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Running Man: Episode 286

What starts off as a fun trip into the mountain quickly devolves into a case of theft, deception, and worst of all—elimination. Our cast will need to tap into their sleuthing skills to find out who made off with the missing diamonds and why. But the mystery won’t stop there because things will get more dangerous as the night grows deeper. Will they be able to find the culprit or will the case be forever unsolved?

EPISODE 286. Broadcast on February 14, 2016.

January 26, 2016. 10 PM. Our zombie expert—er, detective questions our cast members about the stolen diamonds. Everyone declares themselves innocent in one way or another, but there’s a common denominator in all of their stories: Kwang-soo invited them here.

January 25, 2016. 4 PM. Kwang-soo had won a trip up to a cabin in the mountains, so he’d invited everyone along. What luck for the usually variety bad luck charm, and how suspicious that it had to be used by the next day…

So that’s how everyone ends up on a bus at 2PM the following day, and Jong-kook smiles if this retreat turns out to be a group blind date. They pull up to the cabins in Gapyeong forty minutes later, and what the—is that a dance party?

The place is bumping with young people dancing to music and grilling meat, and Kwang-soo signs off on a form. Hmm, it looks too good to be true. A richly dressed woman joins the crowd: it’s actress Kim Ga-yeon (wife of pro-gamer Lim Yo-hwan), introducing herself as the owner of this cabin retreat.

She tosses her fur coat back and flaunts her diamond necklace. It takes a minute for them to catch on, and she says this teardrop necklace entitled “Tears of the Sun” costs over 20 billion won. Gary: “I’ve seen this at Gyeongdong Market.” Good god, don’t anger the woman.

She has Kwang-soo touch the necklace, and it seems the whole point of this exchange is to tempt all of them to take these precious jewels. With that, Madam Kim returns to her room and carefully places her baby in a safe by 3:26 PM.

Madam Kim rejoins the party, but when the scissors don’t work, she sends Jong-kook to her room—with very specific instructions—to retrieve another pair. Jong-kook is a man on a mission and enters the room at 3:47 PM.

Instead of grabbing the scissors and leaving, he helps himself to a tour of the house and sees the safe. By the time he leaves, it’s 4:00 PM.

Madam Kim sends Haha on another errand for more veggies, even though he says they’ve got plenty already, then Ji-hyo is given a task too. Really it’s just an excuse for everyone to see the safe, but Haha later says it was odd how the host was making her guests do work.

This means they all ran into Guest No. 99 before entering the room. Haha entered at 4:18 PM and Ji-hyo arrived at 4:30 PM. Kwang-soo came in at 4:44 PM and reached for the safe’s handle…

By 6:10 PM, everyone is separated into their private cabins, but the tasks aren’t over: Madam Kim has tasks for Jae-suk (blankets), Suk-jin (wine), and Gary (a remote control). Jae-suk is the only one sent to a different room. Suk-jin tries the safe’s handle, but it’s locked.

Over in his cabin, Haha says it feels like something big is about to go down, and Kwang-soo is feeling antsy.

A little later, Madam Kim comes running and screaming about her missing diamonds. Well that’s what you get when you deliberately flaunt it and invite people into your home. She cries that she found her safe cracked open and her jewels missing five minutes ago.

The police won’t be here for another four hours due to the snowy conditions, so she hopes everyone can help her find them in the meantime. When Jae-suk claims to be a detective, everyone tells him to back off.

Jae-suk and Suk-jin help Madam Kim inspect the crime scene, and Suk-jin makes the rookie mistake of touching the safe with his bare hands. Haven’t you seen any crime shows before?!

At least he admits that he tried opening it out of curiosity, and it seems Madam Kim made a careless error too by setting her passcode to “0000”. Everyone but Jae-suk had been in this room, and Jae-suk believes her to be the culprit. Was she eying the insurance money for these jewels?

Haha and Gary suspect Kwang-soo, since he was the one who invited them here in the first place. Many of the other members suspect him as well, but then Haha thinks of Guest No. 99—what was that guy doing here?

SpartAce and Kwang-soo are busy questioning the many other guests. One cabin claims they saw someone go by, perhaps an employee or the cleaning lady. Told that the cleaning lady has a master key, they talk to her, but she cleaned in the room in the morning and never lost her key all day.

Kwang-soo kills the mood by asking if she’s ever stolen anything before. Haha and Gary still suspect Guest No. 99 since it was odd he’d drink his coffee outside by himself. Turns out, he’s staying in the room next door.

Suk-jin is already there, and both Haha and Gary claim that they didn’t touch the safe. Haha believes that Suk-jin coming half-clean is his way to throw suspicion off of him. The young man can vouch that Jae-suk never entered the madam’s room, but then Haha says he easily could’ve sneaked in through the back.

Suk-jin thinks it’s possible: Jae-suk slips in and out and creates a perfect alibi for himself. While Haha and Gary talk about what these cases always look like in the crime shows, Suk-jin accidentally lets one rip.

A few of them go looking for the security guard, the first person they met once they arrived. The security guard claims he hasn’t left his cabin all day and has no master key. Jae-suk takes a look at the entry log, then the group seeks out the janitor.

Too bad his cabin is locked, and they notice that the janitor hasn’t picked up his morning milk and newspaper. Maybe the janitor wasn’t in all day, but his shoes are still here. Jae-suk peeks inside and sees the man lying on the ground, his nametag ripped off.

Everyone freaks out and Ji-hyo points out an open window. She climbs in and lets everyone else in, careful not to tamper with the crime scene.

Haha shivers at the thought that someone has been eliminated (they treat it as seriously as a homicide), and the guys immediately notice the smell. Jong-kook says the janitor was right-handed and tries to decipher the dying message written in ketchup. He doesn’t know what it means, but thinks it could be important.

Maybe it was Kwang-soo’s name written backwards, and when Kwang-soo’s asked if he saw the writing, he pauses and asks, “What’s a dying message? Is it a movie title?”

Photos are taken, and the cast notices the long hair still attached to the nametag. That means there’s a high chance it was a woman, and Gary thinks Madam Kim may have fabricated the entire thing.

He also thinks the dying message could’ve spelled out Madam Kim’s name, or it could be Ji-hyo. But Suk-jin says ousting a man of the janitor’s size would be difficult for a woman to do on her own… maybe she had an accomplice.

That has Haha thinking it could’ve been both women because diamonds are a girl’s best friend. The group discovers a few albums on the janitor’s bed (LeeSsang, Suk-jin, and Turbo) and the books contain many titles that pertain to Jae-suk, Kwang-soo, or Haha.

Kwang-soo believes that the culprit removed any evidence that would point to them. There was no trace of Ji-hyo in that room… except for the hair stuck to the nametag.

But then the bedroom contains major clues: the walls are adorned with photos of Madam Kim and there are scribbles about the diamond necklace. Among his notes, the janitor wrote that Madam Kim’s room could be accessed with a master key.

If that weren’t creepy enough, today was D-Day. Jong-kook believes that the janitor was attacked sometime during the night since he never picked up his morning newspaper, but then that would rule out the Running Man members…

Suk-jin discovers that the janitor suffered from debt, then lets another one rip. HA, the eliminated janitor moves at the smell. The master key is gone, and Gary believes they need to inspect everyone’s rooms, including his.

All the albums were sophomore albums, so they head to Cabin 2, aka Kwang-soo’s. Haha finds a long hair on the curtain, and Jae-suk finds the master key. Kwang-soo thinks he’s being framed by the real culprit.

The hyungs sit him down, and when Kwang-soo says he doesn’t know where the keys came from, Jong-kook punches him. Kwang-soo: “What the?! You actually punched me!” Jae-suk says he didn’t see it, then steps forward to block the view so Jong-kook can punch Kwang-soo.

The other guys join in too, and Jong-kook keeps punching. Kwang-soo says he wouldn’t hide the master keys in plain sight if he actually did it, but that’s when Jong-kook twists his fingers.

Finally, the hyungs entertain the possibility that Kwang-soo could’ve been framed. Jong-kook is a possibility too, since he was in Madam Kim’s favor. But then Jae-suk points out that Suk-jin has faced some bad investments recently.

Suk-jin goes into the chair, and Jong-kook tries beating an answer out of him. Haha mentions how Suk-jin specifically said he tried the keypad and that this whole farting deal is because of his anxiety.

Haha’s top three suspects are Gary, Kwang-soo, and Jae-suk; however all this talk gets Haha in the hot seat.

8:00 PM. Ji-hyo compares the hair found on the scene with the cleaning lady’s. It’s not a match— the hair found on the nametag is too long. Gary inspects a red car he’s never seen before and finds an old photo with a man and two young children.

8:20 PM. Jae-suk is off to find who planted the master key in Kwang-soo’s room. He later tells the detective that he saw something in the entry log: someone had signed off as “dongsaeng”. This eliminates anyone older than Madam Kim (Suk-jin and Jae-suk).

Ji-hyo is surprised to hear that the master key was found in Kwang-soo’s room, and tells Suk-jin that everything in the janitor’s room points to her, but she didn’t do it. They both think that this thing was self-fabricated by Madam Kim.

And then another scream—another person has been eliminated. This time it’s the cleaning lady, and the time is 9:33 PM. Jae-suk carefully removes her cell phone from her pocket which contains a frightening photo: the cleaning lady wearing the diamond necklace at 8:57 PM today.

Gary dismisses the possibility that the janitor and cleaning lady were in love. He thinks the cleaning lady tried it on, took a selfie, and then attacked. The only person who has been mysteriously missing throughout this investigation is Madam Kim, whose name appears in the call log for 9:03 PM.

Stranger still is that there’s an incoming message from Madam Kim on Kwang-soo’s phone, listed at 9:07 PM.

Jae-suk heads over to meet with Madam Kim, and gets a strange whiff… of ramyun. Hahaha. He confronts her about the call with the cleaning lady, and Madam Kim swipes the phone back and acknowledges the call was made.

They were talking about the overtime work the cleaning lady would need to put in, but then Madam Kim gasps to hear that she was wearing the necklace. At the question about having a dongsaeng, Madam Kim says she’s an only child. How about a close acquaintance then?

She says someone could’ve used the connection to get a discount here, but that still doesn’t explain why she called Kwang-soo.

He isn’t the only one who suspects the madam of foul play—Suk-jin discovers an insurance policy stating how much she’d collect if the necklace was lost: 10 billion won. Madam Kim says she had no idea her father set this up for her, but Ji-hyo still suspects that either the madam made everything up or her father sent someone—one of them—to steal the necklace.

Kwang-soo takes another look at his invitation and realizes that it was mailed out of Mapo-gu, not here in Gapyeong. At the same time, Jae-suk searches the janitor’s body for his cell phone, and Gary discovers something in someone’s wallet.

Finally the police arrived, led by violent crimes Detective Yeom, who coolly says he switched careers. Heh. Then he tells the others that he’s really the youngest of triplets. HA.

Detective Yeom meets with each member 1:1 and asks them all the same question: Who do they think is the culprit? Haha names Jae-suk and Kwang-soo, because they were the only two missing when someone screamed about the cleaning lady’s elimination.

Ji-hyo also believes it’s Jae-suk and Kwang-soo because those two always operated alone. She explains the strangeness of the untouched morning paper and milk along with the various clues found in the janitor’s cabin to bolster her claim.

Ji-hyo says she came across the insurance policy too, but doesn’t know whether or not to believe Madam Kim’s claim that she’d never seen it before. Suk-jin says the janitor had a premeditated plan to steal the necklace, and he thinks it’s Madam Kim.

Jong-kook thinks the same as Suk-jin, and Kwang-soo believes it’s Haha, not only because of the missing CD, but because Haha lives in Mapo-gu. Ha, Gary gets so caught up in the moment that he initially gives his legal name before switching to his stage name.

Gary thinks it might be Madam Kim and her sibling, the other child in the family photo in the car. He pauses when asked if he has any other ideas, and Detective Yeom tells him to think faster.

Jae-suk believes the culprit is Haha, because the “dongsaeng” in the entry log has to be someone Madam Kim knows. He also thinks the janitor was trying to write out “kiddo” in his dying message.

A little later, Detective Yeom says they were successfully able to nab the culprit and have recovered the necklace. The culprit? Madam Kim and Haha.

Everyone has Jae-suk and Gary to thank for this. Turns out Gary had named Haha as Madam Kim’s sibling; there was a family photo in Haha’s wallet—the same one found in the red car. He believes the two to be long-lost siblings and they were both after the insurance money.

In addition to the other clues, Jae-suk had shown the detective the contract made between Madam Kim, the dongsaeng, and the janitor. The janitor was supposed to get five billion won out of the deal, but he was ousted before that came true.

As it turns out, Haha and Madam Kim are half-siblings (yeah, we’ll just roll with it), and Madam Kim was enraged that their father wouldn’t leave a penny in their name. So she stole the necklace, and they decided to frame Kwang-soo and send him a fake invitation.

Unfortunately, the janitor overheard their conversation about the insurance fraud, and demanded money in exchange for his silence. The siblings paid a visit to the janitor on the 25th, and ripped off his nametag.

His dying message was the smiley-eyes emoticon Haha had used to sign the contract with. Madam Kim had planted the master keys in Kwang-soo’s room and ripped off the cleaning lady’s nametag.

Madam Kim had snuck into Kwang-soo’s cabin the previous night, and Haha had swiped the diamond necklace earlier that afternoon. He’d hidden it in the storage, and the cleaning lady came across it by coincidence.

So Madam Kim had gone ahead to eliminate her, and her hair and bobby pins were found at the crime scenes. Furthermore, only the book about Haha was placed upside down, and Haha’s music was missing from the CDs.

Although Jae-suk provided integral information, it’s Gary who was closer to the truth. Ahahaha, Jae-suk had thought that Haha and Madam Kim might’ve been lovers. Detective Yeom: “And I thought you were a pure-hearted man…”

Gary says his drama-watching addiction really helped him out this time (he loves My Daughter Geum Sa-wol). Jae-suk asks if Madam Kim can still hold her upcoming wedding in May (Kim Ga-yeon and her husband registered their marriage in 2011).

Because Gary figured out the big mystery today, he’ll be going on a Sherlock Tour… meaning he’ll be traveling to London with Haha. Looks like the squid and octopus will be touring 221B Baker Street together. Have fun, you two!

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FIRST!

HAHAHA Suk Jin's fart was hilarious! OVerall, it was a nice blend of mystery and the crimes scene set ups were good, too. I really didn't expect who the culprit really was!

And might I say, Kwang Soo was looking fine and dandy as well <3

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^crime

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I... just... can't seem to enjoy themed episode that much. I feel like skipping some parts while watching. Last episode was better for me.

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Yikes. At the 20 minute mark I looked at the clock, hoping the show was almost done. This dragged on forever.

I do like the themed episodes, but this was far too heavily scripted. Watching everyone go into the cabin took 10 mins, and obviously wasn't going to show any hints. It felt less like variety and more like a weirdly paced play.

I can't even put my finger on what went wrong here. It felt like everyone was just going through the motions. No real suspense, and everyone just playing the most basic version of their "role".

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Okay, I think I've figured out what irked me: everyone felt oddly restricted for the entire show.

I feel like the writers set up a kind of cool scenario, but didn't go all in. Part of the fun of previous large-scale shows was that the crowd-fillers were part distraction, like during games of catch-the-guest when they had weird group tasks or actively messed with the members a bit. But here they were just passive extras, like robots with a certain line to say if you switched them on, meaning the members just had to find the right extra to ask.There was also no sense of building tension until the halfway mark when dead bodies started showing up, and even then we knew there were maybe three candidates to die because there was such a divide between extra and actor. It was also kind of disappointing that all the extras had nametags but the tags had no apparent function.

And worse, I feel like the cast sensed that this entire thing might break if they investigated too much and so deliberately tried to hold back in case they blew a hole in the plot. And that led to some weird scenes where they tried to be entertaining just between the members, filling time. It doesn't help that it also looks like it was bone-chillingly cold, which probably made absolutely everyone focused on not freezing to death rather than the clue hunt.

It's a bunch of little things that fell flat in each group that added up to a show that just felt bland. The writers didn't reach far enough, leading to the cast instinctively hemming themselves in, and the director mistakenly thinking 15 minutes of setup made sense to sit through. It happens, it's just a shame it happened during what is usually one of the more entertaining RM concepts.

Try again, just next time involve more Agatha Christie themes than Sherlock.

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I agree, I was bored 80% of the episode. I think my main peeve is the intro that just went on and on and ooooooon! I had high hopes for the mystery once it kicked in, but it just fell flat somehow.

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I stopped watching after 15 minutes, some of the members had the WTF look as well, hahahaha. Jae Suk i have noticed doesn't get that excited anymore, aigooo, and he is the PD's pet. Doesn't bode well if God Yoo is also losing hope. Well, bravo to those who liked this, but I want to watch variety not badly scripted drama with bad actors (most of the members are bad at acting).

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Actually, this episode reminds me a lot of Crime Scene. Especially when the simple robbery case suddenly turn to murder (tag out?) with lots of makjang elements. Still, it was quite interesting and felt different from the usual game. And also thumbs up for Gary for guessing the messy relationship right.

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it's not as funny but still engaging.
did gary actually asked if the prize was a punishment instead? lol

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This is the first Running Man (out of every episode) that I quit watching and have no desire to finish. I think I've always disliked the "over scripted" ones.
Sorry. I like this show, in general. I just didn't care for this week's at all.

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I like detective story, so for me, this episode is quite interesting.. but the pace is bit too slow, so it lil bit boring

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Not laugh-out-loud funny but entertaining nonetheless. You'd have to go withe premise from the start though or else you'll be fastforwarding a lot. I give props to the cast for playing along and taking it seriously. It was pretty suspicious that Haha was full of theories from the start. I was thinking Haha would be the one to solve this "crime" because he's so street smart. But I'm glad that Gary solved it because his prize would be going to London...with Haha. I'm not sure if his issues with Haha are just for show, but I do think there's truth in their bickering so I hope they work it out and be close again like Sherlock and Watson. *envies the trip*

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I'm thinking Haha and Gary's line is to add another dynamic to the show since many of the relationships are overplayed. It also took me by surprise when it started becoming a thing, since they were mostly on good terms in the past on the show. I don't think they're bitter in real life though, or else they won't agree to the new line at all. I'm also looking forward to their trip and can't wait what little trinkets the producers are going to bring back this time!

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A below-average episode, as I had to skip the parts in the beginning and middle, but still a nice episode, better than some episodes I shut down my CPU halfway..

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Not the best episode in Running Man history honestly. It sucks even more since it followed last week's highly entertaining one. Hoping next week's will be better.

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Not one of my favorite episodes but after over 5 years I still appreciate that the cast and crew are willing to try something new and different. I am glad they just don't churn out the same types of episode every week.

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I honestly can't understand why people keep complaining about this episode. Small comedic moments and lots of mystery. Felt like the Sherlock Holmes episode, tbh.

For the people who keep saying that RM is boring lately... I feel like you haven't watched all the episodes??? 'Cause like, there are 286 episodes. Within these episodes, there have been some boring ones near the beginning, some boring ones in the middle, and some boring ones from the most recent. After watching this show for FIVE YEARS, it feels exactly the same as it always does. Even during the more boring eps, I still find the content humorous, and I still enjoy the episodes and the creative writing. If you really don't like RM lately, then stop watching it. It's really simple.

In the 200's, RM has been able to be more creative with storylines and centric themes. Plus, we've been getting a LOT of non-guest episodes lately. As an RM fan, I'm pleased, and I always will be.

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I really liked this episode as well. It feels very much like the mystery themed Sherlock episode. I'm surprised at the amount of hate for this episode whereas the sherlock one got so much love.

There have been very interesting ideas introduced to rm lately (the monopoly of house, touching unknowns in boxes which were new and hilarious) and then they also revisited some old ideas like the punishment balls, intern themed etc. I would say there have been some good episodes lately including this one.

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I feel so cheated watching this over hyped episode. I have decided to not look at the RM IG ever again. Usuless promotion, and the actual episode was so lame. Stop copying PD, and worse still copying badly. Crime Scene PD would feel insulted with this. I even felt that members, especially Jae Suk had a what the *%%% look for the first 20 minutes. It took me 6 hours to finish this episode. Poor members and staff who had to endure the cold for the lowest rating episode (yet) - I am sure RM is going to hit a 4 soon with this PD. They always over promote wrong things and then show us boring stuff. Now I will think twice before watching anymore episodes. Sad but just can't endure it anymore, have been cheated too many times!

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I thought it was an entertaining episode. Not one of my favorites and probably wouldn't rewatch but I still enjoyed it.

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I was expecting more from this episode. The result was disappointing. I guess I was hoping for something like Crime Scene, but better. Since I always wished the RM cast could guest on an episode of Crime Scene, I thought this episode would be an exciting one as they would be playing detectives and have the freedom of name tag ripping + offsite locations to work with. Unfortunately it seems the crime and and script preparation wasn't as well written as what we would find in a normal episode Crime Scene. What a waste of a good theme.

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Probably my least fav episode. I watch RM with my family and this is pretty much the first time we actually complained when is this gonna end.

The funniest thing probably when Gary have won and he asked whether he should be happy or not winning the prize holiday in London with Haha.

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There was just too much of nothing going on (trying to force some "suspense") - one of the few times couldn't finish the ep.

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I fell asleep when I first watched it. I think it's because the heavily scripted thing. Also the repetitive flashbacks. Sorry.

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what phone does they use ??

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Hm... didn't expect this much hate for it. TBH I was a bit bored throughout and I think it was obvious *spoiler* about one of the culprits *endspoiler* but the other surprise was still pretty sweet. I do think there was less of a cast dynamic and it didn't feel like a Running Man episode so much as a total Crime Scene rip off.. which I don't think is cool because Running Man is SBS and Crime Scene is JTBC so I doubt the proper rights or permissions were exchanged... but what's just sadder is that it obviously wasn't as good as Crime Scene. Still, I was able to finish the episode and was proud of Gary for doing a good job. Shrug. Not the worst, not the best.

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I was right guessing who the culprits were. Yay! RM members using their body to not show what’s going on during the interrogation was hilarious!

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