Having conquered the water park, the Bangtans head to the snow park to see what havoc they can wreak (hint: it’s a lot)! I didn’t realize until this rewatch that they must have filmed the prior episodes and this episode on the same day in the same place, which had to have been exhausting. The weather was also really cold, which is possibly why this is only a one-part episode as opposed to another trilogy. Namjoon’s voice seemed a bit hoarse by the end of the last episode, so let’s hope that he didn’t get actually sick after this whole thing…
Please note that while the official video has English subtitles they’re incredibly far ahead of what’s actually happening / being said on screen so you may want to find an alternate option like Weverse or another vid.
Setup:
Ilsan’s One Mount also has a snow park to go along with its indoor water area, so they’ve decided this is a perfect place for a three game Winter Olympics! Complete with medals and cheating, as befits such an event.
The Moments of Pure Love:
- 1.
They’re standing outside and all of them have hoods and some of those hoods have fur lining and overall they look like a row of tiny little bear cubs as they blankly listen to the producers explain the concept
- 2.
The stages are as follows, with cumulative scoring:
Stage 1: Going down a hill in an inner tube and grabbing a flag at the bottom (with the number of flags less than the number of participants)
Stage 2: Curling, but not normal curling
Stage 3: Ice sledding, but not even CLOSE to normal sledding
- 3.
They’re introduced by lane for the tube slide, and they all get likely self-given titles as they appear on the platform and make super dorky poses
Jin - BTS’s Handsome
Hoseok - BTS’s Hope
Jimin - BTS’s Fairy
Jungkook - BTS’s Golden Maknae
Namjoon - BTS’s Smart Leader
Yoongi - BTS’s Sweetness (I have to note here that he sings a little Olympic song to himself and waves at a non-existent crowd because this episode reveals that Min Yoongi has a latent athlete adoration side which deeply enjoys roleplaying the Olympics)
Taehyung - BTS’s Visual
- 4.
The way they go from not-sliding to sliding is a ramp that slowly tilts their tubes down onto a metal hill and there’s a lot of nervous hooting as it does
- 5.
The hooting continues at even higher volumes and much more frequently as they go, but the maknaes easily scoop up flags
- 6.
Everyone but Yoongi gets a flag and Yoongi is quite put out about how slowly his tube tipped down compared to everyone else and says it over and over again until it’s everyone’s problem
- 7.
Everyone starts spinning in circles as they go down, but somehow Jin gets to join the dominant maknae line in the next round
- 8.
This does not last, as the next time sees Jin get stuck on the slide in his tube to the point where a course worker has to come up and rescue him
- 9.
Namjoon is incredibly embarrassed by and for Jin
- 10.
Jimin has been first each and every round and faces off against Jungkook
- 11.
Taehyung becomes a sideline reporter at Hoseok’s behest, and he attempts to scream an interview request up the slide to the finalists
- 12.
Jungkook totally ignores him
- 13.
Jimin answers but flips the interview around by asking Taehyung if he’ll win; Taehyung him assures him that the 95 line is unstoppable
- 14.
Taehyung, never one to let a slight pass him by, yells at Jungkook that he’s going to lose
- 15.
In an actual interview with the production staff, Jungkook assures us all that he’s only doing well so he can ride the sled a bunch, because it’s super fun
- 16.
Jimin says he’s only doing well because of us, and Jungkook is affronted that we prefer Jimin to him
- 17.
Jungkook, full of competitive fire, takes first easily, and Yoongi runs up to him for an interview
- 18.
Both of them shut him down quickly because it’s so cold, but he succeeds in the end to get every single medalist to make a little speech
- 19.
Namjoon says Jimin got silver because his hair is silver in a little joke that he’s proud of and no one acknowledges
- 20.
Jin is roped into doing an acrostic using “bronze medal” and he just sings a dumb little song before they sprint inside to get out of the cold
- 21.
They’re sliding around on an ice rink for curling, an activity which would no longer be covered by their insurance policies
- 22.
Curling, hilariously, is not traditional but instead involves them picking a member to sit in a bucket and shove across the ice; closest to the ring wins
- 23.
They introduce themselves and their lane by doing little dances and spins on the ice
Hoseok, under peer pressure to do something cool while fighting with his innate risk-averse nature, does slow motion speed-skating and no one is impressed
Jungkook drops to the ground and does some dorky b-boying on the ice
Namjoon spins on one foot as fast as he can until he actually falls over and gives Hoseok a heart attack
Jimin tries a ballet spin and falls over a little
Jin moonwalks into a ridiculous twirl and makes everyone laugh
Taehyung does a beautiful spin like a figure skater
Yoongi sings an Olympic song for himself and again waves at the non-existent crowd until he’s given the hook by Taehyung
- 24.
Yoongi chooses Hoseok to sit in the bucket and tries to shove him really hard and doesn’t even get close because he is just a little guy
- 25.
Taehyung calls out Jin and shoves him all the way into the camera crew; he moves his mark closer to the circle when no one is watching and erases the original with his shoe
There’s no apparent reason for this as he’s still super far away and doesn’t come close to winning, but I hope he feels better
- 26.
Jin picks Jungkook, under the theory that he’s the heaviest, and while Jin’s glove is pulled off with the bucket and slides with Jungkook, he gets the closest so far
- 27.
Jimin picks Taehyung and can barely get any traction to send him, but he gets the closest as they start to realize that pushing lightly is the key
- 28.
Namjoon chooses Yoongi, who assures him he’s gonna go the right way and scoots himself forward on the ice to help, and Namjoon gets closest
- 29.
Jungkook is forced to choose Namjoon instead of Taehyung, and both have grave concerns that he will even fit in the bucket; Namjoon takes a sharp left turn but Jungkook is happy because he still beat Jin
- 30.
Hoseok gets to take Jimin, which makes me think that they agreed that Jungkook had to push Namjoon to avoid Hoseok trying to push Namjoon and simply running in place like a cartoon character
- 31.
Hoseok pushes Jimin the perfect direction and amount and is the only one to get in the circle; the excited sounds he makes can only be heard by dogs
- 32.
Jin shows off the hotpack he has in his shoe to keep his feet warm and laughs at the rest of the plebs who didn’t think that far ahead
- 33.
Hoseok, in his gold medal interview with Jungkook, says flatly that he deserves it for doing the best, then sings the Korean national anthem
- 34.
Jimin does an acrostic poem for bronze medal that’s just the same dumb little song Jin did
- 35.
Now it’s time for ice sledding and the true chaos of this episode believe it or not, as all of them get janky sled-like items that they have to race back and forth across the ice
- 36.
They do a random draw for who gets what sled, and I will try my best to describe them here but honestly I can’t do them justice
Namjoon gets a bicycle seat mounted low to the ground between two poles of differing heights like uneven bars, all over a metal chassis that looks like an Oscar trophy
Jimin gets a snowman with handles sticking out of its ears resting on a thing that looks like a big version of what you measure your shoe size with at a shoe store
Jungkook gets a shopping cart on an A-frame sled and no I’m not kidding
Jin gets basically the same thing as Jimin except it’s a penguin instead of a snowman
Hoseok gets three rectangles that look like squares mounted in a Mickey Mouse sort of configuration with a big guardrail handle to hold on to and it honestly looks like some kind of spaceship because it’s by far the biggest sled so far
Taehyung gets a chair that looks like half of a lawn chair mounted on two giant metal spatulas and square handle to hold onto
Yoongi gets two additional giant metal spatulas and a handle that looks like a bicycle handle; everyone agrees that this is the most normal-looking sled
- 37.
The first race goes to shit nearly instantly as they all start pushing the sled by running on the ice before jumping on, like a skateboard, then crashing into each other when they have to go around the barrel
- 38.
Hoseok gives up trying to race and uses his giant sled to try to knock everyone else off course on their way back to the finish, like a soccer goalie defending the net
- 39.
Taehyung runs past him first without even being on the sled, and Jin finishes totally separated from his penguin
- 40.
They go again, this time with the rule that both feet have to be on the sled
- 41.
However this is a ridiculous rule because without pushing off from something the sled won’t go anywhere, thanks to Newton’s First Law, so they end up sort of rocking back and forth and wiggling forward very slowly
- 42.
Yoongi is unable to go forward at all and has completely turned around
- 43.
Hoseok, the great innovator and loophole lawyer, realizes they only said you had to keep your FEET on and sits down to push himself forward with his hands
- 44.
Jin follows suit in a deep squat around his penguin
- 45.
Taehyung simply cheats and starts running with his sled again
- 46.
Jungkook has turned around so his ass is facing the shopping cart and hand-pedals across the ice like a madman
- 47.
The rest of them give up and they tally the final medals
- 48.
Jin wins the bronze and begins throwing hotpacks out of his pockets in celebration; they call him a true professional for staying warm
- 49.
Jungkook wins the silver medal much more serenely
- 50.
Hoseok knows for sure he’s going to get the gold medal and is trying to hide his excitement, very poorly, by rocking back and forth in place with a huge smile on his face; it’s cute as hell
- 51.
Jin gives Hoseok a second hotpack firework shower in celebration
- 52.
Hoseok reclines on the ice, groin facing directly to the camera, and makes an acrostic poem with gold medal that’s actually a real poem
- 53.
The end, as they shiver out into post-vid
The Finish Line:
It is truly amazing to me that this wasn’t a multiple-part episode simply because of that insane sled race. In future seasons that would have been an entire episode all on its own of them duking it out over the sleds and then doing the race five times with different rules each time. It’s still clear that the production crew hadn’t yet learned the myriad of ways these guys will find to cheat and / or find efficiencies if the rules aren’t five pages long and written in triplicate!
It was also nice to see a Hoseok win, as those of us in the future know that it doesn’t often end up that way, and his excitement for it was very sweet. None of these guys are really built for the cold, and they don’t revisit chilly challenges to my memory (correct me if I’m wrong), so maybe that’s been the problem all these years…
Next time is more Olympics, but this time warmer and more dangerous to the groin, so I can’t wait!