Run BTS Rewatch Episode 53: Chaos Is Everywhere

방탄 야유회 1, BTS Short Trip 1

This episode kicks off an unprecedented 4 part series of Run BTS, because it takes place partially in the real world and that means that chaos reigns and their inner demons are let out to play in a way that creates a lot of footage. Released from the bonds of the Big Hit studios and rented-out parks, they will journey by van to a vacation house and do activities for our amusement.

This house is the same house they later use for that episode where they all create a film have movie set jobs, so it must belong to an exec or something.

Setup:

BTS are going on a short trip together, and the production team have given them a schedule to follow which is their first mistake. They’re also gave them all matching white long-sleeved shirts, just like the MT episode, but this time the printed picture is of Taehyung when he climbed the mountain with Namjoon wearing so many winter clothes he looks like a grubby hillman.

The Moments of Pure Love:

1. The first shot we get is of Jungkook in one of his smooth round head hairstyles wearing enormous circular glasses around his enormous eyeballs and saying “Run BTS!”

2. All of them are riding in a passenger van / small bus, as follows:

   1. Hoseok and Namjoon in the back

   2. Jungkook in front of Hoseok, Jin and Taehyung squeezed into a seat in front of Namjoon

   3. Yoongi and Jimin squeezed into a seat in front of Taejin

3. Hoseok asks where they are to make sure the production team can explain the concept

4. Jimin points out that their clothes are unique, mostly so he can say the word grubby a lot

5. Many of them have customized their shirts by drawing on Taehyung’s face with black sharpie for even more facial hair and / or tears; Jungkook, Jin, and Hoseok are among those brave few

6. They run down their schedule for this trip, laid out in a wheel fashion

   1. Start driving

   2. Shop for groceries

   3. Arrive

   4. Play badminton (this gets Jungkook hype)

   5. Board game

   6. Free time

   7. Write letters

   8. Dinner

   9. Singing contest

   10. Campfire

   11. Sleep

7. During the drive they also have to play games on the bus because what kind of show do you think we are running here, we have limited content creation time

   1. The reward for these games are snacks because you also don’t eat on Run BTS unless the producers will it

8. Yoongi draws a paper to see what the first snack is, and they’re all rooting for dried squid but it comes up gummy bears, which they’re very disappointed about

9. The game is Cham Cham Cham, and after a brief struggle for who doesn’t want to do it least, Hoseok and Jungkook decide to try out

   1. Hoseok asks if they believe in him, and Jimin says no

   2. Hoseok demands that they say “fighting” to him, and they do dispiritedly

   3. Hoseok goes in hard and overly energetic and wins easily

   4. Jin tells Jungkook that he wants to eat gummy bears to motivate him; it works as it always will

10. Jimin is excited they’re batting a hundred, and Hoseok is like “this could be the last thing we win for the rest of our lives”

11. Yoongi picks again, dried squid again fervently wished for, but when it’s fried chicken the van air becomes thick with longing

12. The game is for a staff person to touch a Bangtan and they have to guess which finger it was that touched them, which everyone agrees is too difficult to support their chicken dreams

13. Yoongi goes first, and he closes his eyes while a hand touches the back of his neck for a picosecond, and he is dumbfounded at how he’s supposed to guess

    1. Hoseok comforts him that he’s got a 20% chance no matter what

    2. Taejin touch each other lightly on the head and hand with different fingers to see how it feels

    3. Yoongi gives a speech about how it felt, stalling, until he goes with ring finger because the pressure was gentle; it was the index finger

    4. The rest of them say he should have known because only the index finger is dexterous enough to control into gentle pressure

    5. Yoongi calls this nonsense

14. Jimin goes next, and when he’s touched he flinches because he’s very ticklish

    1. Hoseok says he has to get it right

    2. Jimin says it’s not the thumb or pinky

    3. He guesses the index finger in a sort of metagame situation and he is wrong

    4. Jungkook laments for the all the chicken he will never have

15. Taehyung, kind of interested to know if he’s the one true finger knower, smiles and says he wants to try

    1. Yoongi says that they all underestimate how hard it is

    2. Jin says he can feel the spirit of the chicken

    3. Jungkook is the spirit of the chicken, as he stares with his whole face at Taehyung and wills him to get it right

    4. Taehyung guesses the pinky correctly right away

    5. BTS can’t believe that he really is the one true finger knower, but Taehyung always knew he had the power within him

16. Taehyung shares his fried chicken out with the group, and the van is happy once more

17. Yoongi draws beverages next, which they’re pleased about after the chicken

18. Jungkook decides it’s time to open his eyes very wide and stare directly into the camera that’s providing coverage of his seat

19. The beverage game is say nonsense, which they’re all very bad at, though that’s mostly because they’re usually playing competitively and everyone argues that the things they say make sense so maybe in a cooperative situation they’ll let things slide

20. Jungkook, mouth absolutely full of chicken, volunteers Jimin to answer, and Jimin accepts the call

21. Hoseok, unable to stop himself, questions if one of the answers Jimin said actually does make sense (What’s 1+1? Dangerous)

    1. Jimin wheels around and tries to hit him from 2 rows away because this is supposed to be cooperative

    2. Hoseok, abashed, apologizes for forgetting

    3. Namjoon, unable to stop himself even more, begins arguing from the back of the bus that another answer could have been not nonsense

    4. Jimin despairs at the lot of them for being as pedantic as they are, and he’s given the victory

22. Jin, when he sees that the beverage is Coke, gets so hype that he’s willing to go in himself, saying he will be amazing

    1. After Jin’s third answer the whole bus comes down on him for it making too much sense

    2. Jin argues passionately that it does, before interrupting the middle of his own argument to say that in the nonsense game you can’t answer the question with a question, which he did

    3. Jungkook seconds this, and Jin apologizes for his failure

23. Jungkook, invigorated, calls out urgently and dramatically for more chicken, which Jimin supplies him

24. Taehyung demands a piece, even more dramatically

25. Jimin, sensing the opportunity to be a hero, volunteers to try the nonsense game challenge again

    1. Jimin takes the opportunity to announce that BTS won an award and will come back soon with a mini-album with their hair dyed black

    2. Taehyung corrects him to say that it’s a full album, because this must be right before the Love Yourself: Tear era

    3. Yoongi says that Jimin is so good at nonsense

    4. Hoseok is genuinely impressed at the people who can simply choose not to answer a question that was asked to them

26. Yoongi draws hard boiled eggs, and the game is “guess who clapped”

27. Jin nominates Namjoon to play, even though Namjoon says the back of the bus is too far away

28. Hoseok, right next to him, says that there must be a reason that Namjoon has chased music for decades, so he should do it

29. Yoongi objects at the use of “decades” when Namjoon is only 25 years old

30. Hoseok rolls right past this objection and commands Namjoon to lower his head; he does obediently

31. Someone claps, and Yoonjin, who were staring at the person who did it, both think this is easy

32. Namjoon guesses the director, correctly, and they all applaud him for his excellent ears

33. Jungkook in particular is deep in the part of his heart that is reserved for Kim Namjoon, especially when he is handed an egg to eat

34. Yoongi quietly says he likes eggs but they’re hard to peel; Jimin offers to peel it for him, just as quietly, and Yoongi accepts

35. Meanwhile the back of the bus has decided that they will crack them by whacking them on someone’s head, deciding who that is via RPS

    1. Jungkook, Hoseok, Jin, and Taehyung all stick their hands in to compete

    2. Namjoon also puts his hand in but realizes quickly that none of them are paying attention to him so withdraws it to eat his egg in peace

    3. Taehyung and Hoseok win quickly, leaving Jinkook to duke it out

    4. Jungkook wails that he’s not good at RPS

    5. Jin readies the egg on his lap to smash as soon as the loser is decided

    6. Jungkook fails, and Jin immediately smacks him on the crown of the head with his egg

    7. Jungkook winces every time an egg hits him, Taejin going in hard

    8. Hoseok tries to be gentle but then ends up having to hit him multiple times, defeating the purpose

36. Yoongi, in the front, busts out the factoid that no matter how hard you squeeze a hard-boiled egg it won’t break

    1. This is patently ridiculous, but BTS is nothing if not gullible

    2. Jungkook sticks his thumb directly into his hard-boiled egg

    3. Yoongi clarifies that is has to be with the fist

    4. Jin squeezes the life out of his egg and squirts the innards all over his hand; he cries out in agony

    5. Yoongi looks at him with a mixture of glee and pity as Hoseok laughs

37. Yoongi draws dried squid, eliciting joy from the crowd, along with the Timing Game

38. Jimin is still patiently peeling Yoongi’s egg; when he’s finished he hands it over, and Yoongi scolds him for saying it was easy when it took so long

39. The Timing Game starts, and I’m gonna be honest that I don’t really understand it, but I think the rule is that they have to count up to a number, probably 7, with each of them saying a different number, but if they say it at the same time as the staff or each other they lose

    1. Hoseok immediately loses the first round with the staff on 1

    2. Something happens where BTS feel like the staff jumped the gun in their eagerness to win, and they get loud

    3. Vmin say 1 together on the next round, which is another loss

    4. Taehyung tries to explain how he didn’t hear some part of the rule so it doesn’t count, and he is very earnest about it

    5. Something about his phrasing cracks Yoongi up in the front seat where he’s eating his egg

    6. They decide to blow a whistle for the start so that it’s not the “1” that starts them off

    7. Next round they make it to 5 until they lose for a mysterious reason, possibly Hoseok saying it with the director

    8. They argue for a last round, and Namgi say 1 at the same time

    9. Yoongi screams like he’s been stabbed in the kidney for a very long time

    10. Jin argues that they need another round because Jungkook never got to say a number

    11. Jungkook, startled, looks over at Jin and says that he did say one

    12. Jin shushes him urgently, and they play another round

    13. They get all the way up to 7, where Taehyung and the staff have a heated staring battle, and then BTS lose somehow

40. Yoongi draws chips, and they have to play the game where they get two characters and have to name words with them

41. Hoseok announces that Yoongi got a 95% in his Korean language class

42. Yoongi wants to know what that has to do with anything at all

43. Jimin volunteers for the front rows to start

    1. The first symbols are ㅇㅇ, and they all have to say a word that starts with it

    2. Taehyung has a brief moment of panic when he uses an onomatopoeia for “ouch”, but Jin feeds him a secondary word

    3. Jin then says the word Yoongi said, so Taehyung feeds him a word back in this instance of Bangtans helping Bangtans

    4. They all “succeed”, or enough for this, and the chips arrive

44. Jungkook chews his chips and stares vacantly into space

45. Yoonmin chew their chips and stare directly into camera

46. The last snack is kimbap, though the staff up it to gimbap and the lost squid, because they’re soft touches and also they brought all this squid

47. The game is RPS minus one, which is where you throw two hands of RPS then take one away strategically and see who wins, adding a little extra psychological component that only Koreans can truly master

48. Yoongi goes first and loses immediately, screaming like his other kidney is also perforated

49. Jinkook practice with each other until Jungkook understands the game

50. Jimin goes next, and the staff member fully lets him win because Jimin throws two papers for some reason, and the staff member puts forward his rock

51. Yoonjin complain that this is blatant Jimin favoritism

52. The staff, sensing unrest, change this from an individual reward game to a group, where if 3 members win everyone get the kimbap and squid

53. Taehyung goes a couple of rounds, using his most penetrating stare, but loses

54. Jin claims to be the god of RPS minus one, so Jungkook says his disciple (Jungkook) will go first

55. Jinkook rub their hands together ridiculously because Jungkook has learned from Jin that this helps him win

56. Jin, somewhat surprised, says he did not teach him this

57. Jungkook loses

58. Hoseok tries to negotiate for just one of them winning, but the outlook seems bleak

59. Jin, in superhero mode, says he will encourage them all after he shows them how it’s done

60. Jin loses

61. They have Jimin go again because the staff member kind of fucked up, and Jimin tries to do some seductive faces to curry favor

62. Jimin wins

63. Yoongi, next to him, is like “they still let you win you demon”

64. Namjoon loses instantly

65. They’re now out of the running for prizes, but Hoseok says if he wins he should get kimbap

66. Jin argues for the squid instead, because they’re craving it

67. Hoseok wins, much to his own delight

68. Jinmin are pretty sure that the staff member just took pity on all of them, and they dislike this Pyrrhic victory

69. They still eat their squid, because they’re no fools

70. Next up is grocery shopping, where they have a 10kg weight limit of what they can buy

    1. This grocery store (which seems sort of like a cross between a gas station and a corner market) is a real place with potentially real people inside of it, so anything could happen

71. As they entire, Jin is drinking chocolate milk out of a box with a push-in straw like an elementary schooler

72. They try to decide what to buy as a group, which is a real shitshow all around, and while all of them have opinions and suggestions it roughly breaks out into the following responsibilities:

    1. Hoseok: Pushes the cart / spokesman

    2. Jimin: Mental checklist maintainer

    3. Jin: Stand-up comedy

    4. Yoongi: Actually shops

    5. Namjoon: Pushes the cart / compliments Yoongi

    6. Taehyung: Errand boy

    7. Jungkook: Meat evaluation

73. Hoseok suggests espresso, since they learned how to make it, and Jin makes fun of him and his brownnosing about past Run activities

74. Jin quizzes him, asking what’s on top of the coffee (crema), then self-guesses magma and stigma because he can’t remember

75. They make it to the meat counter to get some pork belly, and Koobi do the talking, which nets them 2.1kg of meat plus an extra free chunk because the guy likes them

    1. Hoseok shouts happily in the guy’s face

    2. Taehyung’s eyes are roundly terrified behind him for no real reason

76. Taehyung yells for shrimps

77. Jin yells for ice cream

78. Jin tries to sneak a package of beef brisket in the cart while Namjoon twirls it away from him like an eternal ballerina

79. Jin thinks it’s delicious; Namjoon thinks it’s too heavily

80. Hoseok comes in with the compromise that Jin can put it in but they’ll take it out if it’s too heavy

81. Yoongi, on task, gets salt for the meat

82. Taehyung shops for fireworks, which is probably fine

83. They decide against beverages, which are heavy and they can win from games, but go for rice puffs, which are very light

84. At the scale they suddenly realize they’re in a real pickle as they have to ruthlessly cut things for weight

    1. The producers do them a kindness and say the free meat they got at the counter will not go towards their 10kg total

    2. Namjoon urges them all to make reasonable choices

    3. Jungkook negotiates for one less rice so they can add more things, because if there’s one thing he takes seriously it’s food

85. Once they’re done, everything they couldn’t buy goes in a basket for game rewards

86. Hoseok, on the way out, suddenly gets a hankering for ice cream that spreads to the rest of the group

87. When the director asks what they’ll do for the ice cream, Jungkook offers Jin as barter

88. He tries to trade away Jin’s dinner, but they settle on Jin walking the rest of the way, which is like 8 kilometers???

89. Jin agrees as long as two staff people go with him

90. Hoseok, cautiously, asks if it’s an uphill journey - it is

91. Jin, suddenly, is like wait a second why am I the one doing this????

92. They start in on a potential round of RPS until Jin, reversing himself, says he wants to walk so he’ll do it

93. Hoseok asks who will go with Jin, in a manner that suggests it’s not gonna be him

94. Jimin, the king of support, says he will also battle and go with Jin if he loses

95. Jin, despite a close match, loses the game and everyone is sad

96. Jimin comes in much more dramatically, full of tricks, and also loses

97. Bangtan decide there will be one more challenger, and that challenger is Jungkook, because he’s the one who got them into all of this

98. Jungkook is like wait a second, is this the consequences of my actions

99. Hoseok gives him a backrub to pep him up

100. Jungkook again gets in a tight match, and Jimin is so annoyed that this staff person is so good at RPS

101. Jungkook takes it, meaning that they all get ice cream but Jinmin are walking a ridiculous journey to get to the house

     1. I need to stress that none of this was something the staff asked them to do, and was entirely created by Hoseok wanting ice cream and Jungkook bartering Jin’s life for it

102. Namjoon welcomes them to the mountain climbing club

103. Taekook dance joyfully with their ice cream

104. Namjoon recounts, full of awe, how cool Jin was when he said he would walk

105. They do drive Jinmin to the base of the hill to walk up it, since they don’t actually want to be filming them for 2 hours

106. Jungkook waves to Jin as he and Jimin get off, a slight expression of guilt on his face

107. Hoseok eulogizes them from the back of van, thanking them for their sacrifice

108. Yoongi is mostly excited he can stretch out and take a nap now that Jimin is gone

109. Jungkook says he feels so empty without them (it’s been less than five minutes), but Hoseok agrees that BTS needs 7

110. Jungkook helps the editing team by doing a little promo about cutting to how they’re doing

111. Jinmin take a selfie to start their walk, then see a waterfall

112. Jin abandons Jimin who keeps taking pictures

113. Hoseok, worried about Jimin, sends him a supportive text

114. Jinmin, literally walking on the side of a road, start singing a children’s song to cheer themselves up

115. Jimin lies on the ground in some leaves for Jin to take pictures of him

116. Hoseok is still remembering their brave, fallen members, exhorting the rest of them not to forget; Yoonkook are sleeping

117. Jinmin continue their photo shoots and compliment each other about how good they are at taking them, even though the beauty of their shots are somewhat marred by the Taehyung shirts

118. The van crew arrives at their vacation house exactly as Jinmin are playing with a dog they found

119. The van crew move into the house, exclaiming over things like the swimming pool, Halli Galli, the karaoke machine, and the refrigerator with a camera in it

120. Hoseok reminds them that they need to consult their schedule of activities, which means badminton is up next

121. Jinmin walk past a cafe and consider purchasing sustenance, but Jin left his credit card in the van

122. Jimin offers to give Jin a piggyback ride up the steepest last part of the hill, which Jin thinks will be more tiring than just walking but then gets super into it

123. They swap places halfway up but Jin doesn’t have Jimin’s thighs and is much more grunting and groaning

124. Jinmin decide to make really obnoxious crow noises as they get closer to the house for reasons passing understanding

125. Yoongi, inside, swivels his head to the left like a bloodhound and says “Doesn’t that sound like Park Jimin?”

126. Namjoon is like, it is Jimin, going “gah gah gah”

127. Yoongi, puzzled, takes a small interval to realize that it’s not a bird that sounds like Jimin but rather Jimin trying to sound like a bird

128. When Jinmin finally enter the rest of them fall on them like they’ve been apart for 40 years instead of 40 minutes

129. Jin beelines for the karaoke microphone the better to answer questions about how it was

130. Jimin reprises his crow impression, and Hoseok demands that Jungkook harmonize with it

131. Jungkook does, and Hoseok is DELIGHTED

132. But not for long, because the schedule calls to him, and he gets them moving to their badminton schedule as we’re out!

The Finish Line:

God this episode was so long and full of dumb and wonderful moments that I couldn’t stop typing! This rewatch took me like, twice as long as most of them, but I don’t regret an instance because it filled me with so much joy. All they’re doing is playing games in a van, grocery shopping, and hiking, and yet it’s the best thing I’ve seen all year. How do they do this???? We may never know.

A four part series is kind of an insane one, but the schedule is packed full of activities and I know I will be crying at least once from laughter and once from sentiment if I’m remembering them all correctly. This era must have been so busy for them in every way, so I hope at least some of this was relaxing to them even though it was still work!

Coming up next we will watch them attempt sports (always fun) and cooking (ditto), so we’re on the cusp of greatness yet again. See you there!