Letter #90: The Devil's Plan

Good morning, Erin.

To what I assume will be your great joy, I’ve spent the last month or so slowly expanding my sphere of K-pop awareness—mostly because I finally gave into the stream of YouTube recommendations that always pop up (or maybe because one of my favorite girls from Heart Signal 4 has mentioned a song in an instagram post, who can say)—and, as a result, expanding the playlist that keeps me company at work. 


And yet, even having picked up a little AESPA, a little XG, a little…um…whoever sings “Love Bomb,” I am still irretrievably smitten with Weki Meki—and, for at least the last two weeks, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about…or singing…or poorly imitating the choreography to (what is apparently) their debut track, “I Don’t Like Your Girlfriend.”


I mention this not because I want to talk to you about the song (...I mean, I absolutely do want to talk to you about the song—and will at a later date, have no fear!) but because of something I noticed during my many, many, many many many sing-alongs: I repeatedly have to correct myself for singing “I don’t like your boyfriend” during the chorus. 


I’d like to attribute that to my brain defaulting to the now-ancient Ashley Simpson song “Boyfriend” (with it’s very catchy “didn’t steal your boyfriend” refrain)...but I think it’s much more likely that it’s just a subconscious admission that it would devastate me to find out any of these girls is dating someone. 


Sign that I’ve become a true WeMe stan, or evidence that I secretly miss dating? I leave it to you to decide, Erin. I’ve got back bends to practice. 


That said…The Devil’s Plan was one of those series I only watched because of that podcast I like listening to. It’s a puzzle-y social strategy reality competition show, if you weren’t aware, where they sequester a bunch of celebrities in what is essentially a luxury jail for a week and make them do party games (and math…soooo much math) at each other until only one remains. It’s a really interesting premise—and also the cherry on top of the cherry-stacked top of the cake that is the proof that you are the only one who ever had my best TV-watching interests at heart. 


Or maybe it was great. You’ll have to read on to find out!


BUT…before we get into the nitty gritty of it all—in the spirit of this battle of wits, I’ve got a riddle for you, dear seonbae:


When is a murder not a murder?


…also, I need you to picture me sitting in a tall-back swivel chair, clad in a gauche, velveteen suit and matching domino mask, a smarmy grin spreading across my face as I ask you this from a giant TV screen looming above you. You won’t get the full effect if you don’t. 


Are you picturing it? Great! Then I shall begin the countdown—and, in the meantime…let’s talk The Devil’s Plan:


1. I had a very strange relationship with this show. I can’t say I liked it—but I also pretty much didn’t sleep for 40 hours straight (there’s a day of work in the middle of that) because I couldn't put it down. Well, I couldn’t put it down except for when I had to pause to write notes, of course. Or scream at the TV. Which I had to do a lot. Like, a lot. Even at 3AM. Because this show was infuriating


1A. The big, inescapable issue (and I’ll be semi-vague, in case you’re planning to watch this later on) is that one of the smarter contestants explicitly wants to break the mechanics of the show—and he sort of succeeds in doing so. His actions immediately undermine the competitive aspect of the games and split the cast into two groups in response: a group dedicated to ensuring as many people as possible make it through each round of the game, and one group that wanted everyone to just play the games as intended. As such, the focus of the entire show shifts from gameplay to the existential blood feud between the two factions. Because their ethoses are diametrically opposed to each other, the groups CANNOT coexist—and no one wastes time pretending that they can. So, the knives are out regardless of whether everyone’s currently playing a round of the game or hanging around during the downtime segments. It results in some…uncouth tendencies in more than a few of the players and removes pretty much any element of fun from the proceedings. 


1B. That said, in terms of keeping me hooked into the show, it absolutely worked. I 100% picked a side (I refuse to believe anyone didn’t), and I felt every second of danger, tension, and relief that this side felt. I needed them to win, needed them to inflict damage on the opposing side, felt it was a righteous mission that the other side be destroyed. Which is what I mean when I say it wasn’t fun but still had me hooked: everything that happened felt like it f***ing mattered. To me. Personally


1C. So, because this show ultimately turned out to be a FASCINATING study in collectivism vs. individualism, I think it was an intellectually worthwhile experience—and one that I will undoubtedly refer back to in future discussions on the topic. But, overall, I think your level of entertainment (or perhaps enjoyment) will depend on whether the side you pick is the side that wins in the end. 


2. All that aside, though…the gameplay aspects of the show presented a problem on their own even without the social dynamic swallowing the focus whole—at least, I thought so: the games were not always easy to follow, especially at first (soooooo many rules), and they were all nearly impossible to play along with at home. So, you’re often watching people do something you don’t understand (or, when you can, the show edits things so that you aren’t following along), which means the games themselves become less interesting to watch as they play out. So, it’s hard to be impressed with or dismayed by the performance of any individual member of the cast as each game plays out, often deflating the tension until the game wrapped up and you could see the results—which, in many cases, took a very, very long time to get to. (On the other hand, Busted made its puzzles much more accessible to the audience without lowering the difficulty curve.)


3. Still, in a fun bit of coincidence, they announced a second season about three days after I finished watching this, and I got really, really excited. So, y’know, maybe I liked it a lot more than I think.


4 One of the games they play is a memory game about matching pictures of people’s faces. This ends up being doubly hard for the players because A) most of the faces they have to match are for non-Asian people, and it is more difficult to recognize nuances in appearance across races (meaning, yes, the ol’ “all [xyz] people look alike” chestnut is truer than people want to believe); and perhaps more importantly B) the faces were all A.I.-generated, so they all had the same uncanny sheen to them. 


5. Be proud of me: everyone wore different clothes on the second day of the show, but I still knew who everyone was.


6. Relatedly: one of the players deliberately changes his outfit to give himself a gentler, much more boyish look than he had the previous day so as to seem more approachable to the other players. I thought this was a clever, subtle tactical move. 


6A. At the same time, one of the women changes into what looks like the world’s sexiest bathrobe. Which I’m 80% sure isn’t a tactical move on her part, but 100% sure would have put me under her spell regardless. 


6B. …though, for the record, she didn’t need the dress for that. 


7. Also for the record: there is one specific player whose dedication to his/her side in the blood feud absolutely cost him/her a shot at competing in the finale. I don't know if he/she would have ultimately won, but I promise you he/she would have been a bigger threat than the alternative. 


8. Compared to the sound level for the rest of the show, the theme song is incredibly loud. Especially at three in the morning. 


9. Something I learned from this series is that the Korean words for “please” and “f***” sound an awful lot alike. 


10. Unrelated to any of this: Kim Tae-ri recently cut her hair pretty short, and it’s making me feel…things. 


11. There were three separate instances when the show gave the ladies a little somethin’ and left in shots of the handsome actor in the cast taking his shirt off (and, in one case, exercising). 


12. In the interest of fairness, I felt like we should also have gotten analogous shots of the beautiful actress in the cast, but…alas, none was had. Unless you count the many times we saw her walking around in her little pyjama shorts. Which I don’t—no matter how much I appreciated it. 


13. And now—it’s time, Erin. Did you figure it out? Have you unraveled my scheme? Are you ready to take from me the crown of world’s greatest detective? Can you tell me: when is a murder not a murder?


13A. ANSWER: When it’s a conspiracy! 


13B. …because a group of crows is called a murder, and a group of ravens—which look similar to and could be mistaken for crows— is called a conspiracy. Plus, making something look like a murder when it isn’t would be something out of a conspira—y’know, I don’t know why I’m explaining it when I know you solved it.


And that’s all there is to say about that. 


Kind of a rollercoaster, this one. I don’t even think Single’s Inferno 2 kept me up quite as far into the night as this one did, but golly gosh was I angry as I watched this. Way too much drama. (Though, again, I am psyched for a second season. So who knows what I really think.)


Speaking of: Single’s Inferno 3 starts in FIVE DAYS! Are you as excited as I am? I bet you are. Man, that is so going to throw off my watch schedule—and I could not be happier.


It’ll be a few weeks before that’s all said and done, of course, and, in the meantime, so much good stuff (or middling stuff, depending) is on the way, dear seonbae—including, yes, Sweet Home 2, which of course I finished almost immediately…and about which, yes, I have many things to say.


Just not yet. There are still a few more things to get to first. 


…to say nothing of how much is still on my plate to finish, weeklies-wise. 


Christmas vacation is gonna be a busy one, I can already see it. 


Hope all is well with you. 


More soon.


—Daryl

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