Monopoly Game (Blackout Game)
One of the most controversial episodes, its events cast a long shadow on the rest of the series and will lead to rehaul starting from season 3 (namely: theft will not be tolerated in any form and they will cast more "regular people" over celebrities). It is also one of the most twist-packed, complex and entertaining episodes featuring three storylines all happening at the same time: hunt for the token of immunity dominates beginning of the game, ID theft shenanigans defines main match and Deathmatch's triple mutual betrayal between "celebrity alliance" and Doohee neatly unites both ID theft and token of immunity stories concluding the game.
Hongchul, Jiwon, Sangmin, Junghyun are first to come in and all of them being TV personalities they create "celebrity alliance" based on that, specifically targeting Jinho-Yohwan-Doohee "smart guys trio" who they heard are already colluding with each other outside of the game.
But before the game starts we have hunt for token of immunity. Sangmin being the sole winner of the last game has a hint exclusively for himself. It lists names of several Korean highways. He finds road atlas in one of the rooms and rips the pages with these highways on them. Then Yohwan approaches Sangmin. Yohwan knows that token is in the safe and has seen it and he probes Sangmin about the nature of his hint and if it just might be the six-digit number opening the safe. Sangmin doesn't deny it despite not knowing it for sure. Yohwan shows Sangmin the safe and receives now-useless hint with highway names in exchange.
Later Sangmin recruits Jiwon to hold the door while he tries combinations of page numbers from ripped road atlas pages on the safe. They make enough noise and commotion in the process so that everyone are onto that something weird is going on that room. Cue Scooby Doo run sound effects when all people who know about the safe hurriedly run and break into the room to see what's going on.
They see clearly agitated Sangmin who tries his best to put things on their previous places. People decide not to give Sangmin any more chances to find the token and refuse to leave. Then Sangmin and Jiwon leave instead and Jinho, Doohee and Co check the safe only to see that it is already open and Sangmin ran away giggling with token of immunity in his pocket! Oh, and while Doohee and Jinho are looking at the open safe in shock and disbelief, Yo-young and Jiwon steal Doohee's ID.
After that exciting warm-up, Monopoly game starts proper.
All players were given IDs with their faces on them and 8 random cards with various resources. There are 8 cards with coal, wood, steel; 7 cards of water, rice, oil, diamond, gold and 5 bomb cards. Players can trade cards between each other to collect as much of one resource as they can with the goal on monopolizing it. Once they have collected all cards of one resource they press "Monopoly" button and win the game. Bombs are special type of resource and one can achieve monopoly faster if they collect all bombs because there are only 5 bombs total.
If monopoly is achieved with regular resource, the player with the most bombs in his hand loses. If one achieves bomb monopoly, loser is determined by diversity of resources you have — if you have most types when the game ends you lose.
Players don't have cards with them and IDs are presented to dealers each time to trade cards or just to look at them.
This becomes somewhat of a problem for Doohee who got his ID stolen during the chaos of token of immunity hunt. He is now completely excluded from the main match and can't do anything except to aimlessly roam the mansion bemoaning his fate.
ID theft perpetrators Yo-young and Jiwon didn't intend to keep Doohee's ID for entirety of the main match. What started as a joke got too far where both thiefs started to fear retaliation from Doohee who was clearly inevitably going to Deathmatch. They ask Sangmin to be intermediator and he brokes a deal with Doohee where he receives token of immunity on condition that he forgives Jiwon and Yo-young and uses token to force Yohwan and Jinho play with each other in the Deathmatch.
As to game itself (Monopoly? remember?), Yo-young who, being TV announcer fits right in among "celebrity alliance", negotiates five bombs monopoly and Sangmin gets the win.
Doohee who was denied of even participation in the main match, loses. According to his deal with Sangmin he was supposed to pick Yoh-wan for his Deathmatch opponent, and then use the token and put Jinho in his place. What he does: picks Yo-young because she was one of ID thiefs (Jiwon was out of his reach given immunity by Sangmin) and tries to put Hongchul in his place.
Celebrity alliance shocked at such betrayal, only Sangmin starts to giggle again because Doohee's token of immunity was fake all along!
Failed to escape the Deathmatch, Doohee faces Yo-young in Blackout game. Celebrity alliance thoroughly backs Yo-young and ends it in one turn through Jiwon who feels terrible about betraying Doohee second time in a row and can't even look him in the eye, covering his face in shame.
Tropes:
- Asshole Victim: Doohee is no saint and is one of the most betrayal-happy contestants himself despite his meek appearance.
- Betrayal Insurance: Doohee offers to exchange IDs with Jinho to create betrayal-proof alliance. He never manages to act on it though, because he gets his ID stolen later.
- Conspicuous Trenchcoat: deep, deep pockets on Sangmin's black robe.. coat... thingy get a lot of use this episode to conceal hints, ripped road atlas pages, IDs and two tokens of immunity.
- Four Is Death: Hongchul has 4 on his garnet indicator and he takes it as a sign he's going to be eliminated today.
- "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: token of immunity which ironically is part of season's metagame and not related to Monopoly game in the main match (which also has nothing to do with Monopoly, the board game).
- Inevitable Mutual Betrayal: Sangmin gives Dohee token of immunity on the promise that Doohee will use it to force desired Yohwan-Jinho Deathmatch duel and thus destroy "smart guys" alliance. Doohee never intends to keep his promise, picks Yo-yoong instead and presents token of immunity to get out. TOO BAD. Sangmin's token of immunity was fake anyway!
- MockGuffin: fake token of immunity that comes with the real one.
- Perp Sweating: Junghyun notices Sangmin suspiciously sweaty face when he comes to safe room to see what's commotion is about.
