In the last episode, the Combination Mission ended, and the benefit winners were announced. So it’s now time to shatter the dreams of more young women with the second elimination. But before that, let’s get to the start of the third mission called the Creation Mission.
For this round of competition, the viewers at home listened to original songs composed for this contest and paired up who they believed best fit each track.
Yeo Jin Goo arrives in his flashy print outfit to give the girls the details on a mission they may or may not be able to carry out. For this mission, there is no group ratio, and new teams will be formed.
The girls get a short video with previews of the songs they might be performing, along with comments from the composers/songwriters and examples of the choreography. There are a variety of styles that fit each remaining competitor ranging from innocent and cute concepts up to the girl crush level concept.
Once the video concludes, the girls are informed that three songs (Snake, U+Me=Love and Shoot! will have seven members. The remaining song (Utopia) will have six members.
The initial teams for the seven-member songs will be 14 members and 12 for the six-member song. However, the final roster for each performance will not be decided until the second elimination is over. Of course, the essential part of this conversation is the benefit. This time the winners will receive two times the number of votes for 24 hours before voting closes.
One by one, the girls are called to go into separate rooms. For some, it’s obvious what song they are getting based on who is in the room. For others, it was up in the air since the people they were grouped with did not fit what they expected to perform.
For the most part, the viewers (or the show producers) were incredibly predictable with their choices putting the clear favourites for each song together while adding in some question mark outliers for fun.
Given that this part of the show is pre-elimination, the girls are instructed to break off into separate teams and pick two members to do the killing part.
For the U+ME=LOVE team, that ended up being Doah and Jiwon. Both being familiar with doing the same killing part in the Yes or Yes performance. Both fit the role well according to the masters, so it looked like this group was in good hands no matter who would end up going home.
The group tasked with performing Snake ran into a roadblock right from the start, with Doyeon and Cai Bing vying for leadership. That brought out the fear of God in those who worked with Cai Bing on the Salute team. Having experienced her “leadership” in the past, they were wary of going down the same rocky road again.
When it came down to a vote, it was split. The ones who lived through the atrocity of Cai Bing’s last reign as leader spoke up to swing the vote in Dayeon’s favour after she withdrew her candidacy for the sake of efficiency.
It was suggested that the two talk it out, and what they decided was to do a trial run. Both Dayeon and Cai Bing would take turns leading, and afterwards, the group would make a final vote after understanding how each candidate manages the team.
As expected, it was a disaster with Cai Bing in the lead. The group she was leading was making very little progress. There was no planning and many on-the-spot decisions were made that didn’t gel with the others.
Dayeon’s team, on the other hand, benefitted from her taking the input from her group members and making informed decisions after. As a result, her side of the room progressed at a much faster pace and looked like they were enjoying themselves because of that.
Cai Bing admitted she was a bit hurt that no one wanted to follow her lead but swallowed her pride for the team’s good and nominated Dayeon to be the leader. Unlike Cai Bing, this probably won’t bite her in the ass in the end. But the eliminations have yet to come, so time will tell once the herd is thinned out a little.
Team Shoot also had problems. Or it’s better to say that Yujin had issues since she was in a room with younger and lower-ranked girls.
Since the entire team could be wiped out post-elimination, there was not much motivation in the room. Moreover, none of the girls wanted to step up to be the leader or main vocal, leaving Yujin as the default to take on both roles.
Having never been the main vocal before, Yujin was concerned about whether she could do it. However, she did get a bit of confidence from the masters, and she was determined to do her best.
Team Utopia’s room was full of the strongest vocalists in the show, so there was some fierce competition for the main vocal. Yeyoung tried hard for the part but faltered due to her nerves. So instead, the main vocal roles went to Bora and Reina.
She regretted not having the opportunity to prove herself, knowing that she was on the chopping block.
