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Boys Planet Eps 9-10 Recap: Over Me

Hello, team BP! As you may know, I already wrote a recap/master post for episode 9, and another one for episode 10. This recap focuses just on the stuff that’s relevant to team Over Me -- their rehearsal period in episode 9 as well as their rehearsal footage and performance in episode 10. But you’ll have to get over the read more first.

The Trainees

Here’s a list of the trainees in this group along with their rank as of episode 8 and their two previous missions:

Zhang Hao 2 / Kill This Love/ Tomboy Jay 12/ Love Me Right / Home Ricky 14/ Back Door /Rush Hour Chen Kuan Jui 22 / Kill This Love/ Butterfly Lee Jeong Hyeon 24 / Love Me Right / Gang

The First Rehearsal Segment

At 43:13 in Episode 9, we visit with team Over Me for about 4.5 minutes.

The camera focuses on the Leader sticker on the floor, next to a bit of red fluff that must have come from those red fabric bands the boys are using in their dance. Looks like Yoon Jongwoo just took the sticker off and threw it, or dropped it, on the floor.

Zhang Hao is saying, “It must’ve been really hard to be a leader of 10 people.” Already, there’s a lot to unpack there. They’re talking about Yoon Jongwoo, clearly. But saying it like that sounds like they’re excusing something about him, something negative about him. Right? Like the way that when the poor Supercharger group fell apart at the self-evaluation performance, the trainees said, “Oh, this choreography must be super hard.” You talk like that when you’re excusing something negative.

Remember how I said, when I talked about T h e G r e a t R e s h u f f l i n g that I think they got rid of Jongwoo in part because they were just sick of him, and wanted Hao as the leader instead? I do think that happened. I think Jongwoo got stuck in a sort of negative headspace and people weren’t enjoying it. I think it was easier for Jongwoo to be the comeback kid than to be an actual contender. My take is that he’s climbed so high that now he’s scared to fall, and it’s making him act less friendly and warm than he used to. I could be wrong about all of this, of course.

That said, I think the PRIMARY reason they kicked out Jongwoo is that he was going to steal the show. As a result, the performance just won't be as good as it could have been. I feel sad about that.

But as much of a bummer as it is, given the situation, I can’t blame Hao and the others for doing what they had to do to succeed. They didn’t create the situation; they just reacted to it. And I like Hao! I’ve liked him since the start of the show.

The team nominates Hao to be the leader, and we’ve seen him do well as a leader in the past so it should go ok. After all, as he reminds us, he studied to be a music teacher and is “passionate about teaching others.” Aww, I get it, Hao. He promises to help everyone shine well on stage. Everyone but Keita and Yoon Jungwoo.

After electing Hao the leader, the team immediately also gives Hao the Killing Part. Lee Jungyeon gets to keep sub-vocal 2 that he wrote his own rap for, and as it turns out, he can also sing decently well (he’s a bit pitchy, but he has a nice tone and can probably work on it). We see almost nothing of Chen Kuan Jui this whole time, and he ends up with sub-vocal 4, so I guess Hao is taking sub-vocal 3 as well as the killing part.

And Hao feels certain they’ll win first place. Well, I was pretty sure that whatever 5 random trainees ended up in this song, this would be the winning team, so there’s that.

Again, we see absolutely nothing of them rehearsing. We didn’t see any of them rehearsing in episode 8, either. Is the show purposefully keeping the choreo a surprise until we see them actually doing it?

Second Rehearsal Segment + Performance

Skip to 1:09:56 in episode 10 for the rest of the performance.

So, I probably could have gotten this recap out sooner -- I was all up to date and I got most of all of this written -- but then I kind of stalled out because I just didn’t really want to talk about what happens with Over Me. It’s actually made me genuinely sad. My fella was like, you seem down, are you ok? And I had to be like, “I’m sad about what happened on my silly Korean reality show.” To his credit, he just listened and agreed with me a lot.

What could it be? What could have made BPR-Noona so sad? Let’s back up to the beginning of the rehearsal footage! You’ll find out either soon, or next episode! Let me give you 30 minutes of random filler first!

Oh no wait, I don’t work for MNET. I’ll get to the point fairly quickly.

As the boys take the stage, the judges talk about how this is a sexy song, and how it’s difficult to perform on stage.

We see that some people in the audience are holding up Lee Jong Hyeon signs so that’s good, because right now there are like, 5 or 6 really popular foreign trainees, so we’ll need to pump up any slightly viable Korean candidates to make sure to get them into top 9 to replace them foreigners!.... Sigh.

They all introduce themselves, and the audience goes crazy.

Back stage, Yoon Jong Woo graciously wishes them well. Also Park Hanbin is holding a tiny fan. There’s so much to love about this picture.

But soon we skip back in time….

We skip to a rehearsal with the judges -- they’re dancing in front of Solji and we see Solji look like this:

She asks if they’re going to record like this, because their singing seems half hearted, almost like they’re embarrassed of how sexy the song is. Ricky says they haven’t been practicing the vocals, and we’re left wondering -- what is going wrong with their rehearsals?

Because MNET is incapable of telling a story in order, we now do a flashback inside a flashback, because that’s confusing!

We skip to the day before. The team is working on the “rotations”, which seems to be formation changes. It doesn’t seem to be going very well, and as they’re trying to fix mistakes, Zhang Hao wants to give every single suggestion a chance. It seems to be confusing and frustrating for everyone. In fact, Chen Kuan Jui ends up sitting out the hall, just needing a few minutes to himself to calm down. (Interestingly, CKJ and Zhang Hao speak Korean when they’re alone together; CKJ is from Taiwan, so his language is actually totally different from Zhang Hao’s, but it’s interesting that the language they choose is Korean.)

We see the team at dance rehearsal with one of the psychopath dance teachers. The choreographer of the piece is there, and she’s the woman who did the killing part in the demo -- I pretty much assumed that she was the choreographer, so good job me! They ask the team how Hao is doing as a leader, and they don’t say anything for a moment, so the psycho says, “Ah, I see,” and he’s kind of right.

CKJ interviews that Zhang Hao isn't really doing a good job as a leader because they try every suggestion every time and maybe that’s not so great. Lee Jeong Hyeon says it was inefficient and Ricky says they still don’t know what to do.

Hey maybe you shouldn’t have kicked out Yoon Jongwoo and Keita because things tend to work out better when they’re around

The group rehearses their dance in front of psycho judge and they actually bump into each other and stuff. It’d be comical if the stakes weren’t so high. The psycho dance teacher is like, what the fuck? And for once I’m with him. They have no excuse. The choreographer doesn’t say a word the whole time (that we see). I think she’s kind of… over this. So to speak.

Later on Solji meets with Zhang Hao, apparently at his request. (Can I request to meet with Solji? I just want to chat about like, singing and kpop and I don’t know, life? I like Solji.) He tells her that he’s just having trouble figuring out how to lead the team.

She basically tells him worry less about everyone’s emotions, and to be more firm and more in control.

Next day, Hao goes in early and rearranges the choreo himself. When the team comes in, he teaches the new rotations and they begin working on it. It seems to be working a lot better now.

Later, we see them at the recording studio, which is something we haven’t seen with any other group. Ricky gets praised for his pronunciation (but not his vocals in general, which I think also deserve praise) and Lee Jong Hyeon gets told he sounds really professional in both singing and rap. We don’t see Jay singing, because the show hates him. We barely even see him at all.

Look at him tucked in a corner. Come on, Jay, push for yourself just a little, man!

We skip forward and now it’s D-day.

They come out and the stage is all draped in red fabric.

To continue with your Korean reading skills, 팀 says "team", as in, the English word spelled in Korean letters. The thing that looks like a capital E is a T, the straight line is an i, and the square is an M.

Part of me wishes they’d just gone full tilt and decorated the stage with like, multiple beds. But I guess the gauze draped over pianos (?) was as close to that as they’d dare.

There’s a cute moment backstage when Yoon Jongwoo tells Takuto to cover his eyes, and Takuto, possibly not knowing that they’re joking with him, says “I can watch sexy stuff too.”

The performance begins.

My take:

I’m sorry to be kind of negative in these reviews. I really think all 28 trainees are exhausted emotionally and physically at this point, just living off of adrenaline for three months, and it’s starting to catch up to them. And yeah, this performance wasn’t quite… quite.

Also, stylist noonas fucked over Jay.

I have to mentioning the problem with his styling up top, because I think it’s at least PART of what went wrong in terms of the vote. He’s capable of looking so much better than this -- what happened here? They made his eyebrows too dark, I think? And the choker screws with his proportions in a really bad way. Plus his chest is so light -- he needed to have consistent coloring from his neck down to wherever you could see with the shirt open. I don’t know, this just is all wrong. I’m not a stylist so I don’t know how to fix it but I’d start by taking the choker off for sure.

As for the actual performances...

Did you ever watch the video for Love Talk by WayV? I might catch hell from N-Citizens for this but that doesn’t give me any sparkles in my pants. It’s more like I cringe so hard, I almost fold inward and disappear into subspace -- except when Ten is on screen. Ten’s the only one who seems completely at ease with the overtly sexy message of the song. (If you’re not familiar, Ten is the one on screen from 0:00 to 0:20, among other times.) Everyone else is trying to look sexy or “serious” or… IDK, undressed, whatever. But Ten, I buy. There’s a reason that SM gave him Birthday. Whether he specifically makes your pants sparkle, you have to acknowledge that he owns this concept. Most people simply do not.

It’s really, really difficult to sell sexy without seeming sleazy, or inappropriately aggressive, or even worse, sleepy. I think a lot of trainees think that just staring at the camera dead eyed is sexy but it’s really not. I don’t know WHAT it is, to be honest. I just know that Ten can do it, and Kai can do it, and Joohoney and IM from Monsta X can do it.

On this team, Chen Kuan Jui can do it. CKJ was utterly fearless and completely, 100%, “in” the song. I don’t find CKJ sexually attractive in particular -- who knows why one does or doesn’t find a particular person sexy -- but his fancam is sexy AF. I wish we could see him more, that he wasn’t behind the other trainees. I wish it was basically just a CKJ dance solo. Heck, even my fella picked CKJ out as obviously the best dancer in this group, and when the song was over said, “I kept waiting for that one blonde guy (he meant CKJ) to do a dance solo and he never did.”

Ricky was really good too, of course. I still think he’s occasionally just a tiny bit stiff in his body, but in terms of confidence, comfort level with the song, and facial expressions, he does great. He knows how to smile in a sexy way -- I think that’s super important. And his vocals are also really good. He’s just sort of outclassed by CKJ, for me. Also, if you watch either of their fancams, it really looks like they’re in two different songs, so I wish the group had spent a bit more time figuring out what style of dancing they were going for.

If I was only allowed to vote for one person, though, I would have voted for Jay, because he’s the one who I would least want replaced by some other trainee for this performance. I think Jay’s vocals kind of make the song what it is. His dancing and performance commitment was absolutely up to par for a main vocal -- vocalists are given a bit of leeway in terms of dancing and he doesn’t even really need it, as far as I’m concerned.

Lee Jeonghyeon did ok, I don’t know, I have nothing really good or bad to say. Sorry. He looked handsome. His rap sounded good for a rap, though I think I would have liked the song better without it. (I’m a big fan of letting kpop songs NOT have a rap break in them, sometimes.) All I can think is, the team kept him, and not Yoon Jungwoo? God, Jungwoo would have killed this.

For me the biggest disappointment was Zhang Hao. I don’t know what it is, because I’ve liked him since the beginning, but this performance was just sort of… flat. I think he was too busy leading and he’s too tired and maybe a sexy performance just isn’t in his wheelhouse yet. I both believe and hope he can do better under better conditions, because I know he’s extremely talented, it’s just that for me, he didn’t do as well as I would have hoped.

It’s not as if Lee Jeonghyeon or Zhang Hao did badly; they both did well. They just didn’t shine, to me, or put sparkles in my pants.

Afterwards

The judges are impressed. They have nice things to say about Jay -- kind of? LipJ thinks Jay should have toned it down. They say Lee Jeonghyeon was cool and very handsome and that Zhang Hao pulled off the sexy part well. But we hear nothing about Ricky or CKJ, even though the judges MUST have said something nice about them.

So the boys go back stage to the folding chairs of doom to find out their numerical value, and then the awful thing happens.

Jay came in last with 485 votes.

Everyone is shocked. But Jay just nods. He says he expected it because no one was really cheering for him.

Look how sad and shocked everyone is.

And watching at home, I felt a little sick. What the fuck. What the fuck is wrong here.

A vote that low is punitive, you guys. That’s what they do when they hate you, or when you are Takuto. Jay isn’t Takuto, so they must hate him. Why? What is going on?

You know what? I don’t think I want to know. Jay’s vocals were so good. There was no reason for him to get such a low vote except that maybe people think he’s “ugly” (do they? IDK) or because he’s foreign or there’s some dumb social media drama or whatever. Maybe it’s because he’s too passive and it gives people the cringies? I don’t care. His vocals were great so shut up and press A.

I do think, however, that all this doesn’t necessarily mean Jay is doomed. The audience that goes to see live performances are not necessarily a representative sample of the full Star Creator vote. Plus, I think as the dust settles around this performance, the injustice of Jay receiving such a ridiculously low approval score will become clearer and clearer, and people may switch their vote to Jay. All I know is that I’m going to be voting for Jay from now on, because this is some fucked up bullshit. I’m also going to try to give his fancam some views.

Zhang Hao comes in first with 852 points, which ties Haruto. I don’t exactly agree; I think Ricky or CKJ should have come in first, but I get it, it’s fine. I don’t like, hate Hao or anything. I don’t think this was his finest moment but I actually think that no one has really had their finest moment in this go-round.

Zhang Hao interviews, “It was harder than I thought. The killing part had so many parts, so my mind was all over the place. I was worried if I could take first place. But when I saw the results I felt proud.” Aw, that's good. You worked really hard, Hao.

And that’s the end of this recap, and the end of episode 9-10 analysis. Next up is an elimination episode with metric crap-tons of filler. I’m caught up so I should be able to get a recap to that out pretty fast.

See you all in the next one, and thanks as always for reading!

#boys planet #zhang hao #jay #ricky #ricky boys planet #chen kuan jui #lee jeonghyeon #over me

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