Produce 101 Season 2 Episode Breakdown: Episode 3

Part 1: Haru (0:00:00-0:30:00)

The episode starts. It’s a tearjerker, the trainees are showed training alone. Sweating. Welp, sad stuff over. Moves onto the re-evaluations again, and the trainees moving from class to class. Pledis’ Choi Minki goes from D to F, as well as Cube’s Lai Guan Lin. Bae Jinyoung goes from C to F. Yuehua’s Justin, Euiwoong and Jung Jung move down to D, where Hyeongseop is, Hyeongseop shook at how all 5 of the Yuehua boys are now in D. Then it’s Pledis’ Minhyun, which has fellow NU’EST boy Jonghyun raise his eyebrows.

Now it’s time for the B converts. Takada Kenta walks in from C to B and gets applause. Wink boy Jihoon enters, coming from C to B, with mis-matching shoe laces.. This fashion terrorist. Next is Pledis’ Jonghyun, who didn’t stay with Minhyun for long, coming from D to B.  Now it’s the new A class boys. Woo Jinyoung is first to come in, from C to A. Suddenly.. Someone from D.. is speeding his way up the stairs into A room, and eventually falls in, it’s Ahn Hyeongseop! His reevaluation video is played. The judges are shocked, he served visuals and dance skills, and improved on his vocals. Next is someone from F to A, it’s Taedong! Now the maknae, Woojin, enters, from B to A. Woojin’s guardian in the show, Daniel, shortly after follows him into the A room. They both look and smile at each other. All of the initial A level trainees are still in A.

Now it’s time for the battle of the centres! They all had time to go practise what they’d present to the other trainees a long to the music of Pick Me.  Whether it be a self made rap, new choreography, etc. Brand New Music Woojin is the first to present his piece, showing his popping dancing skills, and rapping. Fellow Brand New Music label mate Youngmin is next, with a self made rap. Many others presented their raps to the Pick Me beat.

Part 2: Mogwai (0:30:00 – 1:15:00)

Right, so far, so out of the center contenders, three of them appear to impress the others the most: Woojin and Samuel’s freestyling and, for some reason, Daehwi’s cover of Pick Me 1.0. We all know who winds up as center (Daehwi), garnering majority of the trainee votes.

With that said and done, the boys begin practising for their first Nayana stage. We’re shown a glimpse of the A-ranked boys performing at M Countdown. Meanwhile, MNet Prince Moonbok gets screentime for his hair alone. It’s really quite impressive.

Nothing really interesting actually happens at this point honestly. You can probably fast-forward until the announcement of the group battle at around the 0:48 mark, where Daehwi gets to pick his team first. He chooses everyone who generated buzz when the first P101 Season 2 articles first came out. And they all have to race to get to the songs they want. Winning team gets a benefit of 3000 points, three times greater than the first season — that’s critical because the next episode is elimination round.

The trainees then separate into their respective teams, and this is when even the quieter boys finally start showing some hint of teeth. Because they all want to be center! For obvious reasons.

Call Me Baby Team 2 is a battle between Dongbin and Minho. Call Me Baby Team 1 are all thirsty for a piece of Moonbok’s popularity “because Moonbok hyung will let us walk on a Check road.” But they quickly realise that Moonbok is also their weakness. Sorry Sorry Team 1 assigns Ha Minho as their leader, while Sorry Sorry Team 2 picks Kim Jonghyun as their leader and Ong Seong Woo as center. 10 out of 10 Team 1 picks Jaechan to represent them in the center. But more interestingly, 10 out of 10 Team 2 picks Park Woojin as their leader, and there’s a Power Struggle™ between Woojin and Taehyun. Meanwhile, Be Mine Team 2 leader Yoojin feels bad because he didn’t get the song his team wanted. Over at Be Mine Team 1, Hwiseung volunteers to be their main vocalist.

Part 3: Haru (1:15:00 – 1:30:00)

FNC’s Hwiseung is singing them high notes like he trying to save a life. Everyone is looking over at him in awe of such talent. The two Manse teams are shown. Team 1 is going through smoothly.. But team 2.. Yikes. 1 D member, the rest are Fs..

It cuts over to the Boy in Luv teams, with team 2 making comments about how team 1 (Daehwi, Jihoon, Sungwoon, Samuel, Jinyoung, Euiwoong, Haknyeon) are all well known but don’t have much talent to back the team up properly. Team 1 chooses their centre, Jihoon, after discussion about who wants it.

The scenes then go through the practise of the other teams.

Part 4: Sapphic (1:30:00 – 2:00:00)

In the practice room, Jaechan is reprimanded by the choreographer because of this mistakes. Honestly, it’s not the mistakes he’s making that make it a sticky situation but the fact that he’s not even trying to enjoy himself. There’s no passion or happiness within his performance. As for the teams? Team 2 had problems with the balancing what being a member or a leader is. There were 2 leaders, and therefore the real leader didn’t get to fulfill his role. Team 1 lacked leadership which lead to Jaechan’s problems.

Onto the “live” performance of 2PM’s “10 Out of 10”, Team 1 did well in that they had a funny/cute concept to go with and pulled off the gimmicks of that, but Team 2 destroyed them with the vocals and dance. The martial arts performed in the song gave more dimension and impact, so it’s unsurprising they won. One of my faves, Ahn Hyungseob, managed to land Team 2 163 points on his, proving that charisma and hardwork can get you far. Otherwise, in all other categories of scores, Team 1 had beat those with the same position.

Team 1 for “Call Me Baby” had problems with the centre of the group. Hyunwoo was thought to be too fierce with the performance while Donghan was sexy enough for it. Honestly, “Call Me Baby” is all about the sexy, teen heartthrob concept and not so much about being aggressive. Kahi’s right to have pushed for Donghan in that respect.

Their performance actually made me enjoy Moonbok a little more. His rapping his a bit awkward still but he pulls off this concept surprisingly well, especially with his hair (though I do wish they would find a way to make it look less greasy, á la what they’ve done with Sohye) and therefore has won points from me for that. Hyunwoo’s rapping did show him up a little bit though, since he can do it with the right amount of enunciation. Overall, the team was pretty strong on stage and Team 2 looked a little nervous.

And they should’ve been. I can’t name specific people because the team as a whole lacked a lot. Especially the main vocalist, Jinwoo, who was flat and all over the place. Minho did fairly well though, since his looks and deep voice pull him through the dredges of an otherwise mediocre performance. I was honestly surprised they manage to lose by only 17 points, and that their main vocalist managed to get 46 more points.

Team 1 managed to only win by two of their members: Yoon Hwiseuk, and Jang Moonbok. Which is quite telling, and surprising too.

Up next episode are the covers of BTS! I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with a fairly unique group’s (in terms of charisma and success) song. Check back in for our coverage of episode 4 next weekend!