Running Man Episode 165 recap

So before starting episode review I would like to apologize for being late with two latest episodes reviews. I will try my best to update you with episode 166 review before Wednesday, when I will start reviewing episode 167.

Today’s race is all about finding young girl, who is Running Man fan.

First mission

The episode starts with members gathering in different locations in the city of Namyang. All of them receive the same mission – Running Man’s sign photo booth. Members have to pass the mission by handing out 30 papers with their signatures (like in old days!). The problem is that people who will come in the sign booth will have to press the button with a name of a person whose signature they want. And if, for example, the Running Man member inside the booth is Kwang Soo and a fan chooses Ji Hyo, Kwang Soo can’t hand a signature for that person. It seems that Kwang Soo and Suk Jin are confident about doing this mission.

But as time goes it looks like members’ confidence go down. 40 minutes none of them even succeed to have a person to press a button. Finally after a long time of waiting, Jong Kook has his first customer. Sadly, he just looks at the pictures of members and goes away.

All of the members keep struggling. Jong Kook falls asleep of boredom; Gary starts to write a lyric rap about his freedom’s non-existence. But suddenly he is interrupted by a customer. Although Gary is the first one to get a customer to press a button, sadly, customer presses Jihyo’s button.

Haha finally succeeds in getting a customer too. Sadly for him, he presses Jae Suk’s, Ji Hyo’s and Jong Kook’s buttons and leaves after not getting their signature.

The same story occurs for Suk Jin. A customer chooses Ji Hyo and Jae Suk.

It seems that not only members feel that this mission is going to take forever, but PD’s too. They decide to decrease signature amount from 30 to 5. Also they relocate Kwang Soo’s booth, because he doesn’t even succeed in getting a customer. On the way to the new location, Kwang Soo persuades a local woman to use a booth to get signatures from Running Man members. He says that she shouldn’t mind him, secretly hoping for her to choose him. But ultimately she chooses Ji Hyo.

The same story repeats for Jae Suk, Gary and Haha. All of their customers choose Ji Hyo. It looks like Haha’s patience is decreasing so he decides to take a revenge on popular ones. Kwang Soo and Jae Suk do the same.

Finally after a long time of waiting, Ji Hyo succeeds in handing her first signature. Some time later Jae Suk, Gary, Haha and Jong Kook hand their first signatures too. In the end it’s a fight between Ji Hyo and Jae Suk – who will be the first one to hand out 5 signatures. Both of them hand their last one simultaneously and succeed in mission. They receive a hand phone with a location of their next mission.

On the way to the next mission, Jae Suk discovers another booth. He decides to play a prank. He presses Ji Suk Jin’s, booth owner’s button, and after receiving his signature, throws it back inside the booth. Suk Jin flounders and drops signature once again. But Jae Suk keeps being cruel and throws it back inside. In the end he goes behind Suk Jin and announces “This one doesn’t count”.

Jong Kook and Gary are the next ones to finish the mission.

Second mission

Jae Suk finally reaches location stated on the message. He meets Ji Hyo there, who is wandering around, searching for a mission. Both of them enters furniture shop, which is located on GPS and starts the search. Some time later Jong Kook and Gary join them. All of them struggle to find their next mission. Suddenly, Jae Suk receives a call from Kwang Soo, who finished his mission as well. “Kwang Soo, I’m filming right now, call me later” answers Grasshopper coldly. Shortly giraffe arrives at the location and states “I know this place very well. This is my dad’s place”. Members understand the mission right away and start searching for Kwang Soo’s dad. 

Jae Suk is the first one to learn about Kwang Soo’s dad location. Kwang Soo understands it and calls his dad “Don’t open your door for anyone” he screams. But it’s too late. Jae Suk finds his dad before he succeeds in locking the doors. 

Members keep gathering one by one. Jong Kook enters the room and Kwang Soo starts whining “This is the guy who picks on me all the time!”.

In the meantime, Kwang Soo’s dad receives a call and gets information about the next mission. “There’s a showroom on the first floor, and the mission is on one of the beds.” All the members start running without hesitation. It’s all about who will find the mission first. Ji Hyo finds it first, but Jong Kook chases her till the end. Ji Hyo falls on purpose in order to protect the envelope she has found. She decides to share the mission with others.

Running Man members have to pass each mission via pictures in the book to find the person who made the book. The person to attach a picture of themselves with the author of the book is the winner of today’s race.

Third mission

For the next mission each member has to choose one picture out of 3 different places of Namyang. Jae Suk and Suk Jin head to the library, Monday couple to the park and Jong Kook, Haha and Kwang Soo to the office.

First ones to begin their mission are Gary and Ji Hyo. They have to find a picture on one of the kites that are flying.

Meanwhile Jae Suk and Suk Jin arrive at the library. They have to find a book with R sticker on it. Suk Jin finds one and delivers it right away to the PD while saying “What’s so difficult about finding one?” “The book you brought…. You need to study it” answers PD. Suk Jin emerges into book, while Jae Suk finally finds a book with R sticker too – “The Little Prince”. Both members take time to study books hard. It seems that Suk Jin feels confident since he was able to read his book twice during that time. But all his confidence was blown away after PD asked him a question “How many butterflies were on the cover of the book?” 

Both of them fail to answer that question, so PD moves to the next one about “The Little Prince”. “On the page 23, how many stars are in the drawing?” Members just keep ironically laugh, while PD keeps asking more and more “strange” questions. In the end, they fail and have to go and find another book.

At the same time in the office, Kwang Soo, Jong Kook and Ha Ha have to beat stapler expert in stapling. Kwang Soo decides to use his cheating skills and takes the staples out of his stapler and swaps it with expert’s stapler. But during the mission, stapler expert isn’t disorientated and takes Jong Kook’s stapler. In the end Haha and Kwang Soo finish mission first, but Kwang Soo is disqualified because of cheating, so Haha passes the mission first. 

We are back to Monday couple who are struggling on finding the kite with a picture. After multiple times of trying, Ji Hyo with her hawk eyes notices a picture on a kite and finds a person who is flying it. Success!

Meanwhile Suk Jin and Jae Suk are studying the other book – “Redheaded Ann”. They go through pictures thinking that questions are going to be as ridiculous as it was the previous time. “What is the name of Ann’s friend in the book?” asks PD. They keep getting answers wrong till it’s time for the last question: “How many birds are on page 19?” Jae Suk loudly shouts “Answer” and correctly answers the question. Success!

Fourth mission

While Jong Kook and Kwang Soo are struggling with their third mission, all the other members head to the rock climbing place. They will have to climb on a wall in order to reach a balloon. There are three types of balloons – Low, Medium and High. High balloons have very informative hints, while low ones, not. Every member will have to decide which one they want. The better hint is, the higher they will have to climb.

Suk Jin (!!!!) and Gary decide to go for a high hint, while Jae Suk and Ji Hyo for the medium. Jae Suk swiftly climbs up and reaches his balloon easily. Just few moments later Ji Hyo reaches her mid balloon too. But it doesn’t look like she is satisfied. She gives her balloon to Suk Jin, who struggles to climb up even to the low balloon level, and goes for a high one. At the same time Gary reaches high one. 

Ji Hyo finishes her high balloon route at the same time as Ha Ha his low one. All 5 members succeed in their fourth mission. But where is Jong Kook and Kwang Soo?

As some time passes, we get to know that the difference between hints is big. Jae Suk gets a picture with a park where filming crew is working. Gary gets a picture with a photo of the house Running Man fan is living at.

Jae Suk decides that it is too difficult to find out a place on the picture on his own, so he suggests that he together with Haha should follow Gary or Ji Hyo who has high hints.

Meanwhile, Kwang Soo with Jong Kook just arrived at the fourth mission location. They are just able to see other members already leaving. Both of them decide to go for the mid one. Jong Kook is struggling making his way up, while Kwang Soo easily reaches balloon. Commander asks crew to descend, since only low one is left. While going down, Kwang Soo drops his hint. Commander without hesitation grabs his hint and leaves. 

The problem is, Jong Kook wrongly understands his hint and goes to totally different direction he needs to.

Meanwhile other members successfully arrive to the neighborhood girl is living. But all of them struggle to find the exact house she is living at. After asking people in the neighborhood Ji Hyo and Gary succeeds in finding both the house and the flat girl is living in. Unfortunately, girl is still at school. Right after them, it’s Jae Suk and Kwang Soo who find the correct flat.

Kwang Soo decides to look at the fan girl’s room and it is when my most favorite moment of the episode happens. I burst into tears! Kwang Soo finds out that the girl is a big fan of him. You can easily see that giraffe is touched!

Final mission

All the members get an information that girl is studying at Wabu middle school and that the notebook is hidden somewhere in a classroom on the third floor. Gary is the first one to find it, but he still needs to find the right girl. After understanding that Gary has the notebook, Kwang Soo chases and catches him. But they still need to find Hye Mi. And Kwang Soo does it!

But the notebook is still with Gary. Kwang Soo asks girl to hide from Gary and she:

Decides to hide in the closet! (I APPROVE THIS! THIS IS WHAT ONLY RUNNING MAN FANS WOULD THINK OF!). For sure, Kwang Soo doesn’t allow to do that. Jae Suk together with Jong Kook arrives at the same classroom and Jae Suk recognizes Hye Mi. When Kwang Soo understands the situation, he takes a picture with Hye Mi and shouts “RUN!” Everyone starts to chase her and she keeps running as hard as she can (honestly everything looked like Hollywood movie for me!) trying to win time for Kwang Soo (good job fellow runner!). 

In the end all members succeed in getting a picture with a girl. Now, it’s down to whom will be able to paste the picture in the notebook first. Haha steals notebook from Gary but he is being chased by other members. He throws notebook down the stairs and Gary is first one to pick it from the ground. He tries to paste his own picture, but it’s the wrong page! Suk Jin steals the notebook and successfully pastes his picture with Hye Mi. Suk Jin wins today’s race!

In the end members gather together with Hye Mi and her friends. “Why do you like Kwang Soo so much?” asks Jae Suk. “When he walked on a stage… flowers were swirling around him”. U go girl! 

I would say, this episode was one of my most favorite episodes of Running Man. It was emotional; also I felt a particle of me too, since this episode was created by Running Man fan. Thanks for her!