Running Man: Episode 121

by gummimochi

Now that our Running Man secret agents have earned a license to kill, it’s time to live and let die in this second half. Even though they’re a part of her Majesty’s secret service, it’s every 00 for themselves. Soon they may find that this world is not enough, ’cause hey – you only live twice.

EPISODE 121. Broadcast on November 25, 2012.

Last week, our teams were given tools to aid them in their following assignment. Now M leaves them with a final note – she’s been keeping track of her agents and one of them has earned a special license to kill eliminate. That agent will be informed tomorrow morning.

Day 2. 9 AM. Each of our agents eagerly await M’s call. We check in with Seung-gi who tells us that he was so worn out from yesterday’s mission that he fell asleep right away.

Suddenly the phone rings and everyone picks up. Well, everyone except Gary who has trouble with his phone and belatedly realizes that it slides up. Hehe. Technology is not this agent’s friend.

M congratulates her agents on their hard work and now they’ve earned their 00 status as well as a license to eliminate. And who might be the elusive 007? Seung-gi.

As for today’s mission? She’s intercepted a message that there’s a timed bomb set to go off in Prism Tower. It’s their job to gather intelligence and prevent such an explosion. Furthermore, it’s imperative that they keep their identities a secret.

If you’re going to be a secret agent, you’re going to need to dress the part. Q, the delivery boy, hands each agent a box of essentials. Jae-suk juggles the watch in his hand, “Why is this so light?” and Shin-hye laughs that their allowance (~$30 USD) is too small.

Our agents survey their surroundings before they slip away to change into their secret agent garb as M reminds them to head over to Prism Tower by 2PM to prevent the bomb from going off.

They set off to separate locations and hilariously, Gary walks out of the frame humming the James Bond theme music.

Haha chats with the taxi driver whom he addresses as “sunbae” and thanks him for saving his life back when they were on assignment in Russia. The best part is the the taxi driver plays along, “It can happen to anyone.” HA.

Shin-hye rides along in silence and realizes that talking to the camera by herself is harder than it looks. Cut to: Kwang-soo who rambles on about his lonely life as a secret agent.

We flash back to 007 Seung-gi’s earlier conversation with M and learn that there’s an enemy within the 00. Therefore, it’s his mission to find out who it is and eliminate them. Her advice: Trust no one.

Jong-kook heads to one of the five secret locations and receives his mission: Meet your informant at the finish line.

001 Jae-suk arrives and they immediately start teasing each other about their secret agent accessories. Jong-kook: “What’s with the hat?” Jae-suk: “Why are you wearing sunglasses like the Terminator?”

Jong-kook gets a running start (and mentions it’s the same road when MBLAQ guested), determined to beat Jae-suk to the punch… and suddenly, a wave of ajummas appears out of nowhere. AHAHA – they’re back.

So Jae-suk decides to follow behind Jong-kook – that way, he can slip by if Spartakooks is attacked again. But Jong-kook is aware that this is exactly Yoomes Bond‘s train of thought and does his best to stay out of sight.

Jae-suk missteps and tries to slip past Jong-kook, only to be met by a crowd of ajummas as Jong-kook sniggers on the sidelines. He runs like the wind with a skip in his step. ‘Cause nothing is worse than ajummas, right?

Wrong. As soon as he loses the ajumma tail, another group of young athletes march towards him and drags him back to their starting location.

Agent Mung Ji-hyo heads to the market and her informant will recognize the password: the James Bond theme. HA – why am I not surprised that Agent Big Nose Hyung sings the written password all wrong? You ARE aware that this is a James Bond special, right?

Then it’s no surprise that Ji-hyo finds her informant first and receives her clue: the character “da.”

007 Seung-gi opts for the Chinese restaurant where a mysterious hooded figure awaits him with a deck of cards. Even though we can’t see him, Seung-gi recognizes him as Myuk PD.

Here, he’ll need to beat Myuk PD in a matching cards game to gain his hint. Myuk PD’s voice cracks and Seung-gi jokes that he too must be too tired from yesterday.

The cards are of female actresses but one of them leaves Seung-gi initially confused, “Is that Kam Woo-sung sunbae? Oh no, it’s Choi Min-soo sunbae.”

Seung-gi manages to get his first pair and laughs in Myuk PD’s face. But soon Myuk PD pulls ahead and then they’re tied with two pairs each. Seung-gi flips over a card (Suzy) and stops short – he’s definitely seen this before. I hope you recognize a possible future co-star!

He lucks out and gains a new surge of confidence as he picks up a fourth pair. Then Myuk PD loses a turn when he flips over a Min-soo hyung card. One more pair for Seung-gi and Myuk PD gathers the remaining cards with a curt, “You won.”

007 Seung-gi learns that there are four hints hidden within Prism Tower.

In the car, 007 Seung-gi whines that his head hurts and the PD instructs him to use his allowance to buy his own sweets. He exclaims, “This [$30] includes chocolates too?”

He puts himself in the mindset of the enemy but gets another headache in the process.

By the Hongdae steps, Shin-hye’s eyes widen in surprise. How is she just supposed to find her clues “somewhere in the area”? She wonders if the puppies might provide her with useful information and asks the owner after its name.

Someone behind her says, “Gary.” So she addresses the dog as ‘Gary.’ HA.

The real Gary gives Shin-hye a fright and he scolds her for playing with the puppies – there are clues to be found! Shin-hye is nothing if not thorough and he stops short when she tells him that the puppies might be linked to the clues.

What do you know, there’s a clue stuck on its collar and Shin-hye tries her best to shake Gary off of her tail. She calls the number and laughs that it’s a dud. But once Gary is gone, she mouths, “I didn’t call the number!” Sneaky!

She slips away and calls. The automated voice tells her that 007 possesses something important. She jumps in celebration and then wonders to herself who 007 is.

We check back with Jong-kook and Jae-suk who have no choice but to join forces. They bike through the ajummas and the athletes with ease. But then they’re met with another challenge: fangirls.

The athletes and fangirls enmesh to form one mob and then out of nowhere, Agent Spartakooks breaks from the crowd and starts running. He’s got a rogue athlete tailing him but manages to grab the flag just in time and collapses onto the couch next to his informant.

His well-deserved hint: The answer is hidden in a word. Huh?

Jae-suk guilt trips Jong-kook into sharing what the hint is, “I stopped that mob so you could run ahead of me!” The clue also leaves him perplexed and soon they’re bickering about whether or not it’s an actual hint.

Seung-gi drops in on their way out and is suspicious when his hyungs asks if he ate breakfast yet. He hasn’t and with an understanding sigh, they tell him, “At least drink something warm [before you start].”

They ask if Seung-gi’s found any clues before they go and at his exaggerated sigh, Jae-suk picks up, “He’s found one.”

A minute later, the scream of ajummas ring in the air and they tsk, “So it’s started.” HAHA.

Gary joins in on the fun and in an interesting turn, Seung-gi tells him that there’s a huge prize at the end of the road. So innocent Gary takes Seung-gi’s words at face value and starts running up the hill.

As expected, the ajummas crowd around him and Seung-gi takes that opportunity to run ahead of him. The fangirls slow him down and this time, Gary pulls ahead. All he has to do is grab that flag… but he walks past it. Darn.

Seung-gi picks up the clue and the location is locked.

Shin-hye heads to a restaurant, where there’s one key that can open the car door to meet with their informant. She takes off the cover, revealing a tankful of mudfish.

She braces herself and then bravely reaches into the tank with her bare hand. The key doesn’t work and she runs back and forth, her fears abated, to find the right one. She eventually opens the car door and learns that the hint as a ‘R’ sticker on it.

Meanwhile, Agent Ji-hyo has collected all of her character clues at the market. She compiles them together in the taxi so that it reads: An enemy is amongst you.

I’m wondering how long Jong-kook and Jae-suk are going to be teaming up together as they talk more in the car. Jong-kook wonders at the mission – if they’re supposed to stop a bomb, shouldn’t they all work together?

They arrive at the same restaurant and both grimace at the tank of mudfish. Jae-suk asks, “They don’t bite, right?” and the owner answers wisely, “People eat mudfish but the mudfish don’t bite people.” Truer words, ma’am.

As they run back and forth, the pattern is basically the same: reach for key, test key, yell “It’s open!” and run back in. It’s pretty hilarious until Jae-suk actually opens the door. Then he’s pretty annoyed at the clue, “Of course there’s an ‘R’ sticker on the clue!” and shares it with Jong-kook.

Ji-hyo is nearly ashen-faced when she sees the tank. She opts not to ally with Jae-suk and Jong-kook. But as soon as she touches the surface of the water, she flips out. But you’re the Ace!

Jae-suk and Jong-kook sit on the sidelines, eating their lunch calmly as you please, as they watch Ji-hyo freak out. They joke that it’s like watching an entertaining drama as Ji-hyo pleads with the mudfish: “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I did wrong! Don’t kiss me!”

Unable to work with the tank anymore, she covers it up in defeat.

Finally Suk-jin catches on that he’s been humming the jingle wrong all this time when he overhears Haha. They put their character clues together and form an alliance.

And poor Kwang-soo, who didn’t get the chance to go to a single location, gets locked out everywhere. Aww.

Woah, did the staff actually build a portal just like the Bond films? Impressive. At the final mission location, each of our agents have their code names hidden beneath their name tags.

007 Seung-gi thinks back to his assignment: find the enemy and eliminate them. He thinks aloud, “Once these people start suspecting you, they don’t ever stop…” HAHAHA.

Jae-suk digs at Haha for not getting a netbook but Haha retorts, “Do you even know how to use one?”

Jae-suk pretends that he was just trying to take the tablet portion out and then tells it, “Turn on.” Heeheee. Might as well try Open sesame! while you’re at it.

Seung-gi sits down with them and Jae-suk coaxes him into revealing a portion of his clue. Seung-gi belatedly realizes that Jae-suk tricked him on purpose and throws a thumbs up, as if saying, Well played, sir. For now, he crosses Jae-suk off of his suspect list.

Team Suk-jin and Haha run through possible suspects. Suk-jin is sure that Ji-hyo is a definite because she dropped a misleading hint, thinking that Suk-jin was completely unaware.

Haha’s sure that there’s more than one enemy running around: Kim Jong-kook. Gulp.

Then the speakers blare 005 Kwang-soo’s elimination. D’aww, but he didn’t get to do anything today! Haha and Suk-jin throw up in their hands in innocence – neither of them had anything to do with 005’s elimination.

Wait, does this mean that Jong-kook is the enemy spy?! Since when?!

We roll the clocks back to this morning when M made her final call to the agent-in-training. Jong-kook’s last place marks put him out of the running to be a ’00’. But then, Jong-kook received a package containing a letter from the other side – a chance to take revenge on the organization that abandoned him.

His mission is to infiltrate the group of 00s and steal the gold once the bomb is stopped.

Ji-hyo stumbles upon the room containing the bomb, with just over three and a half hours left. She scratches her head – how is she going to get in and disarm the bomb?

Elsewhere, Kwang-soo sits alone in jail without a care.

Jae-suk discovers a clue hidden in the bushes and he slips into the stairwell to figure out what it is. But every little noise puts him on edge as he takes the netbook out and puts it back in his suitcase again and again. Heh.

A few flights later, he finally accesses the hint: giraffe. Jae-suk: “But Kwang-soo’s already eliminated!”

Seung-gi finds another clue (“watersniper”) and recalls his earlier hint that “the answer is hidden within the word.” The third clue (“newspaper”) is found by Gary who thinks back to his clue that 007 has an important item. He wonders aloud, “The seventh letter is red…”

And what do you know; that’s the case for every word. Very astute, Gary!

Seung-gi runs into Haha and Suk-jin and Haha throws out a number of accusations. “Are you 007? Are you the enemy? What’s your mission?” Seung-gi figures this means that Haha isn’t the enemy and he confirms it, “Of course I’m not! I’m scared to death right now!” HAHAHA.

So Seung-gi confides in them that he’s really 007 but of course they don’t believe a word he says. He’s surprised to hear the possibility that there could be more than one enemy, including Jong-kook.

Soon, they’re throwing out ideas on who the spies are and how many there could be. Haha: “There has to be a woman too!” Suk-jin: “Like a Bond girl!” They may be on the mark about Jong-kook but this is one case where three heads isn’t better than one.

Shin-hye runs towards Jong-kook and Jae-suk with doe-like eyes, “Did you see the bomb?” Jae-suk’s nerves cause his stomach to act up again and once he’s gone, Shin-hye confides in Jong-kook that 007 is amongst them.

She sits with Jong-kook and Ji-hyo and runs through her deduction: 007 has no idea that they have an important hint on their person. So their plan has to be to find who 007 is.

Speaking of whom, 007 Seung-gi enters the timed bomb room and analyzes the lock. Gary walks in and asks if Seung-gi found a clue. He admits that he did but, “I can’t tell you, right?” Gary: “That’s right.”

Too bad Gary is a terrible liar and Seung-gi sees right through him. It just so happens that Ji-hyo calls before Seung-gi can interrogate him any further. Seung-gi leans close to listen in on the conversation… and then rips off Gary’s name tag. The line goes dead.

Seung-gi seems legitimately apologetic after the fact (“Why do you look so suspicious, hyung!”) and poor Gary cries, “I really was going to try and win today!” Aww.

Haha finds the final and fourth clue. Problem is, while he’s got the clue, Suk-jin’s got the netbook and neither’s willing to budge. Not so much of a team after all, eh?

Suk-jin finally hands over the netbook and Jae-suk comes to crash the party. The rules state that Haha is allowed to see the hint by himself first and he promises his hyungs to pass along the information.

He’s got to find that darn USB port first and the mat hyungs watch in frustration as he fumbles with the computer. Finally Suk-jin’s had enough, and he rips off Haha’s name tag, “I’ll do it.” HAHAHA.

You solved the situation by eliminating him? Brilliant. Oh right, the clue: telephone. Putting all the clues together, the red letters form a simple passcode: open.

Both ladies and Spartakooks soon corner Suk-jin and point at the hint card. Jong-kook argues that they have to track down those who already have clues. Which means they have to get rid of Suk-jin.

Seung-gi sees this scene unfold in the distance and slips away. That alliance will soon find out that he’s 007. He runs through the list again: Kwang-soo’s out, and so is Gary (“I’m sorry about that.”) and Suk-jin. Jae-suk doesn’t seem likely which means… Jong-kook must be the spy.

But what now?

Thankfully, Seung-gi runs to Jae-suk and declares that they have to fully trust each other from now on. Jae-suk: “That’s what they all tell me…” He asks Jae-suk what he knows, to which Jae-suk answers, “They all want to know what I know..” Ha.

Seung-gi admits that he took out Gary (“Because he looked so suspicious!”) but he suspects Jong-kook because soon after he saw him in the halls, Haha was eliminated. Jae-suk: “That was Suk-jin’s doing.” Seung-gi: “… Is that so?” Heh.

Don’t worry ’cause he’s got more: Jong-kook and the ladies took out Suk-jin, so all three of them must be the spies. Jae-suk: “That’s what they said about you!” We’re really going in circles now, aren’t we?

Seung-gi finally plays his last truth card: He’s 007. And THAT grabs Jae-suk’s attention.

Jae-suk makes a call to Jong-kook to find out where he is. He still can’t fully trust either side and the fact that Seung-gi eliminated Gary still nags at him. He starts to head upstairs where Jong-kook is despite Seung-gi’s exclamations that he’ll be eliminated if he does.

All of Seung-gi’s efforts to dissuade him ping Jae-suk’s suspicion radar and he proclaims, “They’re going to suspect me too!”

Seung-gi has no choice but to get in the elevator with him, still rambling about how the others are bound to be right outside the elevator doors. Utterly frustrated, Seung-gi presents his own back (“Then tear off my name tag!”) and the phone keeps ringing off the hook.

Seung-gi: “He keeps calling you because he’s the villain! He’s drawing you into his evil lair! Would the good guys call you this often?!”

Jong-kook calls to relocate and back in the elevator, Seung-gi now pleads with Jae-suk to reconsider. Seung-gi turns his back to show his name tag again – Jae-suk can eliminate him if he can’t trust him, which just confuses Jae-suk even more.

They only have seconds until the others will arrive and as Seung-gi hides, he strains his voice, “All you have to do is eliminate Jong-kook!”

It’s kind of adorable and hilarious how exasperated Seung-gi is. The boy even puts his entire savings and house on the line – he’s convinced it’s Jong-kook.

The three step off of the elevator and in a flash, Seung-gi attacks from behind and rips off Jong-kook’s name tag. Ooh, interesting! It reads: “The Black Opposition is still alive.”

And then Shin-hye rips off Jae-suk’s name tag.

Now it’s Seung-gi against two ladies and he admits that he can’t read either of their expressions because they’re actresses. Ha. Ji-hyo tells him that he can either hand over the hint or they’ll take it from him.

He asks, “Why do you want it?” Both ladies answer, “We have to stop the bomb!” Oh right. Hee, always the heodang.

They relocate to the bomb room and the ladies reveal their code names. More importantly, they’ve got a bomb to disarm. The ladies inform him of their hint: that 0007 possesses an important item.

That’s news to Seung-gi who asks, “Wait a minute. Does that mean I was used by the staff?” Caption: “We don’t know.”

There’s only five minutes left on the clock so they run through the hints. Ji-hyo opts that they eliminate Seung-gi so Shin-hye goes ahead and rips off his name tag.

Less than a minute later, she reaches for Ji-hyo’s as well. Ahh, this means that Shin-hye was a spy as well. Not only that, she picked Jong-kook as her accomplice.

In jail, Seung-gi is forced to hand over all of his clues. Mr. PD’s like, “There’s one in your shoe too.” And lo and behold, there was a USB card hidden beneath his sole the entire time.

Jae-suk: “Didn’t you notice the ‘R’ sticker?!” Seung-gi:”I thought it was on there because I’m on Running Man!”

Then Gary informs the others how he figured out the passcode and the others look at him in awe.

There’s less than 20 seconds left on the clock and Shin-hye tries combination after combination to no luck.

Five seconds now… four… three… two… one…

…and the safe erupts in flames. Mission fail.

Everyone gathers together again and Mr. PD reveals that 007 could have used his USB card to open the safe right away. Heodang 007: “But I had the notebook and everything!”

But of course, that’s why we love you Heodang 007.

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