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(Written September 27, 2024)
An important Monsta X update before we get started: Minhyuk will be finishing his military service in less than a week, on October 3rd. I’m tracking details on YouTube and Reddit. He will be doing some kind of fan meeting right after he returns.
Joohoney (Jooheon) will be
discharged in January 2025, Kihyun will be discharged in February 2025, and Hyungwon
will be out in May 2025. I didn’t
realize so many of them were serving at once.
The only one left in Monsta X to enlist is I.M, and given that he’s 28
years old, he should be enlisting very soon.
Some K-pop sites say his deadline will be the end of this year.
Stay safe and well, guys.
Now for a quick housekeeping item. I’m going to be doing two overlapping projects soon. These episodes of BOSS RIIZE can take a while to be released on streaming services, since the show is still airing, so it took me three days to get access to Episodes 9 and 10. Instead of just sitting around, once I get these two episodes recapped, I’ll start my next recapping project – I-Land, the 2020 survival reality show that brought us Enhypen. I’ll be working on that while wrapping up this show.
Okay. Let’s get started on Episode 9 of BOSS RIIZE and find out who won the Horror Mission.
Sung Chan and Anton are automatically eliminated for dropping out. Anton should be penalized for abandoning his terrified bandmate in the dark, but whatever.
In fourth place is Eun
Seok. His time was 11 minutes and 7
seconds, most of which was spent in a failed attempt to identify his own
group’s song.
Third place is So Hee. I’m bummed about that. I wanted him to win based on attitude alone. His time was 10 minutes and 50 seconds, again due to spending too much time on the song challenge.
So now it’s between Won
Bin and the current BOSS, Shotaro. Since
the show is moving toward setting up Won Bin as the next BOSS, I’m guessing
he’s going to win. Yep, it’s Won Bin, at
8 minutes and 4 seconds. He wins 5 more
ballots, along with the extra ballots from being on the winning water sports
team. I love that one of the reasons
Shotaro took too long is because he kept losing at Rock Paper Scissors against
a ghost who was trying so hard to lose.
So Eun Seok has won four extra ballots, Sung Chan has six, and Won Bin has nine. It’s already almost midnight, so Shotaro’s reign has ended anyway. Time for another vote. We’re reminded that Won Bin and Eun Seok formed an alliance back when they were washing lettuce, but now that Won Bin has a total of ten ballots, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need that alliance anymore.
We also get a flashback to the budget-breaking feast, where we learn Won Bin had formed an additional alliance with Anton, which in hindsight was about as useful as an alliance with the surrounding squirrel population.
In the voting booth,
Anton keeps his end of the bargain and votes for Won Bin and Shotaro. We see the others go in and out of the
booth. The votes are counted, and the
winner is …
Sung Chan.
HOW.
We get our answer when Eun Seok bows to Sung Chan and reveals himself to be the kingmaker. He broke his alliance with Won Bin. We get a flashback showing that while Won Bin was busy in the voting booth, filling out his ten ballots, Sung Chan promised Eun Seok he’d be exempt from being a worker, and so a new alliance was formed. Eun Seok cast his five ballots for Sung Chan. Plus, Sung Chan had picked up secondary votes from other bandmates, so here we are.
Won Bin is PISSED. One of the scaredy-cats who couldn’t complete any of the challenges in the Horror Mission is now the new BOSS. I did NOT see that coming. “I can’t trust anyone,” says Won Bin. RIIZE is going to break up after this, aren’t they?
Sung Chan gets the laurel and stamp. He signs his appointment letter and announces that Eun Seok is spared from being a worker. Won Bin warns the new BOSS that his new bestie is a traitor. His actual words, according to the translation, are, “That bastard is a traitor.” Everyone is a bit surprised at this language.
Getting back on track, Sung Chan decides to ask the Magic 8-ball Cards whether or not Shotaro should be a worker. The guy who was frozen in fear on the Ghost Trail now wants to involve the Occult in his decision-making. He draws a card that says, “Accept what you need to accept” and holds it up to Shotaro, who must now accept that he has to be a worker for the first time on this series. Everyone else has been a worker, and Won Bin’s been given that assignment twice.
But life isn’t fair in South
Korea either, because Won Bin is up for being a worker again. He and Anton have to play something called
the Tomato Game. Anton loses, so he’s
now the second worker. I’ll take that as
poetic justice for abandoning the new BOSS during the Horror Mission. Sometimes, life IS fair.
And now, for what feels like the 20th time, they must decide on sleeping arrangements. It must be three in the morning by now. How much sleep do they plan on getting? Sung Chan chooses the bigger room with Eun Seok as his roommate. The other four will have to cram into the second room.
Before bed, they work on
individual journals of their trip. I’m
guessing when this show is over, Won Bin will self-publish his on Amazon under
the title Best Served Cold: How to
Destroy the Lives, Hopes, and Dreams of Your Bandmates. I will order an autographed copy.
Later, they make ramen while staring into one of the cameras. Won Bin says he knew the camera was there because he watched footage of the previous show on YouTube. I’m glad this show’s editor is asleep at the wheel so we can get telling footage like this.
Night passes, and we’re now on Day Two of this trip, which has felt like a full week long. I can’t believe that just 24 hours ago, these guys were on the beach, doing the first round of voting. Actually, I can’t believe the show expects us to believe that, especially since these guys have had time to see the edited footage on YouTube.
We find out that in the cramped room, only two of the guys slept in the bed. Won Bin slept on the couch, and Anton took the porch. Anton wakes up first and pulls fellow worker Shotaro out of bed so they can make breakfast for everyone. We learn that out of all the possible workers, Sung Chan chose the two who can’t cook.
The crew tells them they can find freshwater snails in the creek in front of the village. Neither of them have eaten snails before. They have to Google “snails” on their phones. Apparently, snails for breakfast is a bridge too far even in a country that regularly eats spicy octopus and kimchi (although to be fair, Anton did grow up in the States). The two of them wonder how to cook snails, and Anton finds a recipe for freshwater snail soybean paste soup. I felt my stomach heave just typing that.
Shotaro suggests making bibimbap, which is rice and vegetables and sounds like a MUCH better idea. But they land on bibimbap AND soybean paste soup with snails. I could never live in Korea.
They pick lettuce and scallions in the garden, and then they find a section of chives. I never would have guessed chives were growing there. It looks like regular overgrown grass. If I lived in that house, the first thing I’d do is mow what I thought was the lawn, wondering why the clippings bag smelled like onions.
Now they go to the creek to
get the snails. This is the most
demanding thing I’ve seen any of the workers have to do on this show.
Back at the house, Won Bin wakes up So Hee by pinching his nose shut. This show has destroyed any goodwill he’s had toward his bandmates. The two of them go up to the second house to wake up the BOSS and the “traitor.”
Eun Seok demands to know if breakfast is ready and then says if Anton is a worker, they won’t eat today. Eun Seok, you’re in Yangyang-Gun in the Gangwon Province. I went on TripAdvisor and found three restaurants in your area that serve breakfast, so eat what Anton serves you, or zip it and start walking.
In the barbecue area, the workers are cooking while the others make their way over, complaining about how long it’s taking. This is a weird place to end the episode, but here we are.
We only have three episodes left, and two of our RIIZE guys haven’t been BOSSes yet – Won Bin and Anton. I’m worried about what kind of coup Won Bin is planning. He’s not screwing around anymore.
See you next time. Prepare for battle.
Episode 10: The semi-vengeful, kinda-mean-but-not-really Rule of BOSS 5
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