Back to Site Table of Contents
(Written September 20, 2024)
Ladies and gentlemen, my recapping job has never been more important.
History is written by the winners, which means years from now, when Eun Seok seizes power as the President of South Korea, and hastily-written history books singing his praises are mandated reading in all schools, only my recaps will stand in rebuke to the new leader.
My recaps alone will tell the truth about Eun Seok’s betrayals, lies, and cruelty. He will send his military forces to destroy me, but they shall fail, because if DoorDash and Amazon delivery drivers can’t find my apartment in this confusingly-numbered complex, his soldiers won’t stand a chance. I will prevail.
Read on, determined rebels, for even more testimony about the ruthless Eun Seok and the many attempts to bring him down after the Great Ballot War of 2024. Do not lose faith. We shall succeed. Fighting!
We left off with Eun
Seok’s defeated subjects (and Shotaro) receiving mission coup assignments. We find out right off in this episode that
each one was given their assignment in private.
None of them know that they have all been given assignments. This was a good idea on the part of the
showrunners. If any band member fails
and is tortured for information, he won’t know anything.
As our boyband leaves the arboretum, they offer Eun Seok a small electric fan, some water, a shoulder massage, anything to keep his suspicions at bay.
Sung Chan asks if they can get ice cream. Eun Seok announces he will buy ice cream for the one who picks out the traitor. Everyone puts on their best innocent face. Then they try throwing suspicion on each other.
Eun Seok
winds up buying ice cream for everyone, and they tell him how generous he
is. He has to know they’re up to
something. When he tears the wrapper off
his ice cream, he stops their chatter by saying, “Just a moment. Trash.”
So Hee foolishly points to a trash can.
Eun Seok just eats his ice cream and stares at him. So Hee realizes his error and says, “I’m so
good at throwing out trash!” He jumps up
and throws away the offending wrapper.
Hoping to get back on the BOSS’ good side, So Hee then asks if they should buy ice cream for the production crew. Eun Seok stares at him again but then agrees. He makes Anton hand out the treats to the crew.
The band gets back in the big SUV and goofs around for the cameras again. They are fascinated by the car cams. I can’t believe they’ve never seen them before.
Eventually, they all get drowsy and start falling asleep in their seats. Eun Seok enjoys the luxury of his neck pillow. But Shotaro’s eyes open a bit as he scans the car. We’re reminded that is mission coup is to play Word Relay. I hope he succeeds so I can find out what that is.
Shotaro speaks up and suggests they all play a game to pass the time. “Do we need more footage?” asks Won Bin, who clearly still thinks there’s someone editing this show. They agree to play one round. But they’re tired, and they can’t seem to keep a round going. Sung Chan dozes off when it’s his turn. If this game doesn’t succeed, it’s going to look too suspicious if Shotaro tries this same game again later. He finally gives up. His mission coup has failed.
Now So Hee starts singing to himself. We don’t know what his assignment is. Maybe he’s going to try it now. The others recognize that he’s singing an R&B version of their song “Siren” and start singing along. Even Sung Chan wakes up to join in. When the song ends, everyone dozes off again. I guess that wasn’t it, or if it was, it failed. I’m going to be suspicious of everything they do for the rest of this episode.
The SUV finally reaches its
destination. They are staying in a
couple of big houses with a pool area connecting them. The band dubs it RIIZE Village. The show has rented out the entire village
for these six guys. It’s nice, but I’m
already missing the house from Shining SOLO.
We get the full tour. The pool is heated. There’s a café right next to it. There’s also a game room with Pac-Man and Metal Slug. The houses look comfy inside.
Eun Seok says the workers should sleep outside. He’s really starting to freak me out. He also says he needs his own room and the others should crowd into the second bedroom. He does pretend to be interested in their opinions on the matter, I’m guessing to appease them before they snap and throw him off the balcony. However, he finally puts his foot down and tells them he stand by his original decision of making them all share one room while he takes the other.
Okay, guys. At least four of you have mission coups you
haven’t tried yet. Now would be a great
time to give any of them a shot. But no. Eun Seok looks at his silent bandmates and
quietly asks, “Where’s the applause?”
And instead of shoving him into the pool and commandeering the SUV back
to Seoul to audition for a replacement member, they all applaud. “What a stellar decision!” says Won Bin, who
officially USED to be my bias.
Eun Seok finally agrees to share his room with one more person and wants everyone to compete for the spot. In front of everyone, Anton warns, “Guys, if you win, you have to share a room with Eun Seok!”
If this village had a
dungeon, Anton would be in it right now.
The others fall all over themselves proclaiming how much they would love to be Eun Seok’s roommate. The game they are playing is called 369, which I had to look up. It’s a clapping game. A player starts counting from one. If a number contains 3, 6, or 9, the player has to clap. This game is very popular in Korea.
They start playing, and it
moves so quickly that it’s hard to keep up, which I guess I the point of the
game. Anton is the first to lose.
So Hee wins the game and is now Eun Seok’s roommate. As the band member who declared Eun Seok his mortal enemy in the last episode, So Hee is now in the best position to smother the BOSS in his sleep. Or carry out a mission coup. Whichever is easier.
Suddenly, a drumbeat and
dramatic music startles them all. It’s
the coup music! Someone has successfully
pulled off a coup!
Everyone is cheering. Eun Seok has been betrayed! He’s the only one not laughing. He looks genuinely pissed off. In a confessional, he says, “I had better find the traitor.” I’m pretty sure he won’t have to do anything. If this coup is anything like the last one, the traitor will proudly claim credit.
Won Bin announces that he was the traitor. His mission was to get a compliment from Eun Seok. Back at the arboretum, when Won Bin was massaging Eun Seok’s shoulders, he got complimented twice, which is VERY out of character for this mean, icy BOSS who only speaks in insults. But this BOSS let his guard down. While massaging him, Won Bin asked how the massage was, and Eun Seok twice said, “Not bad.” That’s what passes for a compliment from him. It counts.
We get a great flashback moment after the successful coup when everyone is getting ice cream. Won Bin loudly compliments the BOSS. Then he turns around and mutters into his clip-on mic, “The BOSS is an idiot.” Okay, Won Bin is my bias again.
But now we get another twist – So Hee also successfully pulled off a mission coup! Turns out that when he was singing “Siren,” back in the car, his mission was to get the BOSS to sing along. Everyone in the car sang along, so that’s another win for the rebels.
And there’s yet one more. Anton reveals that his mission was to sit in the back of the SUV and get out first at the destination. Grabbing a seat in the back was easy. Getting out first took some planning. As they approached the village, he jumped up first, literally shoved So Hee out of the way, and managed to barge his way first out the door. That’s three successful coups!
Now for the failed attempts. Sung Chan reveals his assignment of having the BOSS call him by his full name. He was so awkward about it, Eun Seok immediately knew what he was doing and shut it down. And we already saw Shotaro’s failure to get the Word Relay game going. But three successful coups are more than enough. When Eun Seok realizes that the room assignments will have to be chosen again, no one is gloating more than his mortal enemy, So Hee.
I’m still not fully convinced
that Eun Seok’s reign is over. Both he
and Shotaro have those extra ballots.
But then yet ANOTHER betrayal is revealed. Shotaro kept fourteen ballots and only gave
Eun Seok six.
It’s time to vote. Shotaro will vote first, since he has a lot of ballots to fill out. Eun Seok goes next, and he tells us he’s voting for himself and Shotaro. I think he still believes he can control Shotaro, and I also think he might be right. He’s not giving up so easily.
Waiting outside the voting booth, Eun Seok orders Anton to fetch him some snacks, saying he’s still officially the BOSS. Anton tells him to get bent. (I’m loosely paraphrasing here.) Eun Seok tells him, “If I’m ever the king again, you will be a worker again.” Anton scampers off to the voting booth to make sure this doesn’t happen.
And the episode ends here.
We all know that no matter what happens in that voting booth, Eun Seok’s reign will never truly end, right? He’s had a taste of power. He will never let it go. This is just a minor setback.
Stay vigilant, future
subjects of President Eun Seok. The
warning signs were all there.
Episode 6: The Great Bankruptcy Feast
Back to Site Table of Contents
No comments:
Post a Comment