"7012 no more". Fans of the 6-year Korean urban variety show, Running Man, must have been in deep tears as they watched Episode 324 last November 6 which is Kang Gary's last episode. Gary, also known by his fans to be the other half of the "Monday Couple", was one of the original members of the show since 2010 and is finally leaving to focus on his music career. He will be the third permanent member to leave the show after Descendants of the Sun's star Song Joong Ki and After School's Lizzy.

The episode started off with a sad atmosphere as the lyrics of Charlie Puth's song came along "it's been a long day without you my friend, and I'll tell you all about it when I see you again". Flashes of Gary's memorable scenes on Running Man synchronized over the said melody. Although Running Man is known to bring laughter to its weekly viewers, the sadness are apparent in the faces of the six remaining members when they saw that there were only six seats on the set.

However, since comedy is very natural to the members of the show, the atmosphere was soon lifted as soon as Haha blurted out the words "so if Gary hyung leaves, what will his VJ do now? Is he also leaving?" The show's PD soon revealed that the race for episode 324 is entitled "Running Man Who Can't Break Up, Gary Who Can't Leave" which is an intended pun from LeeSsang's (Gary's group) hit song entitled "Girl Who Can't Break Up, Guy Who Can't Leave".

Episode 324 aimed to provide a very touching farewell episode for Gary and the writers of the show didn't disappoint as they prepared a hilarious way of saying "annyeong". Beside the main race, the PD revealed that the six members must each do a secret mission which is to steal one thing inside Gary's studio throughout the main race without Gary noticing it. There's also an added catch as the size of the object to be stolen must be bigger than the previously stolen item.

The six members blurted out funny reactions after hearing the secret mission. Both Haha and Yoo Jae Seok exclaimed that they might really end up being in jail for the mission. Ji Seok Jin is quick enough to fix the mission's name as he suggested it to be edited to "stealing Gary"s memories". Lee Kwang Soo then chimed in that they will be "memory hunters" for the day.

HIGHLIGHTS: MAIN RACE

The main race jumped off as the members headed off to Gary's apartment. Members started off joking about Gary's resignation as soon as they saw Gary, but Gary just shrugged the topic off and admitted that he may start crying. As natural multi-taskers, the Running Man members started scrutinizing the studio for possible items to be stolen when Gary went away to change into his costume.

As part of the main race, the PD reminded the members that they have ran 77,093 km all over the world including their weekly challenges in Korea and their travels abroad. Their challenge for this episode is to collect "kilometers" in exchange for Gary's farewell gift. The grandest gift Gary can get is a trip to Europe and everyone is enthusiastic to give their best for Gary. But as every fan must have noted, winning in Running Man is really hard.

No pain, no gain. This might have been the motto of the Running Man all throughout the race as they endured the pain from a renowned sports massage therapist, Kim Young Joon. There were about more than three rounds of massage session where all the five men except Song Ji Hyo received the torture. Pain is indeed a part of the race as their penalty also involved hitting foreheads. And some of them even get unintentional pains as they attempted to do their secret missions, like Jae Seok's case.

The series of pains continued as they did other challenges such as the one where they need to face their powerful VJs in a relay race of going up and down in a 5-storey building and doing an arm wrestling.

 

HIGHLIGHTS: SECRET MISSION

Running Man was known for its episodes with "spy games" where members and guests will play the role of spies. In this episode, all are spies doing their secret missions. One of the epic moments was when Seok Jin got caught by Gary in the midst of stealing a bicycle. In the next main race's mission, Gary was in a mess as he can't forget the encounter he had earlier with Seok Jin.

FAREWELL MESSAGES

The Running Man successfully aced the Running man gift set for Gary as their farewell present throughout the challenge. As the episode draws to its end, the mood went back to sadness. The members were asked for their messages to Gary. Ji Hyo soon had eyes filled with tears as she imparted her sadness to see Gary leave. Jong Kook even shared some emotional thoughts of Ji Hyo about Gary but this was interrupted when Jae Seok said he heard a different story from her that she even cursed and said "is Gary out of his mind?"

After the dinner session, Gary headed back to his studio and was surprised to learn about the secret mission of the members. He was surprised even more when he learned that the six members also left gifts and letters. All gifts actually somehow made Gary teary-eyed but he blurted into huge laughter when he opened Haha's gift-a box filled with dried squids.

Goodbyes are indeed hard to accept especially for the fans of Gary and the Running Man show. But, worry no more, as Gary will be present in Episode 325 and maybe in more episodes in the future.