An Outlet - Part 9

15 July, 2021.

THE BOYZ are part of an online communication platform called Universe and this App/Company seems to be doing it right!!

First of all, they managed to get some big names to their roster (IZ*ONE, TBZ, MonstaX, (G)IDLE, ASTRO, ATEEZ, Kang Daniel to name a few) and they've been coming up with really interesting content for all of them.

IZ*ONE was the first group to get its own variety show and even released a Music Video called "D D Dance" early this year. (Also, IZ*ONE content is over but Eunbi individuallly joined Universe today so that means she's definitely going solo!)

And after I got into TBZ, I somehow found out and watched 2 of their Universe variety shows too. This month, we got 2 more exciting TBZ contents and they're even better than the previous ones.

First of all, TBZ released their digital song and MV for "Drink It" on 11th Jul. This wasn't an official comeback but it was the first time TBZ released (Korean) music after I started stanning them so I was really excited for it. The trailers were super cool, they gave off a cinematic vibe. I really loved the instrumentals in the teasers and was super happy when I heard more of it in the actual song.

I really really liked the song as well as the video. It leaned more towards the rock/band side. Haknyeon was one of the members who got the spotlight in this song and his voice and visuals definitely suited this concept. Speaking of the concept, it was unbashedly a vampire one and TBZ deliveredddd!

The other content that they've come out with is an ongoing variety show which is also based on the theme of vampires and wolves (which is most probably what gave rise to their MV concept). The previous 2 variety shows were common to all artists on the platform but this one is exclusive to TBZ members. And I'm finding it waaay too interesting!

It's called "The Blood : Death Match" and in this show, they are all initially shown as Vampires living in their own planet. The planet is said to be in danger of wolf infiltration and they're supposed to stop the wolves before each one of them turns from vampires to wolves.

Via a footwear throwing challenge, the following teams were decided

1] Haknyeon's Team - Sangyeon, Juyeon, Eric

2] Jacob's Team - Younghoon and Kevin

3] Hyunjae's Team - New, Q and Sunwoo

The filming of this show takes place in a big elevated forest-mountain like region. At three different locations in this region, they're supposed to be performing some group tasks to collect items that can help them fend off the wolves.

One of the 11 members has already been secretly informed that he is a King Wolf and his mission is to discreetly mark a wolf stamp on the other members and recruit them in the Wolf Team.

While Haknyeon and Jacob's team were sincerely putting in efforts to perform the tasks and gaining items, Hyunjae's Team was a hilarious mess. First of all, this team has 4/5 of my bias group members so I was anyways hoping to see more of them but this combination turned out to be even more interesting!

In the beginning, Hyunjae started acting really weird and the other members suspected him of being a wolf. They were quite wary of him for at least 2 full episodes. Among the hilarious interactions they had, at the end of one of the episodes we saw all of them run behind Hyunjae shouting "He's the wolf!!". As a viewer I totally believed it. I thought they figured it out and now had to capture him in order to win.

And then in the next episode we had a legendary plot twist! Turns out, the actual situation was entirely the opposite of what we thought... Hyunjae was the only vampire in the Team while the other three were the wolves! So New, Q and Sunwoo weren't running behind Hyunjae because they wanted to capture Hyunjae the wolf but in fact they were chasing him to TURN him into a wolf. That is so much more interestinggggg!

Hyunjae eventually becomes a wolf and their team spends a lot of time scheming who their next victim should be and how do they mark them without getting noticed by the other members.

Half way through the tasks round, they were given an additional task of finding 4 amulets - 3 orange ones (that can defend against a vampire) and 1 green one (that can turn a wolf back into a vampire).

Haknyeon's Team gets 2 orange amulets, Hyunjae's gets 1 orange and 1 green amulet.

By the end of these rounds, the vampires and wolves (at least what they showed as of today's episode) are :

Vampires - Haknyeon, Juyeon, Younghoon, Kevin, Eric, Sangyeon

Wolves - Q, New, Sunwoo, Hyunjae, Jacob

In today's episode, one member had to wear a lie detecting headband and the other members asked questions to ascertain whether the member was a (King) wolf or not.

In another interesting twist, while Sangyeon was getting interrogated a buzzer suddenly started blaring and the red and blue lights flashed everywhere. Suddenly Q and Jacob started running and grabbed the amulets that were kept right next to the person getting interrogated (Sangyeon in this case). There was chaos everywhere and most of the members were confused as to what was happening.

I am excited but confused too. The wolves were tasked with stealing the amulets? And initially in the episode it was shown that the wolves had decided that they'll try and make everyone suspicious only of Hyunjae and Sunwoo. If that was the case then wouldn't it have been more convincing if they were the two who ran to steal to amulets. Why Q and Jacob? Orrr was it their plan to make them suspicious of Hyunjae-Sunwoo so they wouldn't take much notice of Q-Jacob when they stood up after the buzzer went off? Hmmmm

Whatever the case is, I'm really intrigued to see what lies ahead. From what I can infer, the members who truly are still vampires are Haknyeon, Juyeon, Younghoon, Kevin and Eric. All of them genuinely seemed confused when the buzzer went off and everyone started running. Juyeon and Eric didn't even try to follow the members thinking that this was all out of out of character for them. Haknyeon's commentary showed that he was still trying to logically find out how many wolves were present. I'm pretty sure it was Kevin's reflexes that made him immediately start running behind Q and Jacob when they first ran off but the boy still seemed clueless and didn't follow them completely. They say Younghoon cannot lie and if that's true, his mannerisms throughout showed that he had nothing to hide.

I'll truly be shocked if any of these 5 members get revealed to be wolves (aka being marked as wolves before this episode) in the next episode.

However, I'm really suspicious of Sangyeon. As per the current narrative shown, he's still a vampire but there are several instances that suggest otherwise. First and foremost, he was the wolf Team's primary target in the previous rounds so they definitely would've tried approaching him at least once. And by the end of the last round, they had plenty of time to mark him since their teams were working on the same task. Unlike, Haknyeon, Juyeon, Eric and Younghoon, Sangyeon had no commentary that suggested that he was or wasn't a wolf.

Even though they had only shown Hyunjae's Team while discussing their strategy to make everyone suspect Sunwoo and Hyunjae, it was Sangyeon who kept pushing that agenda instead of Q, New or Jacob.

However, there are two things that threaten to break my suspicion. One is that he seemed a little surprised when Q and Jacob snatched the amulets from next to him. And the other is that when the trailers for this show came out, one of them showed Haknyeon's entire team including Sangyeon wearing the vampire head band as opposed to New who wore the wolf headband. Those headbands can be seen in the preview of the next episode. True to the preview, New is definitely a wolf so does that mean I'm wrong and that Sangyeon is still a vampire?

The King wolf has yet not been revealed however they have narrowed it down to New, Q and Sunwoo. I think Q is the King Wolf. Since he is close to New in general, he would've marked him first and then New would've helped him mark Sunwoo. Let's wait for the next episode to see whether my predictions are correct!