In one of the few more unpredictable moments of the series so far, it comes down to who has the tighter grip on the bars. And it is Sung Bin of Team Jae Yoon who, even with a sprained ankle which he sustained from falling from the monkey bars, reaches the other end first. Thus eliminating Team Kim Dong Hyun.
The Final 20 Physicalers enjoy a protein feast before heading to the Hall of Bodies. The Master announces that Quest 4 is an intra-team competition with only one person from each team advancing to the Final Quest. Now, the alpha males are regretting choosing each other for a team.
Quest 4 involves the Physicalers dragging two rollers one by one in a race across the arena. The last person in each round will be eliminated, leaving only the last man (or woman, but we all know that’s not going to happen, sadly. Lol) to move on to Final Quest.
Team Hong Beom Seok goes first. Of course the only female, Park Ha Yan, is the first eliminated from the team. The other men, seeing how far behind she was, even slow themselves down and not exert as much effort to save their energy for later rounds.
Eliminated after her are cramped up Seol Yeong Ho, self-described “weak” Kang Cheong Myeong and of course Gibson, allowing Hong Beom Seok to reach the finals.
Team Lee Jae Yoon goes next with the elimination order starting (of course) with the only woman, Lee Hyun Jeong followed by Jo Sung Bin, tripped up Lee Jae Yoon and Justin Harvey easily defeating Joo Min Kyung.
Team Andre Jin is up with only four Physicalers competing after Chan Yong Heung has chosen to drop out of the competition in order to focus being captain of the national rugby team at the Asian Games.
Swimmer and excellent Physical: 100 personality Jung You In is of course the first one eliminated. Some of the Physicalers comment that the real competition starts now that the only female of the team has been eliminated and only men are left. 🙄
Power Who Yami and coast guard officer Park Woo Jin are eliminated next, leaving Andre Jin to punch his ticket into the finals.
Finally, Team Jung Ji Hyun, the supposed best of the best, are next to go head-to-head. This one is a bit closer than the other three races. But big bodied Kim Min Su is the first out because his leg supposedly cramps up.
The next one eliminated is Lee Jang Kun followed by Kim Jee Hyuk.
Of course the episode cliffhanger is between Amotti and team leader Jung Ji Hyun. And to be fair, this is one of the more unpredictable cliffhangers of the season. But at the same time, I think it is quite obvious who has the upper hand here between the Crossfitter Amotti and Jung Ji Hyun.
Overall, this was a tedious 90 minutes. Obviously the show was not going to go with a team competition to decide who makes it to the finals. In fact, having only one Physicaler from each team go through is one of the few good decisions the show has made this season. Especially since it helps to counter the cockier, prejudiced attitudes of some of the Physicalers when it came to choosing teams.
There is great satisfaction in seeing the overconfident, supposedly unbeatable men have to take each other on with only one moving on to the final. Rather than have their hand-picked comrades dominate and force their way in instead.
The challenge itself was fine I guess. Of course it will always disadvantage certain body types, not just by gender. But there’s definitely a way to balance the challenge out to favor overall physical strength while still leaving opportunity for other strengths to power someone to a win. Like, it is absolutely possible to go into this challenge and not expect the woman to be out first or the biggest bodied, less endurance-focused man to be eliminated easily. But the show only seems interested in a certain physical and body type. Which has been obvious from the very beginning of this season.
Having to sit through 15 repetitions of this challenge though was not the best use of 90 minutes. But what can we do.
On to the finale.