We’ve hit the ground running
in Shanghai. Our RIIZE guys have moved
into an elegant house, played memory games, eaten tons of food, terrorized an
office building, and voted on their two teams.
Our BOSS Clan is Shotaro, Wonbin, and Eunseok the Evil One. The Worker Clan is Anton (who couldn’t
identify his own father’s name in the Pictionary game), Sohee, and Sungchan. Let the chaos ensue!
We open with our Worker Clan
crammed into the back of a cab, being driven through Shanghai, bemoaning their
fate. They comment on the fact that Shanghai
has a lot of electric cars on the road.
We get some amazing shots of the city. The past mixes with the bustling present.
It really is breathtaking.
Meanwhile, our BOSS Clan is
traveling in style, enjoying snacks and taking selfies.
I really don’t like constantly
referring to Eunseok as evil, but then he tells his fellow clan members, “Even
the cab is too luxurious for the workers!
We should have made them ride bicycles.”
And while he’s saying this, the graphics team gives us the “black smoke
of doom” effect again, which doesn’t really work because it just looks like he’s
in gastrointestinal distress.
Wonbin says out loud that he plans on being BOSS tomorrow. Great job, Wonbin. Now Eunseok knows that you are standing between him and power.
We learn that the spy mission that was hinted about last week wasn’t a preview. BOSS Shotaro has secretly met with Worker Sungchan and made him a spy. If Sungchan completes his spy mission, he gets to replace someone in the BOSS Clan. Sungchan is already gunning for Eunseok the Evil, so he’s excited. We still don’t know exactly what his spy mission is. Now we’re up to speed.
In the cab, Sungchan now looks very nervous. This is a good time to complete his spy mission. Whatever it is. He starts fidgeting and muttering to himself. Sohee looks at him sideways.
Sungchan clears his throat. “So, um, you know how we’re all in the Worker Clan right now?” he asks his teammates.
Well. He’s off to a GREAT start. This is not at ALL suspicious.
He keeps going. “What if there was a mission to allow only one Worker to join the BOSS Clan?” he asks.
I love the look on Sohee’s
face.
“So, like, if any of us were spies, what do you think
the mission would be? Asking for a
friend.”
Naturally, Anton and Sohee want to know what the hell he’s talking about.
Sungchan grabs a verbal shovel and keeps digging. “Let’s say only one worker is assigned a mission to betray his clan. Something like that.”
Just as Sohee looks ready to
tell the cab driver to swerve into a dark alley so he can beat the truth out of
his teammate, Sungchan gets a call from none other than the BOSS himself,
Shotaro. Right there in the cab. We find that Shotaro has found some leftover
salt among the snacks and wants to rub it into their wounds.
Our BOSSes gloat and tell the Workers that they will have to sleep in a tent tonight. I don’t know if they’re kidding or not, but our Workers are definitely triggered. They’re ready to split up the BOSS clan, even if it means going along with whatever Sungchan is babbling about.
The cab pulls up to a villa
with a private pool. I don’t know what
happened to that elegant home we saw in the last episode. This is a huge upgrade. And it must be only for the BOSS Clan,
because I see tents on the other side of the yard.
All six members arrive at the villa, and right away, Eunseok is excited about making the workers sleep in the tents. It’s summer when they’re filming this, and the tents are right next to an outdoor stove.
We get a tour of the villa. The Workers are relegated to a small apartment with just one bed. The BOSS Clan gets a two-story house with a patio, terrace, and outdoor hot tub. The BOSS Villa offers unlimited food, including a dessert table.
As our boys settle in, they learn that it’s time for another election. They will need to campaign for the BOSS role again and play more games for ballots. Wait, already? If the roles are about to change, what was the point of making Sungchan a spy and trying to overthrow the BOSS team?
No time for
explanations. The boys are told to begin
the Ultimate Cooking Tournament.
The group seems as confused about the rules as I am. If I may digress for a moment, this was a major problem back in Season 1, and I’m disappointed to see it happening again. These boys have no agency in this. It would help if they had more a confident camera presence, but they are generally quiet and shy, with the possible exception of Eunseok. They’re always looking off camera at the production team to try to understand what’s going on, so we wind up with a lot of scenes with them standing around cluelessly. If they knew the rules ahead of time, they could be more assertive and move this thing along.
When the boys do try to take some control, like back in the cab when Sungchan tried to rally his team to come up with a plan to break up the BOSS Clan, it winds up being pointless because the rules change without warning. I like this show a lot, but I wish it were more like the ATEEZ series we just watched, in which the band was involved with the production and decided on the activities. They were in control, which made it easier for them to be themselves. I feel like I know ATEEZ better after watching their show. Here, I’m not learning anything new about RIIZE except that Anton’s father is famous, and Eunseok has been assigned the villain role. They’re just stumbling along, trying to keep up.
Okay, end of rant. Back to the Ultimate Cooking Tournament.
The band is told that the
team that wins this tournament gets to be the BOSS Clan. The Workers are excited. The current BOSSes are not.
They will have thirty minutes to prepare Mapo tofu. This is a spicy classic Chinese home cooking dish. As a Great British Bake Off fan, I’m waiting for Paul Hollywood to show up and tell them their tofu has a soggy bottom. In fact, this is just like the technical challenge on GBBO. The Workers are cooking with just the recipe, but the BOSSES get to watch an instructional video first.
We’re told that the BOSS team has the additional advantage of having the best cooks. Hmmm. (checking my notes) Back in Season 1, Wonbin didn’t know how to wash lettuce, and Shotaro was proud of himself for making a “vegan” meal that contained snails and eggs. Now I really wish Paul Hollywood were here to give them the blue-eyed death stare.
Both teams get to taste a
sample dish first. Then the timer
starts, and they’re off! “Is this a tablespoon?”
Wonbin asks his teammates in confusion, showing them a teaspoon. What a great bias I chose.
Wonbin can’t get the bottle of cooking oil open. Sungchan the Spy almost pours his cooking oil right onto the burner. Shotaro has trouble reading the marks on the measuring cup and uses the wrong amounts. Sohee pours an entire cup full of starch into the sauce instead of two tablespoons and wonders why the sauce is so watery. Oh my God, this is EXACTLY like watching GBBO.
The BOSS Clan tastes their dish and argues about it. They wind up throwing in all the spices they can get their hands on. Just a reminder: These are the guys with the instructional video. Are they watching the video? No, they are not. On impulse, Shotaro dumps in so much chili oil, my eyes start watering and my sinuses dry up just watching.
The Worker Clan’s tofu
actually collapses, which I didn’t even know tofu could do. It doesn’t matter, because at this point, both
teams say they are finished and proudly present their finished Mapo tofu. I’d ask for a hazmat suit before getting
anywhere near it.
Our boys look off-camera in
confusion, asking who’s going to judge the final dishes. I’d love it if the production crew tried to
get an intern to taste it, and the intern just quit on the spot. Instead, we get a guest judge. He is a retired professional chef and the
owner of the villa where they’re staying.
He takes one look at the two dishes and clearly thinks he’s made an
enormous mistake.
He takes his life into his own hands and tastes both dishes. He asks why the Worker Clan’s dish tastes so sweet, and we find out the Workers added an entire ladle of sugar to their recipe. Unsurprisingly, the BOSS Clan wins the tournament. Sungchan will need to go back to being a spy, if he can remember what his mission is and to keep his mouth shut.
Not only does the BOSS Clan stay in power, they get an additional two ballots each in the upcoming vote. Oh, right. There’s another vote. Nothing has really changed in the few hours since they had the first vote, so I’m not sure why they wouldn’t vote to keep things the same. Again, the rules are kind of all over the place.
First, we get another mukbang segment, as the production crew brings out a feast. As they eat, they talk about the upcoming election. Shotaro asks if it’s been hard being a Worker. “We haven’t really done anything, other than getting in the cab,” Sohee answers. Shotaro reminds him that this election will determine the sleeping accommodations. Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten about that.
The BOSS Clan is smirking. They are determined to win the election and
make the Workers sleep in the tents. But
suddenly, we get BIG DRAMATIC MUSIC.
“Has there been a betrayal? What is this scary music?” Wonbin asks the production crew.
A crew member tells them the BOSS has selected one Worker to be his spy. I wait impatiently for Anton and Sohee to remember the cab ride over, turn to Sungchan, and announce sarcastically and in unison, “YOU DON’T SAY.”
Wonbin and Eunseok are stunned by their BOSS’s betrayal. The crew member says Shotaro has assigned a mission to the spy. Sungchan stands up, immediately revealing himself to be the spy. The mission was to undo the aprons of three people during the cooking tournament, except for that of the BOSS. We then get flashback footage showing him undo the aprons of Wonbin, Anton, and Eunseok while they were busy cooking. Shotaro congratulates him on a mission well done. (He kind of has to shout over the dramatic music.)
I thought Sungchan would be
the one to decide who gets kicked out of the BOSS Clan, but Shotaro is the one
who chooses. Wonbin and Eunseok remind
him how they made him BOSS in the first place, but Eunseok has to know he’s
doomed. Shotaro thanks him for his
service and sends him over to the Worker Clan.
This is going to bite the rest of the group in the butt. In Season 1, Eunseok had a gradual rise to power before being taken down. In this season, he started at the top and was betrayed right away, so he has plenty of time to plan his vengeance. He doesn’t just have more episodes for planning. The Season 2 episodes are thirty minutes longer than last season. He might have enough time to recruit labelmates NCT to help him overthrow the entire band.
Sungchan takes his seat at
the BOSS table and is immediately told by the crew member that he’s already
messed up. “You violated the non-disclosure
rule as a spy,” she tells him. I’m
assuming she’s talking about his behavior in the cab.
“I didn’t know we had such a rule!” he protests. I’m have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, if he wasn’t told about the rule, he should get a pass. On the other hand, he was a SPY. SPIES are supposed to BE COVERT. If you are given a spy mission and immediately get into a cab and start blabbing about it to your friends, you are a TERRIBLE SPY.
On the OTHER other hand, if they just install the Signal app on his phone, he’ll fit right in with the United States Defense Department.
Sungchan has to face a
penalty. Shotaro can swap him for Sohee
or Anton. He chooses Anton.
Okay, so if I have this right, our BOSS Clan is now Shotaro, Wonbin, and Anton. Our Workers are Sohee, Eunseok, and Sungchan. None of this matters because we’re about to have another election. Wonbin and Anton want to challenge Shotaro for the BOSS position, which is really ballsy of Anton because Shotaro literally just saved him from being a Worker barely five minutes ago.
One by one, our boys enter
the voting booth.
Anton wins unanimously for
reasons I’ll probably never understand, especially since that means Shotaro
cast both of his ballots for Anton. I’m
guessing the production crew has told these guys that the same person can’t be
BOSS twice. Also, Anton is the only one
who never got to be the BOSS in the first season, so I strongly suspect this was
rigged for the drama. And the graphics
department does not disappoint.
Anton gets the watch and the phone that poor Shotaro never got to use. He now gets to choose room assignments. Or, as the crew member puts it, “Please choose who will sleep on the floor and who will sleep in beds.” So are the tents no longer an option? The crew is drunk, right?
Anton says he’ll take the second floor of the BOSS villa for himself. I guess Shotaro and Wonbin are still in the BOSS Clan, and they have to share the first floor. The whole room assignment topic takes up several minutes of discussion, begging, bargaining, and threats. I finally start hitting the fast-forward button.
Finally, we get a
confessional with our new BOSS. He has
to choose a new spy from the Worker Clan.
However, his BOSS Teammates, Wonbin and Shotaro, are convinced he’s
still loyal to his friends from the cab ride over. I can’t imagine why, since he really doesn’t
need them anymore. This game is all
about betrayal and backstabbing and losing track of everyone you had alliances
with.
The BOSS Clan meets and makes plans to vote Wonbin as BOSS tomorrow, although who knows what will happen by then. By the way, we’ve barely seen Shanghai. The whole show is supposed to be about these guys playing the game while exploring Shanghai, and so far mostly all we’ve seen are airplanes, cabs, and hotels. Are they going to spend the entire series indoors playing this game? They could have stayed in Korea.
Shotaro, desperate to stay in the BOSS Clan, tells Anton he doesn’t have to pick a spy. They can just keep their clan as is. Anton and Wonbin look at him suspiciously. No one trusts anyone anymore.
The Worker Clan is also in a
huddle to talk about tomorrow’s election, instead of sightseeing in
Shanghai. They are determined to
completely take over and become the new BOSS Clan. Meanwhile, I’m Googling places to visit in
Shanghai. Hey, they have a Disneyland! That would be a great place to film! There’s also a beautiful enclave of shops, cafes,
and art galleries called Tianzifang. The
pictures I found online are gorgeous, especially at night.
I got this from Travelogue Treasure – check out the link for more amazing pictures.
Both clans decide it’s time
for bed and turn off the cameras. Anton
gets the top floor to himself and puts his BOSS phone into BOSS mode. It connects to the sound system and plays
some nice jazz music. The lights in the room
dim and change to softer colors. Our
BOSS falls asleep while Wonbin and Shotaro battle for the bed on the first
floor.
We cut to the next day. A breakfast of fresh bibimbap (meat and veggies mixed with rice and egg) has been delivered. Wonbin hurries upstairs to wake the BOSS, saying he promised to tell him who the new spy would be. Wait, didn’t they say they wouldn’t have a spy for this round? I’m so confused. Probably because my healthy breakfast consisted of a Pop-Tart. I eat like a five year-old with no adult supervision. I can’t believe I’m still alive.
Anton says he hasn’t decided on a spy, but the subtitles tell us he’s lying. Of course he is.
We cut over to the Workers
having their breakfast, which looks more my speed. There’s a bottle of Pepsi in front of
Sohee. Eunseok is not happy about having to share
his meal with Workers. “I’ve been
reduced to a commoner in an instant,” he mutters.
Sohee’s phone rings. It’s the BOSS Clan, demanding to know who gave them permission to eat. “Just hang up,” Eunseok tells Sohee, which is the hardest I’ve laughed so far. I think I’m starting to like Eunseok.
Sohee actually does hang up, which is brilliant. Then our offscreen crew member speaks up. “You do remember how you got here yesterday, right?” she asks. What kind of question is that? Is there footage of them staggering home drunk that we didn’t get to see?
The Workers are as confused as I am. Turns out this is just her way of telling them they will have to go to the next location crammed into the back of a taxi, just like yesterday. Eunseok arrived yesterday in the luxury van, so this will be his first Shanghai taxi ride. He’s determined to get back on that van.
We cut back to the BOSS Villa, where our guys are staring at the call Sohee just disconnected. “You can’t just let the workers have a peaceful time like this,” Shotaro tells Anton.
Anton remembers last season, when he had to get up early to catch snails in the river for their vegan breakfast. His fellow teammates demand to know when he’s going to choose a spy. Anton is evasive, saying, “Let’s just enjoy our day.”
The episode ends here. In the previews for next week, it looks like
they’re actually going to an amusement park.
Finally, we’ll be getting some Shanghai in this Shanghai Impossible. See you then, BRIIZE. Until then, may your tofu never collapse and
your bottoms never be soggy!
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