The show's opening images are played rapid fire over the opening song, almost too quickly to make out individual details. The logo scrawls over them, blocking them entirely from view moments later, and the show shifts back to the stage, where the remaining contestants await the results of the second elimination round.

The two MCs enter the waiting area, holding their envelopes with the results and rankings for the round.

Leeteuk smiles encouragingly at the contestants. "Great showing today guys! Votes were really close for the most part this round."

Taeyeon nods. "To the two eliminated, know that it was a very close call - you put up a good fight." She adds with a smile.

No one looks particularly encouraged by the words, so the MCs quickly move on.

"Alright then, let's tear off the bandage quickly." Leeteuk decides. "In quite a twist of events, Sujin and Woncheol I'm afraid you've been eliminated."

"From first to out in three point five." Sujin says bitterly in her interview, not even trying to hide her frustrationg and hurt. "Good luck to the girls not having me to choreograph next time." Her voice break slightly at the end of the sentence and she looks away from the camera.

Woncheol is slumped slightly in the chair, much less cheery than he has been on the rest of the show. "I guess I knew it was a chance..." He shakes his head, not trying to hide his heartbreak over the situation. "I just really hoped I could stay in longer. What will I tell the group?"

Back in the practice room the elimnated pair are slowly making their way out as Taeyeon opens her envelope hastily.

"Once again rankings shifted around! In last place now is Saerom."

Saerom's eyes go wide.

"I've been getting lower and lower." She admits in her interview. "If I manage to stay on through the next elimination I'll be surprised."

"In sixth is Jiae and fifth is Diamond."

Diamond bites her lip, frowning, while Jiae deflates at the lower rank. Seonwoo leans over to pat her shoulder comfortingly.

"Alexis is in fourth,"

"Woo, I finally moved!" The rapper exclaims cheerfully, getting some irritated looks from the three ranked below her.

Taeyeon barely bats an eye at the interruption. "Top three, from third to first, are Lucy, Ryuwon, and Hwajin."

"Yes! I went up!" Lucy sighs in relief in her interview. "Top three even!"

"Top three!" Ryuwon is equally excited. "I hope Lai rose up in the ranks as well, though. He's not been doing great..." She adds a moment later, some of her cheer draining slightly.

Hwajin is grinning broadly in her own interview. "First place! Not bad." She laughs. "I'm flattered, so thank you to everyone who voted for me!" She waves happily. "I'll keep doing my best!"

Leeteuk tears open his envelope once Taeyeon has finished. "For the guys, last place is Lai. Sorry buddy."

Lai shrugs amiably, while Ryuwon visibly sags behind him.

"Eunjae in sixth and Ollie in fifth."

Both show minimal reaction to the news.

"In fourth place is Jo,"

Jo barks out a laugh.

"I've been in fourth since the beginning." He grins in amusement in his interview. "It's not a bad place to be so I mean, not complaining or anything, but wow that's a coincidence."

Leeteuk smiles at him in shared amusement before looking back to the paper in front of him. "And finally, third to first in order are R, Kurozu, and Seonwoo!"

"I think the top two spots are probably locked in at this point." Hwajin observes. "Seonwoo has a lot of fans for F1RSTCLASS and Kurozu obviously made a big impression on viewers. I just hope I've done the same!" She laughs. "Really though, good for him. And we made third! Go R!" She adds with a bright grin.

The interviews with the top two contestants aren't shown, and the scene returns to the waiting room where the MCs are putting the rankings away.

"Alright then, this week is once again a chance to claim immunity for next week's elimination." Taeyeon smiles. "And I hope you all have gotten to know your partner well!"

A few people nods cheerfully, a few look nervous, but most remain stoic as they await the MCs reveal.

Leeteuk clears his throat. "This week each pair will put together a performance. The one voted best will gain immunity in the next round." He looks over at Taeyeon, but whe she has nothing more to add he claps his hands.

"Alright then! No restrictions on songs or style, just put something together that you're proud of!" He smiles and the contestants move into their pairs and start leaving the room.

"I knew there would be a challenge like this." Ryuwon nods in her interview. "The compliment pairs? Obviously we'd be doing something together at some point. I already have several ideas."

"I had some ideas but realizing R can sing has given me other ones." Hwajin's eyes are alight with possibilties. "I think the hardest part about this challenge is how much leeway they're giving us."

Jo looks estatic. "Lu and I are absolutely writing our own song, this is a perfect challenge for us!" He declares.

Lucy wholeheartedly agrees in her own aside. "We're both song writers and we both play instruments - this will be a cinch!"

The first pair properly shown working on their performance isn't the rock duo however. Instead, the show turns to Alexis and Kurozu, who are seated in a sound booth and sharing ear buds. Kurozu is holding the attached music player and is flicking through songs.

Alexis is pressing the ear bud lightly with one fingers and plugging her opposing ear with another, face scrunched in concentration.

"This one." She says abruptly. "I like this one."

Kurozu pauses it and looks over at her. "Sure, but you'll have to sing."

She grimaces but nods firmly. "I'll manage. I've improved just from last week even, and you'll help me, right?" She looks a bit nervous, but grins when Kurozu nods.

"Sure, I helped train some of the guys in my group anyway." He tugs on the earbuds and Alexis quickly hands hers back. "I'll get started on modernizing the song. I guess do some vocal warmups in the meantime? You know some right?"

Alexis nods immediately. "Will do!"

"Kurozu is the best partner." She grins joyfully in her interview. "I know we're going to do awesome! I just have to put in two hundred percent!"

The next pairing shown seems much less on top of things. Ollie and Saerom are sitting quietly in a practice room as Ollie scrolls on his phone and Saerom fidgets uncertainly from where she's seated a few feet away from him.

Ollie, after nearly a minute of silence, lets out an irritated breath. "Hey, feel free to contribute any time you like." He snaps.

Saerom wilts. "Oh, um, I thought you wanted to-"

"We're a team unnie." He grumbles. "I can't do everything just because you're scared of screwing it all up. I'm not taking all the responsibility if we're kicked out this time."

Saerom stares at her feet for a moment and then pulls out her phone. "Right. Sorry." She mumbles it, her cheeks red and her eyes suspiciously shiny.

"I know he means well, I really do. I just screwed up bad two weeks ago and I got Sujin and Woncheol kicked out and-" Saerom cuts herself off, sniffling, though she's not as close to crying here in the interview as she had been in the practice room. "I just don't want to screw up again."

"Better to try and fall flat on your face then worry so much you don't do anything at all." Ollie's outlook is entirely different in his own interview. "We're both screwed if she doesn't start pulling her weight."

The next pair doens't seem to mind the imbalanced power dynamic. Hwajin is standing with R next to a piano and walking them both through vocal warmups, tapping keys on the piano with one hand and using the other seemingly as a guide, as it rises and falls with their voices.

"I admit to singing with my hands when I can, especially the high stuff." Hwajin explains in a quick cut away interview. "It helps to have something external to focus on. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's all in my head but hey, whatever works." She laughs.

"Okay, I think that's good. Jeez, why didn't you tell me you could sing?" Hwajin laughs and nudges R playfully as she pulls out her phone and begins fussing with it. "You've got a nice voice!"

R shrugs awkwardly, shifting his weight back and forth and clearly unsure of what exactly he should be doing. "My group members-"

"Oh forget them! Honestly R, you're sweet but way too much of a pushover. Stop letting them tell you what you can and can't do - heck, aren't you the oldest?" Hwajin interrupts, irritated. "There's being nice and then there's letting people walk all over you for absolutely no reason. Seriously, grow a spine. You're probably the one person alive I'd welcome an insult from." It's clear she's had this conversation before, and she drags her hand through her hair in obvious aggravation.

She takes a few breaths and then shakes her head. "Sorry. Do whatever you want. If you like being a punching bag then fine, but I need you to actually help out here, okay? We're a team, so you have to actually communicate with me."

R nods meekly and Hwajin sighs again.

"Good. Now I'm going to play three songs and you're going to pick which one we use."

R nods again.

Diamond and Eunjae are shown next, and while Diamond is doing a lot of prompting Eunjae is contributing a bit more actively than R.

"Well what about this one?" Diamond suggests, turning her phone towards Eunjae.

He glances up. "Maybe? It doesn't have much in terms of range though." He points out. Diamond frowns, looks down at her phone, and then nods.

"Yeah, you're right." She says softly.

"It is so hard to pick a song." Diamond laughs slightly in her interview. "Eunjae and I are both pretty good singers, so we can basically choose anything - there aren't really restrictions because of range or anything. Now it's just figuring out which song to use."

"I want a ballad." Eunjae confesses in his interview. "They're my strong point. Diamond would sound good on them as well, and they leave a lot of room for adlibbing. But there are so many ballads."

Back in their practice room, the phones have been put away and the two are talking rapidly.

"So something with a smaller range is fine if there's space for adlibs." Diamond nods. "Agreed?"

Eunjae nods as well. "Sounds fair. If there's more of a range we make sure to harmonize either low or high depending on who's out of range more often?"

"Obviously." Diamond replies briskly. "We need to figure out qualifications though, more specific ones than these." She sighs. "We need a song by the end of the day at least. It's getting a little too dark for me to be happy with the zero progress we've made."

Eunjae frowns, thinking. "Well..." He trails off, obviously not having actually thought of something before replying. "I don't know."

Diamond sighs. "There's got to be something. Something simple. A group, a topic, something! Just to narrow things down."

Eunjae tilts his head. "We could focus on SM songs? Since they're hosting." He smiles faintly at that, his eyes momentarily distant. "Jo calls them our generous overlords."

Diamond smiles as well. "I remember that. I dunno, maybe? That's majorly narrowing and basically leaves with Taeyeon if we want the song to actually be somewhat known." She blinks, and then sits up, grinning. "Hey wait a second. I think I might know what song we should do."

She pulls something up on her phone and shows it to Eunjae, who perks up as well.

"I see what you mean. Looks good. Let's get started."

The show returns to show Lucy and Jo, both armed with guitars, working on what appears to be a song.

"I don't think we'll be able to go full rock." Jo sighs after a long moment of eying the page. "We've already lost nearly two days writing this and we only have two instruments."

"We could bring in my band. Or yours." Lucy adds quickly.

"But have them learn a full song in, what, four days?" Jo sighs. "We don't even have a full song here, just a minute and a half. And only the guitar line written."

Lucy frowns in annoyance. "So what you give up?"

Jo quickly shakes his head. "No, I'm saying we need to rethink our approach. Maybe we just clean up what we have here, add a few more seconds, and learn it ourselves."

Lucy doesn't look thrilled a the prospect, but after a long moment of hesitation she nods. "Okay, yeah, that makes sense." She sighs. "I really wanted to do a big rock number."

Jo laughs and pats her shoulder. "Me too. Next time we'll just cover another song, yeah?"

Lucy grins a bit. "Yeah."

"It's a bit disappointing that we're sort of missing our shot with this, but we aimed a little too high." Jo laughs lightly in his interview. "But we do still have an original song, and it's not too shabby if I do say so myself."

"We're still bringing in Lexie to do some drumming." Lucy says. "And we're going to put in a few electric guitar riffs as well. We're going to play acoustic live though. It's a different sound that I wanted but it does still sound good." She nods firmly.

Jiae and Seonwoo are both sitting in front of a computer, looking quite focused but also a bit off balance.

"This is much harder than Kurozu makes it look." Seonwoo declares with a small laugh after a minute or so of silence. "But I think this sounds okay? Jiae, what do you think?"

Jiae shrugs nervously. "It's good? I think? Maybe we should ask someone who knows more about this kind of stuff. I have some experience but I'm not really great at it."

Seonwoo frowns. "I... don't know anyone." He admits after a moment. "And I don't think we can ask the competition, since, you know, competition."

Jiae bites her lip. "Yeah, you're right. Okay, this will have to do then." She smiles supportively. "But we'll still do great!"

Seonwoo nods, with less enthusiasm than he'd usually have. "Yep. Well, we should get started."

"Okay, Ollie got to me." Seonwoo admits in his interview. "I came in first again and I'm really glad, right? But also there's this voice that's saying maybe I didn't really earn it? And maybe someone else should have been ranked higher? I don't know. It's messing with my ability to focus which I feel awful about. Jiae deserves better than that, she's really working hard."

The two are next shown in a practice room, Seonwoo setting up the MP3 player while Jiae hums through a few octaves.

"Ready when you are." Seonwoo grins over at her, and Jiae flashes him a thumbs up.

The show cuts past their rehearsals, until Seonwoo pauses the music and it's two days to the performance according to a note onscreen. "I think we've got it!" He sounds happier, and Jiae beams at him.

"We really do! What now, just polishing?"

Seonwoo starts to nod, and then pauses. "Actually... maybe we should add something extra. Not, like, choreography or anything, but maybe a set? Can we get those?"

Jiae tilts her head. "Um, I'm not sure. We can ask the MCs?"

"I've been waiting for someone to ask us something!" Leeteuk is clearly pleased. "There's no rule saying we can't help after all! We're getting a set together for those two."

Taeyeon smiles as well. "It's nice to have something to do with the show during the week this time around." She agrees warmly.

Finally the show turns to Ryuwon and Lai, who are attempting a dance, and struggling rather spectacularly.

Ryuwon finally sighs and waves for him to stop, going to turn off their music. "Okay, this is not working. You really aren't a good dancer." She says, a mix of frustration and apology in her tone.

Lai shrugs. "Nope, sorry." He grins, and Ryuwon sighs.

"Okay. Okay we already know the song, and I've got the dance down. Maybe..." She frowns. "We have to call people in. I only have one group member left though." She lets out a angry breath. "And I'm sure your groupmates are as useless at dancing as you."

Lai shrugs again, looking a bit apologetic now.

Ryuwon runs a hand down her face in frustration, and then spins on her heel. "Okay, we're going to have to beg. Who's the most gullible and or giving in the competition?"

Lai blinks. "Um... me?" He suggests with a grin that quickly drops when Ryuwon frowns at him over her shoulder. "Okay, sorry. Eunjae is super nice, and Seonwoo is friendly too, they might help. For the girls... Jiae maybe? Or Alexis?"

Ryuwon nods thoughtfully. "You go ask Jiae and Seonwoo, I think they're in the fifth practice room. I'll look into Eunjae and Alexis. Text me if you get a hit."

Lai nods cheerfully and bounces out of the practice room, Ryuwon following him shortly after.

"We are lucky Alexis and Eunjae were cool with us borrowing their groupmates." Ryuwon groans in her interview. "We're working with them now and it's coming together pretty well. If I hear one more person bugging me about changing the pronouns in the song though, I may scream." She laughs tiredly. "This week is stressful."

"I got it!" Alexis shrieks excitedly as the show switches to where she and Kurozu have apparently just wrapped up a rehearsal.

Kurozu offers her a small smile, a crack in his usually brusk facade. "Yeah, that was our best run. Good job."

She beams and grabs him in a hug, which he doesn't return but also doesn't pull away from.

She releases him after a moment, still grinning. "Thanks so much for helping me out! We're going to do awesome tomorrow for sure!"

He shrugs. "Pretty good anyway." He amends, and she sticks her tongue out.

"We will do awesome mister grouchy-pants and you'll just have to accept it."

Kurozu laughs rather increduously for a second before catching himself. "Alright, fine, tell yourself what you like."

"Alexis is... definitely enthusiastic." He notes thoughtfully in his interview. "She kind of reminds me of my older brother sometimes. Way too cheerful but with good intentions at the end of the day." He shrugs. "She's not the worst person to have been partner up with overall."

The next pair checked in on is Saerom and Ollie, who seem to have settled on something and are working with people - who are noted as their groupmates - on a dance, which Ollie has taken control of choreographing.

"And two three four, and Saerom you'll be rapping this part so just walk, don't try to do any dancing."

Saerom nods, flushing slightly. "Right. Sorry."

Ollie grunts. "Don't apologize I hadn't told you that yet." He mumbles. Saerom apologizes again.

"We've got a game plan at least." Ollie sighs in his interview. "Once she started helping it moved pretty quickly. She's got good ideas, she just needs to trust herself more."

The show returns to the rehearsal, where the competitors and their groupmates are taking a break.

Or at least, Ollie is sitting to the side with his group. Meanwhile Saerom is still working on her parts while her own groupmates take a break.

"I just really want to make sure I do well." She says in her interview. "Ollie's doing a lot, so this is all I feel like I can without messing with his plans." She kicks her feet nervously, and then looks up with a small smile. "But, um, I actually really like our performance? I hope we do well."

"Good to hear she's being more optimistic about this." Ollie nods with a small smile in his own interview. "She was not that way starting out, and really that's not going to help anyone in the long run."

The last, brief, check-in is with Diamond and Eunjae. They're playing with a few harmonies, most coming from Diamond, as they run through their song. They don't verbally communicate, instead agreeing or disagreeing on decisions through glances and expressions. Eventually, both grin at each other and nod, and Diamond hurries to start the music.

"Well." She says. "I dare say we're ready."

The MCs greet the cheering crowd with their usual enthusiasm, but they're quick to wave them quiet.

"We've got seven whole performance for you guys today!" Leeteuk beams. "So we'll be cycling through them pretty quickly to make sure we dont' run out of time."

"Without further ado then, our first performance comes courtesy of Ollie and Saerom!"

The audience applauds politely as the MCs walk out and the stage goes dark.

The audience is much louder as they applaud the two performers off and Taeyeon hurries on to introduce the next pair.

"Up next we have Diamond and Eunjae!"

The audience screams their approval as the two vocalists depart, and Leeteuk grins as he walks out and introduces Ryuwon and Lai as the next performance.

Lucy and Jo are already walking onstage to hook up their guitars as Lai and Ryuwon exit to applause, and Taeyeon laughs and simply gestures to them as their introduction.

This time there's quite a flurry of activity as the band members depart the stage, and Leeteuk takes the time to announce that Jiae and Seonwoo are next. When he leaves, the stage has been partially transformed.

Jiae and Seonwoo leave to loud cheers, and Taeyeon returns and actually gets to speak to announce Alexis and Kurozu as their next performers.

Both MCs return to introduce the final performance.

"Our last pair tonight everyone! Hopefully you've had fun with everything you've seen so far!" Leeteuk smiles.

Taeyeon nods. "And without further ado, Hwajin and R!"

The audience is still applauding when the cameras turn to the MCs.

Leeteuk grins and waves. "Well that's our show everyone! Hope you've enjoyed yourself, and don't forget to vote!"

Taeyeon adds on. "See you next time on Media Play!"