Episode 101: Location: Seoul (various locations).
Guests: Yoon Jong Shin, Kim Bum Soo (singers), Yoon Do Hyun (YB Band).
Team forming Find the Guest (Seoul Children's Grand Park): Jae Suk-Gwang Soo-Yoon Do Hyun; Gary-Haha-Kim Bum Soo; Jong Kook-Suk Jin-Yoon Jong Shin.
Episode mission: Ji Hyo (or Chun Sung Im, her legal name) is instructed to steal the gold shown in the introduction and follow instructions and reach the final location. Running Men must track down Ji Hyo to recover the gold.
Han River heliport and dock (Jamsil) mission: Ji Hyo must find the secret agent who can give the proper response to her passphrase, receive a mysterious black acrylic plate, then follow instructions to the next destination. Running Men are given a smartphone map of where Ji Hyo went and if they fail to catch her, they must compete in a game of limbo and select cases in order of completion for the next destination.
Sailboat restaurant mission: Ji Hyo must find the secret agent, receive the black acrylic plate, but then find the real key in the restaurant to the red car and proceed to the next destination. Running Men look for a hidden note using "CSI equipment" while "not contaminating the crime scene" to find the next destination.
Sangbong Bus Terminal mission: Ji Hyo must buy a bus ticket and then find the secret agent disguised as a bus driver, receive the black acrylic plate, and head to the final destination. Running Men must use information about a "witness who saw Ji Hyo" to create a composite sketch, and then find that person by singing one of the guests' songs to him or her and getting the proper response to be told the location of the final destination.
Korea Institute of Science & Technology elimination: Ji Hyo must find the secret agent using the same passphrase/response as before, but in an amazing plot twist (those are sarcasm italics) is told that the gold she's carrying is fake. Running Men are given surveillance photos of Ji Hyo as a hint. Apparently it becomes all about the acrylic plates and finding the remaining ones to locate the real gold.
Comments: Yoon Do Hyun's second appearance (Sherlock Holmes mystery). Find the Guest race was likely guided, if not staged. Suspicious: aside from the children in the park, the Running Man shooting doesn't attract crowds like in other episodes. People are even seen just walking away. The heliport scene was likely staged, simply because safety concerns make it doubtful that scene would've been allowed to be shot in the usual free-form Running Man manner. The selection of cases according to completion of challenges is meaningless as none give any advantage or disadvantage.
Editorializing (and bitching) with spoilers:
- The Running Men are supposedly given a "tracking device" to find Ji Hyo, but it's just a smartphone map. Once the Running Men saw Ji Hyo leave in the helicopter, the only reason they would continue to the location the "tracking device" indicates her position was if they asked the PD, "Well, now what?", and he told them to just go over there anyway and make stuff up about how she might still be there. Ji Hyo being told she's carrying a "tracking device" and leaving her phone at that location was likely a scripted ruse to get the Running Men over there to perform the mission. I might suggest that their being told to pretend it's a tracking device of her actual location is not a little insulting to the viewer, as it's the same screenshot of the map when they got into the cars. Real GPS tracking was used in ep. 65.
- Editorial: It seems that this episode is another attempt, similar to ep. 87, where the production team incorporates drama elements (i.e., fake, staged, scripted, guided) into the Running Man mission style in furtherance of some kind of "plot" (for lack of a better word). The artifice that the criminals sent Ji Hyo on a fake mission to further their criminal scheme is just ridiculous if intended to be believed. Ji Hyo's mission was obviously the episode design from the start, and dressing it up as part of the criminals' scheme, I dunno, it just seems wrong for a show that's popular for spontaneity and unpredictability based on the casts' characters and talents.
- Editorial: Granted there's plenty in this episode that fans will like, but personally I think it would have been better without the artifice and the trying-too-hard-to-be-clever on the part of the production team, but just as a simple race to catch the thief with an elimination with a twist at the final destination. Once the spy "plot" element is revealed, the episode kinda falls apart for me and it collectively becomes unclear how who is supposed to do what (Ji Hyo looks dazed for the rest of the episode after it; like all her effort she put in was for nothing (and maybe also because it wasn't gold)). The genuine Running Man elements in this episode are great, but what started as a great episode, in my opinion, quickly degenerated because of the artifice into one of the most unsatisfying episodes. The production team should just design the missions, including whatever it takes to keep the show interesting and themselves interested, but then let the Running Men do their stuff. Leave the script writing for dramas.
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