Mini-Recap: Netflix’s “Physical: 100” Season 2, Episode 9 (Finale) + Season Wrap-up

So it is not a surprise that Crossfitter Amotti had an easier time completing the roller race over team leader Jung Ji Hyun. And *spoiler alert fast forward* it’s not a surprise he wins the entire show. But we’ll get to that later.

Back to the beginning of the episode, our final four Physicalers are Hong Beom Seok, Justin Harvey, Andre Jin and Amotti. They rest up by looking back at the season so far.

Master has the audacity to say: “To determine beyond age, beyond gender and beyond race, who has the most perfect physique of all.” Really?! I kind of doubt that considering Master and his people in production had a pretty clear type of physique they wanted to see in the final rounds. Lol Don’t gaslight us Master Eye!

Unfortunately, the show decided to repeat one of the worst aspects of last season and that was having the eliminated Physicalers of the Final 20 provide the annoying color commentary for the Final Quest. Like I said last year, they are absolutely not necessary here. Just focus on the Final Four without the annoying Korean variety show element of having to cut to irrelevant peoples’ reactions every other second. I don’t need to see ten different angles of people gasping with shock.

Fortunately, the show did away with one of the worst parts of last season’s Final Quest. And that was bringing back partners/teams in the Final. That was really dumb last season. And thankfully, they did not bring that back this time around. It was all about the individual Physicalers fighting for the win.

Anyway, the first of three rounds is an endurance comp where they must hold onto their torsos hanging from ropes. The first person to drop their torso is eliminated. And their torso molds are proportional to their own body weight.

Justin Harvey is unable to hold onto his 34kg-heavy torso and is the first to drop it. He is officially eliminated.

This challenge was used last season for the battle back I think it was? I’m too exhausted from watching these two episodes to go to Wikipedia. Lol but anyway, it’s a good task. Maybe not so much for the Final Quest though. Maybe have it in the beginning with more people. Do this challenge instead of the head-to-heads so early. Would be much more exciting.

The second round has the Physicalers doing Infinite Squats. At the sound of the whistle, Physicalers must do a squat as the weight in their containers increase. Once a Physicaler cannot keep pace or cannot withstand the weight, they are eliminated.

Of course, Andre Jin is the one eliminated after the fourth filling of coal, now totaling 250kgs.

This challenge was okay too. But of course, it is catered to a specific type of physique and physical ability. So it’s not hard to guess who will make it right from the start.

That’s why it was no surprise that Hong Beom Seok and Amotti are the Final Two. And for the final round, they will be Pole Pushing. The two of them will hold on to either end of a pole and push against each other. The contestant that knocks over their post will win. And the Physicaler that wins best two out of three wins Physical: 100: Underground.

The two men take their shirts off and the whistle blows. Hong Beom Seok manages to get initial forward progress, but Amotti is able to use a foothold to steady himself. A little over 20 minutes later, Hong Beom Seok is able to overcome an exhausted Amotti to reach his post first.

In the second match, Amotti is able to get the upper hand and wins. Of course pushing it to a decisive third and final round for maximum dramatic effect.

And that final round is a quick one as Amotti quickly takes over and wins the Quest and the Underground. Physical 100: Underground, that is.

I guess of the Final Four, I’m most happy to see Amotti win. He had one of the better personalities during the show. Confident, but not cocky. Skilled, but not invincible. So seeing him win was a pleasant and welcome outcome for this season.

A season which I had high hopes for. I very much enjoyed the first season. Even if I had some nitpicks with it, it was overall a fun, enjoyable and refreshing entry to the reality-competition genre. Especially from Korea.

But what was lost in this season was that refreshing charm and excitement from season one. Maybe it’s because none of us have ever seen a show like this before. From any country. That unpredictability gave the show its biggest draw. But this season seemed to lean into the predictability and expected route at every juncture.

In my Season Wrap-up last year, I pointed out how the show would need to even out the competition more. Not dumb it down or lessen the competitiveness. But find ways to give equal opportunity to everyone, all genders, body types, etc, without giving people too much leeway or handouts or whatever. No need to lower standards. But craft challenges that don’t obviously favor certain qualities over another.

Sadly, that’s exactly what this season did. It was quite obvious who they wanted to see move on to the next round. Especially with the types of challenges they staged. The scale and set design was still top notch. But the competition aspect suffered from questionable rules and lopsided Quests.

The series is supposed to find the peak human form. But it seems they already knew what that human form looked like already.

So what’s next? Physical: 100 Asia? lol okay.

I honestly wouldn’t care if there was a season 3 or not. I mean, I’ll watch the Battle of the Asians next year, sure. But if they didn’t come back for another season, it wouldn’t be a big loss.

They will need to do a complete overhaul of the series. Otherwise, remove the fodder aspect and just have a bunch of the hunkiest men you can find duke it out. Stop with the pretension of making it seem like a woman or a petite man or an overweight man has a chance against guys who would probably have a body profile photoshoot fill their Instagram profiles.

Not to be discriminatory to hot, fit men. But I mean, if that’s what they want to see win in the end. Then why not just cast 100 hot, fit men and watch them battle it out. Instead of casting 80 people to be fodder for eight episodes.