The second episode of Mnet’s Queendom began with a short recap of episode 1 including highlights from MAMAMOO’s and Park Bom’s opening performances.
OH MY GIRL were the first group in this episode to perform. They were worried about getting recognition from the audience since they were not as well-known to the public as some of the other competitors.There was more concern about being recognized by their seniors and with that in mind they set a goal that by the end of the Queendom series they will gain the recognition that they feel they are lacking.
After much discussion they decided to go with “Secret Garden” as their first song as it is the one that got them their first music show win.
For the opening of the song they decided to do a bit of rhythmic gymnastics by incorporating a ribbon into their choreography. They lived up to their girly concept with a sugary sweet, fairy tale-like rendition. The other competitors in the back were getting all sorts of joyful feels watching them on stage.
There were comments calling them “beautiful”, “pretty” and “ethereal” which seemed to indicate they did a good job out there. At least according to their fellow artists.
(G)I-DLE followed with a remixed version of their song debut song “LATATA”. The sorcerer theme of the whole performance was developed by Soyeon and she was eager to show it to everyone. The main points to look out for in their performance were the black outfits, the enchanting spell at the beginning of the song (spoken in Thai by Minnie) and new choreography.
Their intro to “LATATA” certainly had people’s attention right away and they delivered on the dark vibe making the song sound completely different from the original version. It was a cool performance that showed their ambition to take top spot in the competition. They earned positive feedback from the audience and the other competitors.
Lovelyz had the unenviable job of following up (G)I-DLE. For their stage they decided to go with their signature song “Ah-Choo”. Rather than going with the original arrangement they spiced up the song by adding a complex dance break.
Having watched everyone before them their confidence was not high. When they hit the stage the other competitors were wondering what theme they were going for. Was it sexy? Hip? Or was it charismatic?
It seemed to be a combination of all three as Lovelyz did their best to play against the type of concepts associated with them. It was an energetic performance that ended in a shower of pink flower petals that left them somewhat satisfied but mostly full of regrets after.
AOA were the final act of the night. Their main concern was that they would not look as powerful as a group of five. With their long hiatus it took them some time to come up back up to speed with their own songs and their initial decision making process for what song to perform ended up being a bit of a cluster fuck.
They eventually ended going with “Miniskirt” since the choreography came back to them easily. Well not all of them. Hyejeong had some difficulty getting back in to the groove.
In their pre-performance interview the members of AOA said they had fun practising and getting back to basics. For them rank did not matter as long as they earn something from the process of being part of the show.
The competitors in the back and the audience were anticipating AOA’s return to the stage and they were not disappointed. The five member version of “Miniskirt” had a lot of heat. Parts of the choreography had members of OH MY GIRL and (G)I-DLE freaking out over the raw sexiness of the dancing.
When their performance ended the other teams gave AOA props for making a successful comeback.
The MC’s hit the stage once more to ask the audience to vote for who they thought was best of the night. The tension rose as the artists waited to see who the audience would vote for. Despite repeatedly saying rank did not matter Jimin seemed pretty excited to see someone press 6 for AOA.
With the audience vote over MC Sung Kyu visited each artist to give them instruction on how the self-evaluation portion works. MC Da Hee explained in a video that each team will decide on an artist who did better and worse than them and text their responses to the MC’s.
The scene switched to the studio where the 6 artists gathered to hear the results of the voting. First to be announced were the results of the special evaluators worth 2000 points. Given that the votes were coming from idol trainees the artists were particularly interested to get these valuable points.
MAMAMOO and (G)I-DLE ended up placing in the top 2 in the special evaluator voting with a difference of only 3 votes between them. (G)I-DLE ended up taking the 2000 points.
Self-evaluation followed which caused the tension to rise in the room. From what was shown AOA ended up receiving the most up votes while OH MY GIRL received the most down votes. Given their nice but unexciting performance it made sense that the other artists felt they lacked something to make them stand out among the pack.
The emotional toll of getting down voted caused Hyojung to break out in tears facing the prospect of her group placing last.
Lastly the final rankings were revealed. The artist in first earns the right to choose the performance order for the next round. After a lot of dramatic stalling the winner ending up being (G)I-DLE. MAMAMOO were runner up and OH MY GIRL were surprisingly in third. This result caused Hyojung to burst out into tears of joy. So much that her fellow group members had to cover her face from the camera as she started bawling uncontrollably.
AOA ended up in 4th, Park Bom in 5th and Lovelyz in 6th place. Lovelyz appeared to be stoic but Mijoo could not hold back the disappointment on her face. Park Bom was also visibly upset commenting that her ranking in this program was a wake up call and that she was determined to take first in the next round.
With the first round behind them the theme for the second was announced. The mission for round 2 is to engage in a cover song battle. All the artists received the opportunity to choose another’s they want to cover. (G)I-DLE was given first dibs and they chose Park Bom saying it would be an honour for her to do one of their songs. Second place MAMAMOO decided on covering AOA.
This immediately had Jimin concerned as AOA are not very good at the audience participation that MAMAMOO has in their performances. When asked why they chose AOA, MAMAMOO said they already had a song from their catalog to cover in mind. That left OH MY GIRL and Lovelyz to pair up. Given that both groups are almost the same thematically there were some worries that this would not end up well for either of them.
The episode ended with a teaser of (G)I-DLE deciding the performance order for the next round.
