two opponents wrestle to either rip the other person’s name tag off or push that person out of the circle.  The winner steals ten points from the opponent. 

This challenge is at least a little more interesting.  Hyung Seok, who is in last place and has nothing to lose, takes on Taehoon, and I think he may actually kill Taehoon.  He has full-on crazy eyes.  He’s so focused on the name tag, he doesn’t notice when Taehoon shoves him out of the circle.

Ki Joong choses Jooan as his opponent because Jooan is literally dozing off.  I love the look on his face when he snaps awake. 

 

The fight begins, and for someone who was asleep a minute ago, Jooan is scrappy as hell.  He rips off Ki Joong’s name tag in triumph. 

I want to fast forward through this, but funny stuff keeps happening.  It’s Jiseong’s turn to pick an opponent, and he tells everyone he used to do Muy Thai for six years.  He throws some punches to demonstrate, and I love the guy, but he looks like a kid showing off karate moves he saw in a cartoon.  

Jiseong chooses The Brat as his opponent, and I’ll be darned if The Brat doesn’t make me laugh out loud by mocking Jiseong’s Muy Thai moves.  Then Jaejun gets in on the fun with something he calls Drunk Black Bear.  Mr. Kim gets such a kick out of this, he approves a three-way fight.  I’m totally on board.  Whatever moves this along.  Long story short, Jaejun wins by shoving both opponents out of the circle.  I guess he can use this skill to shove his future bandmates off the stage if they forget the choreography.

Finally, we’re done with this stamina challenge.  That was a bizarre thirty minutes.  Now back to the Tower because these boys STILL aren’t allowed to get some sleep.  We get the current rankings, which again I can’t read, but I’m able to get some of the positions based on conversations between the idols.

Number 1 – Taehoon     Number 2 – Jaejun       Number 3 – Jooan

Number 8 – Jiseong      Number 11 – The Cadet     Number 13 – Surfer Dude

The Tower tells them the mission will continue tomorrow.  We still have 25 minutes left in this episode, so I’m guessing we’ll end on an elimination cliffhanger.  The boys go back to their tents and pass out.

Cut to morning, when I would love to get a scene in which the bleary-eyed trainees look at each other and say, “Man, I had the weirdest dream where we were all beating each other up for points, and this raincloud kept moving all over the place, and Jiseong thought he was some kind of martial arts expert, and we weren’t allowed to sleep.  Thank goodness it was just a dream.  Wait, where’s my name tag?”

What actually happens is that the idols wake up to care packages with snacks and apple juice.  The show blurs out the brand names, but I recognize one of the packages as a pack of strawberry Hi-Chew candies, which I love and am now craving.  There are handwritten notes in the boxes – awww, the care packages are gifts from the panelists!  That’s sweet.  

We cut to the generous panelists, who tell us the online voting is still going on.  Oh, right.  I forgot about that.  Viewers are voting for their favorite trainees as well as the group name.  There sure is a lot of stuff going on in this show.

Back to the mountains.  We have three new coaches admiring the Tower with their backs to the camera, and then the Dukes of Hazzard arrive.  I’m not a fan of the plaid. What was wrong with the black shirts?  Is the next challenge a hoedown?

The new coaches turn around, and fanboys gonna fanboy again.  One of the coaches is Jo Kwon of a group called … 2am.  Wait, there’s a 2pm and a 2am?  According to Google, the two bands were spawned from the same music documentary.  What a weird industry K-pop is.  The second coach is Ji Yeon, a singer and actress.  The final one is Seunghee of a group called OH MY GIRL, which sometimes goes by OMG.  All three of these people are famous, as evidenced by the fact that our boys are drooling over the two female coaches like they just got out of prison and haven’t seen a woman in years. 

Our coaches say that ways of expression are important for capturing an audience.  The coaches will be evaluating the idols’ ability to express emotions.  Okay, so this is basically an acting competition.  We haven’t covered this area yet.  It still doesn’t explain the red plaid shirts, but sure.

This challenge turns out to be disappointing.  The boys are very self-conscious in front of the famous people and keep laughing when they’re supposed to be expressing regret, sadness, rage, and itchiness (yes, itchiness), but the coaches tell them they’re doing a fantastic job.  What is happening here?  I really hate to bring this up again, but is this where Jooan learned his face acting skills for the “Walking on the Moon” video?

This expression means either “I love you” or “Shut up, I’m trying to read during this basketball game.”

Not that I blame these guys for doing poorly at emoting.  As an introvert, I would fail this challenge.  I keep my emotions locked up tightly inside, where they belong.  (I get a lot of headaches.)  By the way, we’re still getting the sporadic rain during this challenge.  The mountains may be pretty, but they wreak havoc on TV show continuity. 

Next, each idol tries emoting to music, and the whole thing is just uncomfortable to watch.  It’s got to be easier to show emotions onstage during a concert when you’re feeding off the energy of an audience instead of standing in the woods with a television crew and your fellow contestants staring at you.  None of the idols do well, but the coaches choose Changsun, Taehoon, and Hyung Seok as the least bad.  

Everyone applauds.  Suddenly, the drums start up, and the idols start running, which confuses me because they’re already at the Tower.  The words “Golden Flag” wave across the Tower’s screen.  It’s another flag race.  The idols run to grab gold flags and plant them back at the Tower.  The first seven to return get bonus points. 

 

Baby H is first, followed by Aquaman, Changsun, Jooan, Taehoon, Hyunyeop, and Ki Joong.  Jooan has always done well in these flag races.  But unlike the other races, this just came out of nowhere and feels like a way to fill time before we finally end the episode.

This show has a problem.  It started with too many contestants and has too many episodes.  We have four more episodes to go and eight contestants to eliminate, and we should have eliminated at least one person today.  The show keeps threatening to eliminate contestants, but the last cut was two episodes ago.  We now have to stretch and find enough excitement to fill these remaining episodes.  They have to make Kitchen Sink Pizza for the rest of the series.

Kitchen Sink Pizza is when you have scraps of leftovers in the fridge, and none of them are enough for a meal, so you take a pre-made pizza crust and just chop up the leftovers and toss it on the crust, throw it in the oven, and hope you have something edible in thirty minutes.  Wild Idol started this episode with an amazing vocal challenge that kept me captivated for the first half, and then it realized that it still had half a show to fill.  So the show opened the fridge, pulled out a martial arts expert, some care packages, and a bunch of gold flags, and threw it all in the oven.  What came out was something I want to toss in the garbage and use DoorDash instead.

The biggest fix would be to cancel the last three episodes and make the next one a two-hour special of live performances on those big Tower stages we saw earlier.  Based on those performances, all the coaches and the voting audience will choose the seven winners.  No Mercy did that, and it was one of the best show finales I’ve ever seen. 

Since it’s clearly too late to cancel the last three episodes, here are some other suggestions.

Start chopping contestants.  I know it sounds cold, but as this show keeps beating into the ground, here in the wild you survive or you die and you have to survive to be a wild idol or you die blah blah blah JUST CUT SOMEBODY ALREADY.   We need to cut at least four people before the final episode.  No Mercy left two rejected trainees standing when it was over.  If this show doesn’t have the guts to cut down to just two rejected trainees, then fine, make it four.  That means four people need to go home over the next three episodes.

Focus on the Talent Missions.  As much as I’ll miss the Bickering Twins, we need to put a stop to the wrestling and log carrying and running on mud flats and flag races and all this other gimmicky stuff that has nothing to do with being a singer and dancer.  I’ll admit, it was fun for a while, but now that the show keeps insisting that we are sharpening our focus on putting the band together, let’s put the freaking band together. 

The most exciting and spellbinding moments of the show are the rap, vocal, and dance challenges.  That’s what we’re here for.  We’re K-pop fans.  I don’t care if Monsta X can wrestle each other’s socks off to form words.  I want to know when they’re going to sing “Rush Hour.” 

Enough with the Point Stealing.  These idols desperately want to debut.  Stop making light of their desperation by turning the pursuit of their dreams into Family Feud or whatever game shows are popular in Korea right now.    Since you keep telling us you’re focusing on putting the group together, then let the idols keep the points they earned by being talented instead of stealing them from each other.  That’s been cruel from the beginning, but now that you claim to be focusing on talent for the remaining episodes, it’s unacceptable.  Just stop already.

And finally,

Tell me what that Tower is made of, dammit.  It couldn’t have been made of real stone, because that would be an environmental disaster.  It must have been made with light materials.   Is it disassembled in a warehouse somewhere?  Can I have it?  I’ll pay for shipping.  I want that thing in my yard.  My apartment building is difficult for delivery drivers to find, so instead of trying to explain that there are two buildings with the same number and they need to go to the second one, I can just say, “It’s the one with the big-ass Tower in front of it.”  I’ll decorate it with tinsel and ornaments at Christmas.  I’ll hook it up to my Roku stick and broadcast the Olympics on it for all my neighbors.  The possibilities are endless.

 

Episode 10:  I get my answers, and they are all NO.

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