Running Man: Episode 241

by gummimochi

An important item in a time capsule goes missing, igniting a whodunit game within our cast and their lovely guests. Spring is in full bloom this year, and between floral headgear, charades, balloons, and kisses, the guys will have plenty to smile and giggle about this week. Will they be able to track down who the culprit is, or will they be outsmarted instead?

EPISODE 241. Broadcast on April 5, 2015.

Suspicions runs high among our Running High School students in the opening preview, but before we get to the guessing game, we’re introduced to today’s beautiful F4: actresses Yoon Jin-seo (Girl Who Sees Smells), Shin Se-kyung (Girl Who Sees Smells), Park Ye-jin (Mr. Back), and our lovable Ji-hyo.

Ye-jin is quick to point out Jae-suk’s habit of paying special attention to female guests he’s never met before, and Jong-kook adds the saying that “the women you don’t know very well are beautiful.

When the boys pile on the compliments for Se-kyung, Ye-jin clarifies that the young’un is someone they’ve seen for the second time—as in, they don’t know her all that well either. Then Jae-suk runs down the line: a lady he’s met for the first time (Jin-seo), a lady he hasn’t seen in a while (Se-kyung), a lady he’s seen every week (Ye-jin), and the lady he sees all the time (Ji-hyo).

Time to announce today’s pairings, and already the boys gripe that two guys will be teamed up together. Looking at the Easy Brothers Jae-suk wonders if that’s already been determined. Everyone is happy for Jong-kook when he’s coupled with Jin-seo, and like the wingman Haha is, he tells her that Jong-kook is super easy to coax.

Gary is spot on about guessing that he’ll be paired up with Se-kyung, and after Ye-jin is coupled with Kwang-soo, the remaining guys complain, then circle around Ji-hyo.

Haha whines that he’s been teamed up with Suk-jin enough as it is. Suk-jin returns the sentiment in kind, but in the end Haha becomes Ji-hyo’s teammate, leaving the married mat-hyungs behind.

Instead of Taek PD directing the story, Kwang-soo rounds up the students around the friendship tree to bury their time capsule. Jae-suk retorts: “Be careful, we could bury you instead.”

Each student makes a wish, and while some are sentimental (“I hope Jong-kook gets married,” “I hope everyone stays happy and healthy”), others are humorous (Suk-jin: “I’ll make sure my investments go well and buy everyone a large building,” Haha: “I hope Suk-jin-ie stays alive”).

Then there’s Jong-kook who hopes that things stay the same with Jin-seo 10 years from now as they are now. Jin-seo: “You’ll meet someone good.” Aww, rejection. Kwang-soo adds in his wish that everyone’s wishes come true, then buries the time capsule in the ground. Suk-jin hopes that the area doesn’t get redeveloped while they’re away.

20 years later. Those who have seen the first episode of Girl Who Sees Smells will recognize that this is the same setup where Shin Se-kyung’s character dreams that she’s on Running Man. The group gathers around to check on that time capsule of theirs… but instead of ten stones, only nine remain.

At the question of why one stone has gone missing, Jae-suk declares, “One of us has died, hasn’t s/he?” Is there a ghost in their midst?

But no–Taek PD announces that one of them has stolen the stone because the culprit discovered that it is in fact, a highly valuable meteorite. So today’s mission is a whodunit game and they must find out who the culprit is before the closing in order to win.

If they do, the staff will award the victors with the cash value of that meteorite. Additionally, the teams who snag first and second place in each game will be able to accuse one person each. If even one of the two accused is the true thief, the group will win.

Everyone says that setup sounds way easy, and when Suk-jin offers that the thief will likely try to win at the games to keep suspicion at bay, Jae-suk turns towards Jong-kook: “Was it you?” Jong-kook: “I always work hard [to win]!”

The mat hyung warn the others that they’ve got their eyes on them—one false move could arouse their suspicion. Even among teammates, Jong-kook can’t trust Jin-seo: “Are you feeling relieved because you’re the culprit? Are you feeling anxious because you might get caught?”

Ye-jin insists that she doesn’t even understand the rules of the game today, and even Haha has a hard time trusting his fellow longtime castmate Ji-hyo. Gary wonders if the thief might be one of the guests, and Se-kyung insists that it isn’t her.

She asks her to trust him, but Gary says that he’s tried trusting Kwang-soo for the past three years only to be betrayed time and time again. He admits that there are times he meets up with Kwang-soo outside of filming and still can’t trust him.

We turn the clock back to 30 minutes ago, back when everyone was busy changing into their uniforms. Someone’s holding the meteorite… and it’s none other than Se-kyung. Oh man, I already feel bad for Gary and the sting of betrayal he’ll feel when he finds out.

But wait—Ye-jin’s there too? And so is Jin-seo? And Ji-hyo?! Er, are they all in it together? Their secret mission is to keep the meteorite safe until the end without arousing suspicion from their male teammates.

There’s a few million won (a few thousand dollars) on the line, and Se-kyung makes sure to ask if that prize will be divided evenly among the four of them. Caption: “Was Se-kyung secretly a tazza [hustler]?” Ha, nice callback to her appearance in the movie Tazza 2.

The catch is that all four women must be hiding that stone at one point or another by today’s closing. Ji-hyo suggests they play a round of rock-paper-scissors to determine who should keep it safe first. Feeling anxious, Ye-jin adds that the winner should hold onto it first. And that’s the maknae of the bunch: Se-kyung.

Back in the present, Jin-seo says teammates should be distrustful of one another when Jong-kook’s suspicion still won’t let up. Jong-kook explains that actresses have previously deceived him on this show because they’re so good at their craft. Let’s go ahead and add Jin-seo to that list.

At Kwang-soo’s suspicions about Se-kyung, Ye-jin offers up the explanation that it could be that Se-kyung still feels awkward about filming variety. In a different car, no matter how Ji-hyo tries to dissuade Haha’s on-point deductions that there’s more than one culprit running around (because that would be too easy), he’s convinced about his suspicions about Se-kyung.

Speaking of whom, Se-kyung buries her face in her hands at the question of whether she had any aegyo in her dating experience. The phrases, “sleep well, dream of me” and “let’s meet in our dreams” makes her skin crawl, but soon the conversation turns to Kwang-soo and how he’s often mistakes the slightest touch as romantic interest.

The accusations continue to fly at their first mission location, but Kwang-soo is convinced that Ye-jin is innocent because she’s not competitive at all. Here, the members will start off standing on their respective petals, and one teammate from each team will fight over the flower headpiece, then run back to rejoin their teammate.

Everyone knows games that involve strength are Jong-kook’s forte, and a worried Se-kyung (who’s wearing a flower headpiece just like all the other women) seeks Ye-jin’s advice on how to proceed. The bad news is that everyone suspects Se-kyung, of course, and Ye-jin quickly cuts off their conversation when she sees Jae-suk keeping an eye on them.

Despite Se-kyung’s claim that she doesn’t have any aegyo, she sends a cute cheer towards Gary. That sets off an aegyo parade, and then Suk-jin’s gruff “come over here, sweetie” kills the mood.

The whistle blows, and Kwang-soo immediately uses his tall height to his advantage. That is, until the boys drag Kwang-soo down and Haha grabs the flower out of his hand. Winning the first round only brings with it suspicion, and now it’s the women’s turn to have a go.

The ladies’ brawl is more aggressive than the men’s, and when Jin-seo loses out, she starts flicking sand at the others. Unable to win against 3:1, Suk-jin pushes the other women away, but in the end, it’s Ye-jin who returns to her corner and wins the second round.

In the third round, Haha grabs the torn petals from the headpiece. But that doesn’t count, so he runs back and grabs the rest during a distracted moment. That puts him and Ji-hyo in first place.

By the fifth round, two teams have one point each, and Jong-kook scoops up the headpiece. Kwang-soo proceeds to get a few jabs in, and that’s followed by a biting parade with all the guys chomping down on whoever they can bite into.

Jae-suk gets a leg through, but then gets dragged around until the headgears tears near his groin. Owwww. Kwang-soo pulls it towards him and falls right next to Ye-jin, allowing them to grab second place.

Oh geez, since this whodunit game just can’t be straightforward, now the show is adding money and numbers into the mix. Everyone has ten envelopes of 100,000 won on their person, amounting to a total of a million won (or a thousand dollars). One must give up five of those envelopes just for being accused, regardless of whether they are the culprit or not.

Thankfully, the initial suspicion on Se-kyung transfers to Jin-seo when she says she suspects Kwang-soo. That puts her in the hot seat, and Se-kyung (who still has the stone) breathes a sigh of relief.

Jae-suk stands as the other accused, and the others excluding the first and second place teams must forfeit two envelopes. The machine detects no stone, and both Jae-suk and Jin-seo ask what Haha will do about their lost money. Haha: “You should be thankful that you’re cleared of suspicion!” And as the group leaves, Se-kyung hands off the stone to Jin-seo.

The couples continue to guess in their respective cars, and Jong-kook says it would be too obvious if a guest was the culprit. Caption: You still haven’t realized that obvious notion. While Haha is suspicious of Kwang-soo, he’s convinced that there’s more than one thief running around.

It’s nightfall by the times the teams gather together again in a cafe. Most of the suspicion falls on Kwang-soo, who’s then given the stage to speak his mind. His first guess (Gary) only brews more distrust, and then Kwang-soo says he thinks it’s either Ji-hyo or Se-kyung.

He asks the staff whether they can accuse the same person more than once, but that question gets totally ignored so that they can start the next game. But this isn’t just your ordinary charades quiz: while the ladies act out the answers, the men must peer over a wall to observe and guess.

There’s a one-minute time limit to correctly guess five words and each team can only use two “passes.” The top two teams with the fastest time gets to make an accusation. Jong-kook and Jin-seo are up first, and Jin-seo uses her first “pass” from the very start.

Jin-seo’s expressions for Jurassic Park are so bad that even the other teams have to note that her gestures don’t even appear in that movie. Her dinosaur impression looks more like an elephant, and once time is up, the guys show off their best and scariest dinosaur impressions.

It at least throws suspicion off of Jin-seo—could she have performed that badly on purpose?

Suk-jin and Jae-suk are up to guess actors, and ha—that Jo In-sung impression cracks me up. Apparently Suk-jin’s hint of Kim Soo-hyun is of him looking dashingly handsome, and then pointing to the sky, all, Star! Crash! Ohhhh, he’s describing You From Another Star!

I love how Suk-jin tries to express his charades by tongue-twisting his words, all He came from a schtwar (Kim Soo-hyun) and Bwalloon jump Running Man (Jung Woo-sung).

Ji-hyo slinks up to Jin-seo so that she can take the stone off of her hands. Se-kyung does a good job acting out Things a Girlfriend Would Do, like aegyo and a backhug. But Gary too, fails in answering five questions within the time limit.

Haha and Ji-hyo are given fairytales, and at one point, Jae-suk points out that Haha yelled “Jack and the Beansprout” vs. “Jack and the Beanstalk.” It matters little since he gets the next two right, then Ji-hyo has trouble with a title we don’t get to see.

She starts twirling her fingers close to her head as if she’s a crazy person, but unfortunately they run out of time. Heh, it’s “Alice in Wonderland.” Haha is convinced that he said “beanstalk” (“What idiot would say ‘beansprout’?” Jae-suk: “YOU”), but since no one succeeded, they all must go for another round.

Jin-seo seems to be more confident this time around with female characters, but when Jong-kook has trouble with guessing Pippi Longstockings, she cries out “Bbeee!” Then later, with Elsa, rather than humming the “Let It Go” track, she simply says, “L.”

This time, Jae-suk and Suk-jin switch places, but poor Suk-jin can barely do a chin-up, let alone peer over the edge long enough to guess.

Kwang-soo gets three movie titles correct right away, though his face looks rather strained. It’s great how the answers are hidden from us whenever someone uses hilarious body gestures, like when Ye-jin starts flailing around. Kwang-soo starts, “Crazy la…” before Ye-jin passes.

Ye-jin and Kwang-soo have less than five seconds on the clock to correctly answer Edward Scissorhands. He gets it, putting the first number of 57 seconds on the board. Seeing Kwang-soo work so hard pings the cast’s suspicion rader, but they let it slide for now.

Gary and Se-kyung get an easier topic of idol girl groups, and they hit their goal of five in just 25 seconds.

There’s a surprise revealed at the next accusation round, where the top two teams will not be given a hint about the thief. Se-kyung tries to act surprised when she reads that the culprit isn’t acting alone, but the problem is that Gary seems to want to place either Haha or Ji-hyo on the stand.

Kwang-soo seems to suspect Ji-hyo too, which is bad news since she’s got the stone. Ji-hyo decides to come off strong, but she’s sent out anyway. So is Kwang-soo… and the machine detects no stone.

The ladies look relieved, and we see Ye-jin smiling in the back. Oho, did Ji-hyo hand it off to her prior to her accusation? A flashback shows us that Ji-hyo indeed pass the stone into Ye-jin’s hands just before the latter’s second attempt at charades. Sneaky.

Today’s final mission location takes our cast to a baseball stadium in Suwon. Here, they’ll re-enact the “Kiss Time” (where those captured on the big screen are encouraged to kiss) via Photo Zone-style: one of the balloons in the field will connect them to the big screen, and one couple must be captured with the lady giving her male teammate a kiss on the cheek.

The only ones who have an issue with this are Jae-suk and Suk-jin, and I love how the PD is all, So… who’s gonna be the lady? When Kwang-soo brings up that they haven’t done anything to suspect his teammate yet, Ye-jin dodges that curveball by replying that Kwang-soo has had it out for her ever since he was falsely accused.

That’s a good enough of an answer for everyone, and then Ye-jin accidentally drops the stone when they all move out. By the time Haha turns his head, it looks like Ye-jin has already recovered from her blunder.

The thirty-second timer begins, and the teams rush to find the right balloon out of the three in the field. Jong-kook and Jin-seo get there first and hurry to capture that peck on the cheek before the others come rushing in.

It looks like no one succeeded, with Kwang-soo’s blurry image of himself captured in that moment the shutter clicked. There’s enough evidence that shows Suk-jin went in for the kill, but that man-to-man peck is blocked by Ye-jin’s head.

After teasing Jong-kook for enjoying that kiss on the cheek, Jae-suk points out that he’s sure he saw someone offer up their cheek to anyone who would kiss it.

Our teams run off again, this time looking for a blue balloon. Haha and Ji-hyo find the right one first, and it isn’t long before the others fly towards them. Suk-jin kisses Jae-suk on the cheek again, but again it’s blocked by the Ye-jin-Kwang-soo couple.

When the couples set off to find a yellow balloon in the following round, Haha and Ji-hyo are again the ones to track the right one down. Everyone is at the other end of the field when they find out, and they arrive just as the shutter clicks.

Haha and Ji-hyo capture the shot they needed, and Gary asks Haha, jealous: “Why do you like it so much?” And then the others point out that he looks like a man waiting to be kissed in that photo.

It looks like Jae-suk’s luck has finally turned in the next round when he’s the first to discover the right balloon. Kwang-soo rushes over to block them, and even turns to plant a wet one on Jae-suk’s cheek… then Jae-suk turns his head and returns the sentiment. Hahaha.

Unfortunately Gary and Se-kyung’s onscreen kiss only captures the back of their heads. So it’s back onto the field for another round, after which Se-kyung claims that Kwang-soo pushed her. Her teammate Gary turns to argue that Kwang-soo should have at least let him get in a kiss in first before pushing her away. Lol.

We get a clear shot of Kwang-soo’s kiss on the cheek from Ye-jin, and this masterpiece is entitled “Venus who descended upon the baseball field.” That earns them the second place spot.

Time for one last hint, which informs our two teams to find out who currently has the stone. Haha asks if they’re allowed to turn out each other’s pockets. Uh-oh.

Haha feels for Ye-jin’s hat before traveling back to the group. Ye-jin looks pretty nervous right now, especially when Kwang-soo draws near… so Ji-hyo thinks fast and calls out “Rock!”

She means to point out that the Chinese character “Suk” in Suk-jin’s name means “rock,” but it’s enough for the others to realize that Suk-jin and Jae-suk share a common syllable. Could it be them?

Suk-jin gets put on the stand, but when Se-kyung’s name comes up, both Se-kyung and Ye-jin look nervous. Ye-jin had slinked towards Se-kyung just a few minutes ago—could she have passed the stone back to her?

In any case, Se-kyung is sent out, and the PD warns that a flour shower will rain upon the culprit as punishment. Gary looks up as if the flour will come from the sky somewhere. Hahaha.

It’s the moment of truth… and the machine detects nothing. The ladies gather around in celebration as Ye-jin flaunts the stone still in her pocket. Upset, Kwang-soo swears that he’s going to start by conducting a body search with their future female guests.

So it’s our ladies who come out on top this week and leave with a nice chunk of pocket change.

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