Dreamcatcher’s Reality Among Us Is One Of Charm And Entertainment In Early June 2021

K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall

The latest Dreamcatcher Mind episode featuring a real-life version of the popular PC title headlined a not-sus early June activity for the group.

Note: This recap contains full spoilers for Dreamcatcher Mind, episode 2, including who the imposter was. If for some reason you haven’t caught the episode yet, watch it first before reading!

June is here, and with it the realization that we’re soon to be halfway through 2021. Thankfully, for Dreamcatcher fans, the months have seemed to fly by due to all the content we’ve been fortunate to receive, and this past week, though dominated by a very hilarious 2nd episode of the Dreamcatcher Mind reality show, was no different. We’ll get to the chaos that the episode created for everyone in a bit, so let’s dive right into what happened that didn’t involve murder in a makeshift spaceship setting.

Main Dancer and resident eardrum-breaker SuA began her stint of SBS Youngstreet radio appearances in June, this time alongside fellow guest Sleepy and DJ Baekho, from boy group NU’EST. The trio chatted about a few listener situations that got submitted, from someone who might be third wheeling on a blind date that might actually be interested in the listener to what it means if a regular customer in a cafe another listener works in notices when they don’t work.

SuA also showed off the custom phone case JiU made for her during JiU’s birthday vlive, then participated in a poll of the worst types of people to go to karaoke with (person who puts their own name in the lyrics, person who cuts off their singing after the first verse and person who doesn’t let go of the mic). Not surprisingly, SuA is totally the kind of person who doesn’t let go of the mic and keeps singing. As a bonus we also got Sleepy having to do a “sexy dance” to Brave Girls’ “Rollin’”, something which SuA was more than happy to join in on when it became apparent Sleepy was getting a little shy about it. All in all, yet another fun appearance by SuA, and one you should download from the SBS Youngstreet site if you haven’t already.

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A couple of vLives also made their way to InSomnia this week from Dreamcatcher, with Yoohyeon fighting her inability to sleep by talking with fans and Gahyeon and Handong taking time to chat with people before the latest Dreamcatcher Mind episode. Yoohyeon charmed international fans with her command of English as always, while Gahyeon and Handong dropped some information about unreleased content from Fly High era that never made it out into the public. Both vLives also mentioned the fact that Dreamcatcher has committed to going to the Primavera Sound festival in Spain in 2022 as its only K-Pop related act, and how excited they were to get back to traveling again. Lastly, everyone was of course asked about comeback news, and to their credit (especially Yoohyeon’s) no spoilers were dropped — though Gahyeon did express interest in running with a bit more of a summer concept. We’ll have to see what they’re cooking up once they’re ready.

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A couple things that did get released this past week, however, were two more KCON:TACT historical appearances from the group — one for latest title track “Odd Eye” and another for what I feel has been one of Dreamcatcher’s strongest cover performances in their long history in 2PM’s “My House”. Both performances are worth checking out, especially as the latter had Dreamcatcher add their own spin on the now-iconic track by making it into a rock remix, complete with a cool dance break sequence.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewDCW4hVOo0[/embed]

But it was Dreamcatcher’s newest reality show episode that captured minds and hearts this past week, and with good reason. Preview images of the 2nd Dreamcatcher Mind episode made their way to the press, signaling three very important things:

• While the core concept of using one’s brain and doing fun challenges would remain, there would be potentially a bunch of different ways in which that would be presented
• They would be doing a real-life version of virally popular game Among Us from Innersloth, where crew of individuals seeks to find an Imposter in their ranks whose objective is to sabotage and murder the rest of them.
• JiU’s birthday vLive was actually a subtle spoiler that nobody caught — her custom-made phone cases featured each member’s Dmong Us approximate color in costume, and served as a memory of what they’d done here.

Much of the charm of Among Us is the interactions among the players and the fun bit of good-natured psychological warfare that occurs as a result of trying to find the Imposter (and of the Imposter to stay as anonymous as possible). For a group of chaotic, distinct personalities like Dreamcatcher has, this seems right up their alley with the potential to be entertaining as well, if prior instances of playing these types of games was any indication.

So it was that “Dmong Us” was born, and Dreamcatcher didn’t disappoint with how fun it turned out to be. Here’s the TL;DR recap of how things went down:

• The real-life Among Us-type game would feature several missions spread out throughout the vacation home. The crew would win if they performed all the missions successfully, while the Imposter, who has the ability to murder people by giving them a paper “death mark” on a 10-second delay, would win if they are still not found and voted out by the time one normal crew member remains.
• Handong was murdered first, causing an emergency meeting and a mistaken vote to kill SuA for her perceived suspicious behavior running around the complex.
• Handong revealed to fellow ghost SuA who the Imposter actually was — Yoohyeon, who used a common Among Us tactic of self-reporting and acting to deflect suspicion from herself.
• SuA and Handong, even as ghosts, completed many of the missions required, while Gahyeon’s paranoia led to another failed vote.

• In a tactic that ultimately backfired, JiU left the others to lure the Imposter away, only to have Yoohyeon pull off a sudden, multi-kill win with the added bonus of chasing down surviving member JiU that seemed oddly familiar (going back to watch Dreamcatcher’s “Deja Vu” music video was a bonus treat as a result).
• As expected, a lot of fun moments and complete chaos from Dreamcatcher.
• Missions/challenges cleared:

• Thread the string through the needle while a fan is blowing

• Put on the indicated outfit while wearing solid tubes on your arms

• Spin around 10 times then put the sticker on the lion’s tooth

• (Two people) Perform 20 successful jumps with a jump rope while wearing acupressure slippers

• Say a random word backwards within 3 seconds

Even though I had faith that Dreamcatcher would certainly provide a lot of funny moments for an Among Us parody, I was still a little concerned that a real-life version of a game like it might not be able to be pulled off smoothly. But props to the production team for creating physically and mentally challenging (yet not impossible) missions, ensuring that everyone would be able to participate properly and show off their teamwork, and most of all, ensuring the game was balanced. One such example of the game balance was that the Imposter didn’t get a cooldown for murdering people, but in return murdered crew members could still complete missions as ghosts and be seen doing so by living crew members. Things like this ensured a single Imposter like Yoohyeon would have a fighting chance against six other crew members, while at the same time allowing everyone to continue participating even when out (the fact that SuA and Handong had a significant part in completing missions even when dead was great for them and the game).

Of course, no game of Among Us is complete without moments of mental gymnastics and sudden, hilarious bursts of emotion over determining Imposters, and Dreamcatcher’s version of it was no different. From Handong’s inability to speak while lying dead and hoping someone discovered her to Siyeon’s confusion and suspicion over SuA’s patrolling behavior to Gahyeon’s constant paranoia and her subsequent look of abject betrayal as Yoohyeon kills her, we had no shortage of entertainment. After seeing such great team cohesion on and offstage, seeing Dreamcatcher turn on one another in a fun way was every bit as interesting and funny to watch as I’d expected. And in a nice bonus, even the official Among Us Twitter account thought so.

Obviously, props should go to Yoohyeon for pulling off, especially at the last minute, a bunch of murders to win the game as the Imposter. Fans know Yoohyeon is an avid gamer, and it seemed pretty clear that she was eminently familiar with the tactics Imposters use in Among Us in order to deflect suspicion from themselves, from self-reporting finding a corpse, to subtly but purposefully failing missions to sabotage them, to encouraging a tiny bit of paranoia against other crew members, and more. For someone who fans seem to have perceived has a tough time keeping themselves together in an acting scenario, Yoohyeon proved that when it counts, she can pull it off. Well-played to her and her underhanded tactical sense as an Imposter. The crew had a solid plan (and JiU, as the leader, had a decent one becoming bait) but it just didn’t work out this time around.

Yoohyeon fans got to see their favorite rule the roost this past week in Dreamcatcher Mind, but if the first two episodes are any indication, we’ll be seeing them pull off something even more fun and entertaining for next week. Not knowing the context and setting means we could be in for any number of cool things for the group, so you can bet I’ll be here a week from now recapping all of the best of the Dreamcatcher Mind reality show and news from K-Pop’s resident rock/pop girl group. See you then, and be sure to follow and drop a clap if you like what you’ve read!