We return to the root of Bangtan, the heart of their hearts and the growl of their stomachs, as a cooking episode enters our lives. BTS cooking is perhaps their greatest comedic vehicle, as they have a wide range of skills and even wider range of appreciation for food. You can always count on a good one when they break out the metaphorical chef’s hats, and this one is no different.
Setup:
Bangtan is in a filming kitchen to divide into two teams, pick a menu, and cook it in an hour for the pleasure of their judge. Jin is the MC / judge for this one, as I’m pretty sure at this stage he did 80% of the dorm cooking, so the teams will be an even three and three. BTS has to have seven members, it’s perfect, but it does make dividing into Run teams slightly awkward.
The Moments of Pure Love:
- 1.
The barbershop intro continues, and this one is a C- at best because they let Hoseok start and Namjoon loves being part of the team
- 2.
Yoongi announces that they’re at the CJ Cooking Studio, though the English subtitle censors the J from CJ, and this might be the first instance of them trying to hide a brand that didn’t pay them for exposure but it will NOT be the last
- 3.
Namjoon admits he sucks at cooking and then throws Taehyung entirely under the bus as another non-cooker, so thoroughly that Taehyung doesn’t even have a chance to fake it though you can see he was going to
- 4.
Jimin slyly offers up that Yoongi is also a good cook, so Yoongi has to do his pouty, staring at the floor admission that from time to time he would cook a little something
- 5.
While Yoongi quietly admits he might be okay at cooking, Jimin is calling him a dark horse and dreaming of being on his team
- 6.
When they worry no other person can match Yoongi as a team captain, Jin announces that Jungkook is actually pretty good at cooking too
When this episode aired I didn’t really believe this, to be honest, but now that I know how much he thinks about sauce ingredients I feel the need to apologize for my past self
- 7.
Jungkook wins the rock-paper-scissors to pick first and somewhat shyly goes for Hoseok, who apparently cooks sometimes around the dorm
- 8.
Yoongi essentially has to pick Jimin, because he’s not Taejoon, but Yoongi puts a gentle and welcoming arm around him when everyone else has moved on to other things in that classic Yoonmin way
- 9.
Jungkook wins the second rock-paper-scissors and we the audience are so incredibly shocked when he picks Namjoon
- 10.
Taehyung goes with Yoongi and Jimin, and it’s important to note he is wearing frameless glasses and a brown wool blazer over a button up shirt like a French detective
- 11.
The staff gives them papers with the two possible menus on it to select randomly; Namjoon is so terrified by the kitchen he refuses to even touch the papers, but Taehyung is eager
Team Jungkook gets braised spicy chicken stew with glazed sweet potatoes and they believe in themselves so hard
Team Yoongi gets braised spicy seafood and potato pancakes and are ready to concede the match
- 12.
Jungkook explains that he’s made the hyungs glazed sweet potatoes a million times, and Hoseok agrees that they were fantastic
- 13.
The staff have given them rolls to eat while they cook, and Yoongi assigns Taehyung to be the official roll-eater for their team
- 14.
Team Jungkook has created an intimidating hype-up activity where they all put two spoons over their eyes and make a creepy face at the other team
- 15.
Jin demands something from Team Yoongi, so Yoongi counts them off dispiritedly and Taehyung alone shouts “Hey!”
- 16.
They pick ingredients and Yoongi finds a mysterious container of milk, which he also assigns to Taehyung for the duration of the challenge
- 17.
It’s hard to overstate how excited Taehyung is to sit on a counter and eat bread for an hour
- 18.
Team Jungkook has assigned Namjoon the role of chicken breast prepper, and Namjoon says he will try to make them sleep which is a worrying thing to say when they’re about to give him a knife
- 19.
Jin uses his personal MC camera to get an unflattering below angle of Jungkook and is very pleased with himself
- 20.
Namjoon does not know the parts of a chicken or how to use a knife, as he consults his phone while trying to cut without removing the knife from its sheath
- 21.
Hoseok and Jungkook take over the chicken chopping and Namjoon is very impressed that they're making a dent
- 22.
Taehyung has made his first breakfast roll, filled with strawberry jam, and he shares it with Jimin who is busy peeling all the potatoes
- 23.
Yoongi decides Taehyung can help Jimin peel potatoes, something he’s never done, and to his delight he’s very good at it
- 24.
Taehyung tries to lord his contribution over Namjoon, but Namjoon happily shares that he’s tearing the chicken apart with his fingers
- 25.
Hoseok jokes that he’s having so much fun he might get a culinary certificate and they all lovingly scoff at him
- 26.
Vmin start talking about some kind of cooking anime, then do lines from it, and Yoongi joins in with a big smile on his face which is how you know their team synergy is off the charts
- 27.
Namjoon asks the universe if carrots have skins that need to be peeled, then answers himself in the negative
- 28.
Jungkook thinks you maybe should take off a layer, but when Namjoon tries he essentially gouges the carrot so they wave him off; Jungkook admits that he’s not a Carrot Expert
- 29.
Yoongi definitely does not know how to cut the squid, though he goes for it anyway and he’s never hated anything more than the feeling of pulling a squid apart
- 30.
Taehyung helpfully says he thinks they should wash it, and Yoongi agrees he’s seen that on TV before
- 31.
Taehyung then wanders over into Team Jungkook’s area, and Hoseok demands that Yoongi give him a job, but the potatoes have already been peeled so he’s not sure what to do about that
- 32.
Jimin assigns Taehyung to go to the grocery and buy a blender, so Taehyung goes to another part of the set and brings him one
- 33.
Jimin hugs him like Taehyung brought him a dozen roses
- 34.
Yoongi, who isn’t looking, demands that they hug again, but Vmin only hug on their own terms
- 35.
Namjoon is essentially hacking the chicken apart like he’s chopping wood, but he believes it’s probably still edible
- 36.
Jin, bored out of his mind, goes to the back to cook something of his own, and it’s sort of like pan-fried potato chips but with sugar on them
- 37.
Hoseok praises Namjoon for his minced chicken as Namjoon explains in excruciating detail how he approached the chicken-cutting process
- 38.
When Namjoon says he thought that something was a tail but turned out to be the neck, and this sparks the entire room into a conversation about if chickens have tails
- 39.
They appeal to Taehyung, apparently the authority on chicken butts, who says that they don’t but peacocks do; when Namjoon opines that they’re related Taehyung says chickens and peacocks are cousins
- 40.
Yoongi made a sauce for his braised seafood that he doesn’t believe in, but he thinks the dish as a whole looks okay
- 41.
He tastes it and is startled by how good it is; Taehyung agrees
- 42.
Jin coaches Hoseok through the chicken cooking process, and Hoseok also made his own sauce which he is very pleased with
- 43.
Jin imparts a lesson to the room, that if your food ends up bland you can always add salt
- 44.
Jimin thinks of a job for Taehyung, which is looking up a soy sauce recipe online and making it; Taehyung is not convinced this is the job for him, but finds a recipe and his own determination
- 45.
Namjoon comes in search of jam and bread, which Taehyung excitedly makes for him
- 46.
Yoongi keeps the pressure on by announcing that the soy sauce is the ultimate key to this entire menu so it had better be great
- 47.
Jimin asks how many potato pancakes Jin wants to eat, and Jin says zero because he doesn’t like them but he will like them in this case because Jimin made them for him
- 48.
Yoonjin are not convinced by the size and color of Jimin’s pancakes but he says that that’s just how the pancakes decided to be
- 49.
Jungkook, on the other hand, is regaling them with memories of when he made them very sugary glazed potatoes, tossing his dish in the pan with rhythmic snaps
- 50.
Jimin, in the manner of a parent who’s realized that their toddler has been very quiet for a long time, asks Taehyung how the sauce is going
- 51.
The room stops to observe him, as he’s made his dipping sauce and placed it in bowl with a ceramic squirrel planted in the center of the liquid
- 52.
When Jin does an interview with him about it, Taehyung says he wants the food Jin eats to be classy, and Jin agrees that this is the classiest sauce dish he’s ever seen
- 53.
Jin checks in on the glazed sweet potatoes and notes that they all seem to be stuck together
- 54.
Taehyung is now in charge of finding serving plates and discovers a cake stand to place his squirrel dish on top of; Yoonmin worry that he’s gilding the lily
- 55.
Team Jungkook shouts enthusiastically about his glazed potatoes and how perfect they look
- 56.
Jin worries about the time management on the braised chicken but Hoseok believes in his power to boil the dish down quickly
- 57.
Namjoon contributes some kind of Korean pun about how making something scared will make it shrink, so Namseok shout at the pot together
- 58.
Once that’s done, Namjoon paces around worrying about how much time is left, and Jin makes his own fun by telling Namjoon that there’s 4 minutes left (until there’s 5 minutes left) and freaking him out
- 59.
Hoseok, who always knows how much time is left for a task through the power of anxiety, is not fooled by Jin for an instant
- 60.
Yoongi, loudly sighing about how they can just relax until time is up, gets a lot of praise for his visually restaurant-quality braised seafood
- 61.
Hoseok, very subdued, says that they’re in trouble
- 62.
Namjoon tries to bolster the mood by saying the braised chicken Hoseok attempted makes him, Namjoon, very proud to know such a man
- 63.
Hoseok, expressionless, says he could do better
- 64.
Yoongi, as he pours his dish in the plate to much acclaim from Jimin, says he did well because he didn’t try to entertain the audience even a single time on their entertainment show
- 65.
The producers ask if anyone needs more time, and while Hoseok wishes he had 5 more minutes he respects precise timelines too much to actually ask for it
- 66.
Jungkook shouts for Jin from the back of the kitchen, then reveals his plated sweet potatoes which have congealed into their final sugar-glued form, completely adhered to the plate no matter how much he rotates it
- 67.
Jin is absolutely dying as Jungkook explains that it’s like display food, where the potatoes are actually part of the plate, then does a little vaudeville dance with the absolutely unmoving glazed potato mass
- 68.
The more he does it the more Jin laughs, and there’s a real danger Jin will simply stop breathing
- 69.
Yoongi, on the other hand, is acting like he’s hosting a cooking show as he introduces his seafood with a smirking flourish
- 70.
Jimin brings out the potato pancakes with less fanfare, then strolls out with the final sauce dish
- 1.
The squirrel is still in the flat bowl
- 2.
The bowl is sitting on the silver cake topper
- 3.
The squirrel has been encased in a glass lid like it’s been caged for our protection
- 4.
The whole thing is larger than either of the actual dishes
- 71.
Jin once again laughs so hard he nearly weeps; every time he looks at it for the rest of the episode it gets him again
- 72.
Team Jungkook also plates their dishes, and Jungkook has separated out 9 individual potatoes and arranged them like a tic tac toe board
- 73.
Namseok try to bullshit their way through their dish presentation, which Namjoon was born to do when he says they tried to adhere to “the essence of food”
- 74.
Jungkook, on the other hand, reveals that his 3x3 potato dish was created to be a pun, because he knows his audience well
- 75.
Hoseok tries to name his chicken dish but it’s less funny and more manic
- 76.
Yoongi names his seafood dish after a place, Jimin names his potato pancakes after himself, and Taehyung names his sauce “Squirrel Locked In a Garden” and Jin hyperventilates again
- 77.
Hoseok screams “Release the Squirrel!!!!” (also the name of his sex tape)
- 78.
Taehyung made some chocolate milk for Jin, and Jin is very amused but concerned if the cup was washed
- 79.
Team Yoongi says their first priority is sanitation
- 80.
Team Jungkook says their first priority is cleanliness and their second priority is adhesive strength as the potatoes get flipped around again
- 81.
Jin collapses behind the counter helplessly before he gets it together to try the dishes
- 82.
Jin’s judging notes
- 1.
He likes Jimin’s potato pancakes even though he usually hates them even in restaurants
- 2.
He shouts in approval for Yoongi’s delicious seafood dish
- 3.
He’s also very pleased with Hoseok’s chicken dish, and so are the editors as they linger for a long time on Jin’s lips
- 4.
He levers a potato off the plate with difficulty, then pronounces the glazed sweet potatoes to be like eating a warrior covered in sugar armor, which means delicious
- 83.
When choosing between Squirrel and Adhesive Strength, they all close their eyes and link hands to wait the decision
- 84.
Yoongi says, loudly, that he really worked hard
- 85.
Hoseok, not to be outdone, says the exact same
- 86.
The producers have to clarify that everyone worked very hard lest there’s some sort of fistfight
- 87.
Team Yoongi wins and does a soccer-style huddle dance as obnoxiously as possible
- 88.
Jin says that he dinged Team Jungkook for putting too much curry in the chicken, which he doesn’t like
- 89.
They agree that in 2017 they are way too busy to cook so it was kind of nice to do it again together
- 90.
Team Jungkook has to clean up the dishes as punishment, but thanks to neat freaks Jungkook and Hoseok this is not actually much of a punishment
- 91.
Hoseok, specifically, divides up the sectors for Structured Cleanup Efforts, and it all gets done very fast into the end!
The Finish Line:
Once again a Run with a very simple concept (get everyone in a room and film them cooking) that turned out an absolute banger of an episode. As BTS gets more and more famous, and thus less and less able to do things in places where people can see them, it’s a real asset for the crew that they’re at their best doing simple, one-room competitive activities.
This is also another one with some very iconic moments seared into my, and most of the fandoms’ brains. I was so struck by Taehyung’s squirrel masterpiece that I actually used it in a fic! And Jungkook’s Magnetic Sweet Potatoes, you will never, ever be forgotten nor removed from that plate.
Finally I very much enjoyed the mild case of brand hiding in this episode, as I’d forgotten that staple of Bangtan self-produced content - with an eye on the bottom line, you never give someone free promo! This is the iron law! The Soop, I think, was the worst about it, but I know we have several more hilariously keyword-muted episodes to come in the future.