I-Land, Episode 7: Our First Houseguests

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(Written October 20, 2024)

Today, we get down to our final twelve and move them all to the I-Land.  I’m hoping the new I-Landers will still pop over to the Ground every now and then before they forget what trees look like.  Let’s do this.

It’s still D-Day, and we’ve moving to Part 2.  The global vote.  Ten people are going home today.  But first, we’re told that somebody has come to visit the I-Land.  After all the buildup, it had better be BTS.

Yes!  It’s BTS in the flesh!  It’s good to see them all together.  As I write this, most of them are doing their military service, and Yoongi (Suga) has been dealing with legal issues, bad publicity, and a fine of over $11,000 for driving an electric scooter while drunk.  It’s nice to rewind time and see them before all the bad stuff.  It’s also good to see them actually here on this set, walking through the gate, instead of just sending a video message.

They walk into the giant egg timer room, which they recognize right away because they’ve been watching the show.  The chairs are now numbered one through twelve according to rank.  No more name tags.  As Jin takes the Number One seat and the others tease him about it, the announcer voice booms out and welcomes them, making them almost jump right out of their skin.

Jin points to the giant egg timer and says, “Doesn’t that look like the egg of an alien?”  I’ve been saying this from the beginning – the whole place looks like an alien planet.  RM says the I-Land feels like a natural history museum.  These are not the descriptions you would expect of someone’s living quarters, so I feel vindicated.  I’d love to get their feedback on the Ground facility. 

J-hope is a big fan of the show, so he tells the others about the practice rooms and the banners overhead, but he draws a blank when he sees a glass cabinet with badges in them.  These are new.  They look like something the crew of the Starship Enterprise would wear.  There are seven of these badges.  Aha.  J-hope wonders if this means seven people will be debuting.  Yup. 

They have fun with the magnetic name plates.  Jimin and V do some choreo in the main practice room.  They remember practicing in a smaller room in their early days, and the mirrors would fog up, so they’d wipe them down with newspaper.

They check out the individual practice rooms, and we get a better view of the layout of this place.  They hang out in the lounge and then move upstairs to see the ginormous living room.  They see that the bedrooms are now numbered by rank, along with the chairs.  If I came home and found that Namjoon or J-hope had been lying on my bed, I’d frame the comforter and never wash it again. 

Soon, they find all the amenities awaiting the Top 3 ranked I-Landers in their shared bedroom, including a huge massage chair, snacks, and game machines.  The Top 3 also get a bathroom upgrade.  

As they move on through the I-Land, Jungkook tries to raid the pantry.  We learn that the twelve finalists still have 40 days to go in this facility.  We have six episodes left, including this one.  We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

As they backtrack through the living room, the screen on the wall lights up to tell them the entrance ceremony for Part 2 is about to begin.  They all take a seat.  Namgoong Min appears on the screen.  He explains that going forward, this will be a competition of individuals.  They will be judged by top producers, including Doobu, Son Sung Deuk, Pdogg, and Wonderkid. The global viewers will decide who leaves.  And it will all be overseen by BTS Producer and our show’s fearless leader, Bang Si Hyuk.  

The producers aren’t in the control room anymore.  They’re at a judges’ table, like we’re used to seeing on these shows.  We now meet the six survivors we already know about.  They all get video introductions with background and interviews.  As they take the stage in front of the producers, their banners unfurl next to them. 

We have Sunghoon, Jungwon, Heeseung, Jay, Jake, and finally, K.  I just have to show Jay’s toddler picture below, because LOOK AT THAT CUTE FACE!  We also get to hear Jake speak English with an Aussie accent in his audition video.  I’m looking at five future members of Enhypen … and K.  They thank the producers and make their way through the gate back to the I-Land facility.  (Did BTS leave?)

Now the sixteen dropouts make their way to the stage to learn their fates.  We know two of the finalists will be Sunoo and Ni-Ki, and finally our seven bandmates will be living in the same facility.  As the dropouts stand before the producers, the six I-Lander finalists watch anxiously from their giant egg timer room.  Possibly with BTS upstairs in the living room.  Seriously, is anyone going to check to see if they’re still up there?

One by one, the dropouts are whittled down to six finalists.

Ni-Ki.  No surprise there, and not just because I know the winners.  Despite a morally shaky start, he has been a consistently strong performer and high score earner.  He’s earned the third highest number of votes, a little over two million, among all the dropout finalists.  He has definitely earned his spot. 

The announcer tells him to go through the gate to the I-Land.  So they’re sending them through one by one.  I feel like I’m watching a series finale.  I love his emotional arrival when he greets his future bandmates.  And K.

Daniel.  He’s won the second highest number of votes, 2.5 million.  Again, he’s earned high scores and given strong performances, plus he won most of the United States vote.  Because apparently Jay doesn’t exist.  Our show maknae bursts into tears and hugs the other dropouts before heading over to the I-Land.

Sunoo.  Our future Enhypen member is the top vote-getter with 2.6 million votes.  The viewers adore him.  Before this show, he’d only been training for ten months.  He’s been back and forth between the I-Land and the Ground so much this season, he probably never had a chance to unpack.  Now he gets to enjoy the I-Land facilities and bonding with his future bandmates before becoming a K-pop idol.

Okay.  Now it’s time to meet our remaining three survivors who still won’t make it to the final group.

Geonu.  He’s in fourth place with 1.9 million votes.  The I-Landers are so excited, they’re losing their minds.  They’ve been saying his name like a mantra all this time, hoping his name will be called.  He’s so stunned, he only blinks a couple of times in reaction, and his fellow dropouts have to shake him back to reality.  It’s not until he goes through the gate and is joyously greeted by the I-Landers that he finally breaks into a smile.

Ta-Ki.  He’s in fifth place with 1.7 million votes, and he’s got a new haircut that really doesn’t work on him.  He’s so stunned, he almost falls forward.  Again, the I-Landers are ecstatic.  K and Ni-Ki are especially happy.  Ta-Ki stammers out his gratitude to the viewers before walking through the gate and almost being smothered to death with hugs.

Only one spot left.  One more person will walk through the gate, and ten people are going home.  Of course, the show is going to do the cruel thing and call three semi-finalists forward and make them sweat it out for a while.  I’ll skip all that.  In sixth place, with a little over one million votes, is …

Hanbin.  Our 23 year-old Vietnamese trainee.  His nerves are so shattered at this point, he just starts crying. 

The twelve finalists come back out to hug their friends goodbye.  These finalists are going to have to go through this exhausting process one last time in just a few more episodes.  I tried looking up how many K-pop trainees get ulcers from the stress of survival reality shows, but Google was no help.  I also Googled, “Is BTS still in the living room at the I-Land?” and got the answer that all the BTS members live in South Korea.  Google thinks I’m an idiot.

As the ten eliminated trainees leave, the show tells us they will all walk a new path.  They see this another step along the way to their dreams.  Given my current view of the industry, I have very mixed feelings about this.

Namgoong Min now says he will reveal the final number of members who will debut.  In keeping with the spectacle of these shows, I expect a huge number to appear in lights over the finalists’ heads, but no.  He just casually tells us there will be seven people in the group.  We don’t even get to see the finalists’ reactions to this news.  Bang Si Hyuk will produce this final group.

Speaking of Bang Si Hyuk, will our finalists now get to meet BTS?  We’re halfway through the episode and have been building to this all series.  I would love if the finalists went upstairs and found the members of BTS sleeping in their beds.

We’re told that now the global audience will start voting for the final seven members.  Our finalists return to the   I-Land, and Hanbin is excited because he’s never been here before. 

The announcer welcomes them, and now it’s time for the rankings.  We know that the Top 3 will get the best sleeping and lounge areas, once they kick BTS out.

Suddenly, the giant egg timer lights up, and it would be so funny if a giant chicken hatched out of it right now.  The announcer tells us there will be four tests.  The first and third will be decided by the coaches/producers.  The second and fourth will be decided by the global viewers’ voting.  The I-Landers will no longer be casting any votes.  Their fates are in other people’s hands.

Only the seven who survive all four tests will be able to debut.  The announcer tells them that from now on, this is no longer a shared destiny.  It’s a competition of individuals.  The Top 7 in each test will get the special badges we saw earlier, and the ones wearing the badges, along with the Top 3 getting special accommodations, will be changed by the test results every time.

Now for the first rankings.  Let’s see who gets the badges and the swankiest accommodations.  Future Enhypen members are highlighted in yellow.

Fifth-ranked K is not happy as he watches the others in the Top 7 collect their badges.  He sits quietly seething as he stares at them.  He tells us in a confessional, “The way we think and the way the global viewers think is a bit different.” 

Wow.  That’s catty and rather unwise.  Some of the global viewers might think you’re insulting their judgement, K.  Maybe just be grateful to be in the Top 7 and wearing a badge, K.

I see another potential problem.  Sunoo is excited and smiling about his Number One spot.  Anyone familiar with these shows knows that’s not a good thing.  Common courtesy in Korea is to be humble.  Sunoo is Korean and knows this, and in his voiceover, he actually says, “I was really happy, but I tried to be tactful and not show it.”  We see him hiding his face and puffing out his cheeks to keep from smiling, but he’s not really successful.

This wouldn’t matter so much on an American show.  But we’ve seen how a segment of K-pop fans can turn on a dime, and if they decide Sunoo isn’t being humble enough, they can make him pay by voting for someone else.  If the show is giving Sunoo an evil edit, not only are they sabotaging his chances, but they’re damaging his reputation.  Part of me wonders if K is also getting an evil edit, but he’s not making any effort to hide his sour expression, and we watch him make the snarky comment about the voters in a confessional.  That’s a lot harder to explain away.

With that awkwardness still hanging in the air, the announcer shares the details of the first test.  Our finalists will perform in three units of four.  The unit with the highest total score will be safe from elimination.  If the lowest-ranking I-Lander is among the first place unit, the next lowest-ranking I-Lander will be eliminated.

Basically with this test, the coaches are looking for one person to eliminate.  I wonder if K is being set up as that person.

Now the song for the first test will be revealed.  It’s a BTS song.  Wait – is BTS gong to come downstairs now?  Not exactly.  The video screens show BTS in the upstairs living room.  But it’s not live.  BTS recorded this earlier, which probably means they’ve already left.  That’s a bummer.  I would have loved to see these finalists meet their idols.  But the finalists are beyond surprised and excited to see that BTS filmed something right upstairs in their living room, so I think they’re okay with this.  Seriously, I’m worried some of them might have a stroke.

BTS starts the video by greeting the finalists, who are too busy having collective coronaries to hear what they’re saying.  Honestly, I think even the BTS Army is starting to worry about them right now. 

In the video, V jokingly says he’s called dibs on the blue bed, and Sunoo immediately calls dibs on the same bed.  BTS says the outdoor patio also looked nice, but they couldn’t go out there because of the rain.  Now I know why they left early.  The bones were already going brittle from a lack of Vitamin D.

BTS tells the finalists that each of the three groups will be performing a different BTS song.  The first song is “I Need U.”  BTS stresses the importance of expressing the desperation of the song.  Jungkook sings a few lines to demonstrate, and we won’t need eliminations because some of our finalists are squeeing to death.  When J-hope demonstrates some of the choreo, we may need to call the Korean number for 911.

The second song is “DNA,” and now I’m the one squeeing because I love that song.  The choreo will be particularly challenging because of how frenzied it gets while still keeping all the dancers in perfect synch.  There’s also a part where the dancers cluster together, grab hands, and do a wave.

The third song is another favorite of mine, “Fake Love.”  (Fun fact:  Pdogg co-wrote and produced this song.)  This is a dark, angry song with ballet-inspired moves.  The whole song feels like a shriek of anguish, and the choreo also requires physical contact when the dancers intertwine their arms.  If I were the finalists, that’s the song I’d want to do.  It’s incredibly difficult and has high notes, so it’s a risk, but if you can successfully pull it off, you’ll impress the hell out of the judges and voters.

BTS now says there will be a mini-mission before the actual test.  The gate slowly opens.  The boys hold their breath, expecting BTS.  We’re all expecting BTS.  Is it BTS?  No.  It’s Son Sung Deuk, accompanied by a special guest, choreographer Bae Yoon Jung.  She has a loooong list of famous artists and survival reality shows she’s choreographed for. 

Bae Yoon Jung greets the boys cheerfully.  They nod dumbly in response.  She asks them some questions, and they all just stare.  She asks Son Sung Deuk if they’re always this quiet.  Oh, no.  You’d think I’d have remembered from Shining SOLO and literally all the other recaps I’ve done.  Male trainees are incapable of talking to women.  Wonho, where are you?

Our guest choreographer finally gives up and tells them what the BTS mini-mission is:  a freestyle dance battle between all the I-Landers.  This triggers even more stress in our trainees.  Some of them don’t know how to freestyle.  Ta-Ki, who has plenty of experience in freestyle, has never been in a dance battle.  Whose bright idea was this?

Everyone gathers to get this over with.  The Top 3 winners will get to choose their three teammates and which BTS song they want to perform for the test.  Bae Yoon Jung asks for the first two volunteers to battle, and everyone just stares at the floor.  I am so tired of this.  Finally, Jay steps forward.  This whole battle is just filler, so I’m going to fast-forward and find out who our winners are.

Third place is Jungwon, second is K, and first is Ta-Ki.  Everybody is shocked at Ta-Ki’s win, including Ta-Ki, but I’m not.  I may have been fast-forwarding, but I could see he was the best one.  His moves were insane.  I hope he picks the “DNA” song because it’s got that locking choreo that suits his style perfectly. 

All the I-Landers run upstairs, because I guess we’re going to pick the teams later, and they’re thrilled at what they find in the living room.  BTS has autographed an I-Land poster for them.  They’ve also left a huge pile of gifts.  As they look through the boxes, the screen lights up, and BTS appears again.

They have another gift for our I-Landers.  They’ve heard that our boys have had concerns and worries about being on this show, so they’re going to help.  Turns out that earlier, the I-Landers were told to write down questions they would like to ask BTS. 

We only get to see them respond to Hanbin’s question about losing his confidence.  BTS gives an encouraging pep talk about self-esteem, and that’s it.  Hanbin is happy, though, so I guess it’s worth it.

Now the I-Landers realize that the cushions where BTS were sitting smell like their colognes.  So now, I’m watching a group of young men smell the couch cushions.  How is this the gender that rules the world?

They open the presents, and I’ll admit that BTS was incredibly generous.  They get handwritten messages, high-end autographed sneakers, wake-up messages recorded on alarm clocks, modernized hanbok and other really nice clothes, cameras, body pillows, wooden bowls and utensils, and other autographed knickknacks.  Jay gets a huge blanket with V’s face on it.  He wraps it around his shoulders like a cape, and for the rest of the episode, whenever the I-Landers run around, I’m seeing V’s giant face bobbing along with them like a disembodied K-pop cartoon character.

Now our boys see how the room arrangements have changed, which the Top 3 getting brand new upgraded accommodations.  Here’s where we suddenly get another strange or weirdly edited reaction from first place-ranked Sunoo.  He’s excited about getting the best room and dances around, gloating about being Number One.  I know I’ve only seen a handful of these shows, but I’ve never seen a finalist act like this.

The trainees ranked four and below run to check out their rooms and are disappointed to find they’re the same as before.  Only Sunoo, Heeseung, and Daniel’s room got the upgrades.

Speaking of our Top 3, they are rejoicing in their room.  Sunoo won’t let Daniel or Heeseung use the massage chair because it’s assigned to the top-ranked I-Lander.  His bed is also bigger and adjustable using a remote control.  The other trainees come in and ask if they can use the massage chair sometimes, and Sunoo is too busy playing with the adjustable bed to respond.  I have to believe the show is editing this to make him look bad.

K, on the other hand, doesn’t need a bad edit.  He’s just being a jerk.  In a confessional, he says, “The first place went to someone who was at the Ground, and he got more votes than Heeseung.  That didn’t make sense to me.”  He has to know the voters are going to see the confessional footage.  Why is he doing this?

We skip ahead to nighttime.  K, who just won’t let it go, tells his roommates, “I don’t like the rankings.”  Heeseung, who is hanging out in his room, quickly changes the subject to the upcoming test and how nervous he is.  Now we get a flashback to the teams and songs being chosen, which makes it look like this show is also anxious to change the subject.

As the first place winner of the freestyle battle, Ta-Ki gets to choose first.  He chooses Heeseung, Sunghoon, and Sunoo.  He’s chosen all Top 7 teammates.  Smart move.  But because he chose his teammates first, Ta-Ki has to wait until it comes back around to his turn to choose the song.

K chooses next, and he picks the song “DNA.”  I’m disappointed because I really wanted to see Ta-Ki do that one. 

Jungwon is next, and he chooses the song, “I Need U.”  That leaves Ta-Ki and his team with “Fake Love.”  I know I said that would be the song to choose, but now I have misgivings.  The choreo to “Fake Love” is smooth, graceful, and dramatic.  Ta-Ki’s skills are hip-hop locking moves.  This is not a good match.  His team is also worried about the high notes in the song.

We don’t get to see which teammates K and Jungwon choose.  Instead, we cut to the next day.  Ta-Ki and his Fake Love Team are practicing with Son Sung Deuk.  They show him the choreo they’ve learned so far.  He stops them halfway through.  They’re going too fast.  They’re not on the beat.  It’s just like I feared.  They’re used to hip-hop style dancing, and this song demands something else entirely.

Son Sung Deuk scolds Ta-Ki for not being a better leader.  Later, when the group practices on their own and tries adding the vocals, they can’t.  The notes are too high. 

Three days later, we see their midpoint evaluation.  It’s still not good.  Son Sung Deuk tells them they don’t deserve the badges that three of them are wearing.  After he leaves, Ta-Ki breaks down in tears.  The pressure is getting to him.

Heeseung and Sunghoon are preparing for the worst.  Heeseung asks if Sunghoon can go back to figure skating if he’s eliminated, and Sunghoon doesn’t think so.  This whole team has a cloud of despair hanging over them.

Now we move ahead to D-Day.  They take the stage, and the episode ends.

I’m exhausted.  This has been the most eventful episode yet, and it looks like next week, Ta-Ki’s team will be honoring BTS by butchering one of their most famous songs.  At least that would take Sunoo down a peg or two, which should make K happy.

See you next episode.

Episode 8:  Heartbreak

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