Produce 101 Season 2

Season 2 promotional poster.

***Produce 101 Season 2*** (프로듀스 101 시즌 2) was a 2017 reality boy group survival show on Mnet. It was a large-scale project in which the public "produces" a unit boy group by voting for their favorite members from a pool of 101 trainees from 54 different entertainment companies.

## Concept

Produce 101 Season 2 brings together 101 trainees from different entertainment companies in South Korea, and 11 trainees are selected through audience voting to form a boy band. The group Wanna One will perform for two years together under YMC Entertainment (also the label of I.O.I from *Produce 101 Season 1*). The top 35 also performed with the winning team at a finale concert. The winning group will disband after their contracts end, allowing the members of the final lineup to return to their agencies. Unlike the previous season, they were not allowed to join other groups that their agencies were planning while doing their promotions as Wanna One.

## Trainers

### Vocals

* Lee Seokhoon
* Shin Yoomi

### Rap

* Cheetah
* Don Mills

### Dance

* Kahi
* Kwon Jaesung

### Special MCs/Guests

* Choi Yoojung (Episode 5)
* Kim Sohee (Episode 5)
* Kim Sohye (Episode 5)
* Kim Doyeon (Episode 5)
* Leeteuk (Episode 6)

## Episodes

### Episode 1

**(April 7, 2017)**

The trainees from each company entered the studio, where seats are arranged in a pyramid with chairs numbered from 1 to 101. Each contestant chose his preferred seat in the pyramid. Any trainee that wanted the #1 seat was allowed to challenge whoever was currently occupying the chair. The contestants then performed in a group or individually according to their company for evaluation. Each trainee was judged on their talents and were graded and assigned into temporary groups for training: A, B, C, D, and F with A being the highest and F the lowest. At the end of the episode, the popularity vote was shown with Maroo Entertainment's Park Jihoon at 1st place.

### Episode 2

**(April 14, 2017)**

After being grouped and arranged in dorms according to the grade given to the trainees, BoA announced that they wold be performing on *M! Countdown* with their title single "It's Me (Pick Me)"; the lyrics and choreography were introduced, which they had to learn in the following days. Their line distribution and overall participation in the performance was decided by their group ranking; A would have the most number of lines while F would be backup dancers. The trainees would be given a final re-evaluation prior to the filming of the performance to give them a chance to reassign to another grade. The trainees filmed themselves individually performing the song. Each video was then watched and evaluated by the mentors. After the re-evaluation, they were given their new grades and are asked to move to their new rooms by rank.

### Episode 3

**(April 21, 2017)**

After the announcement of the new batch of A ranked trainees, A class individually appealed to the other trainees to be selected as center for "It's Me (Pick Me)". The trainees had to vote for their center pick. They then started rehearsing for the stage. Brand New Music's Lee Daehwi of group A was voted to be the center. After their live performance, BoA announced the departure of 3 trainees from the show and that the 37 contestants who would receive the lowest ranks would be eliminated in the first elimination.

The trainees started their second mission: group performances in front of a live audience. 16 teams were formed to compete for 8 songs given: Super Junior's "Sorry, Sorry", Shinee's "Replay", 2PM's "10 Out of 10", Highlight's "Shock ", Infinite's "Be Mine", EXO's "Call Me Baby", BTS's "Boy in Luv", and Seventeen's "Mansae". Being the center, Lee Dae-hwi was allowed to choose his team first. Following the finalized picks for his team, by random draw, Lee Daehwi picked Hwang Minhyun to choose his team next. The remaining 14 team founders were also chosen by random draw. Each group consisted of 5-7 members. The team founders then competed for songs individually through a race: only 8 could secure their desired songs and choose their opponent from the remaining 8 teams who lost in the race. The episode later showed the groups rehearsing and assigning roles of the 'leader', 'center', 'main vocalist', 'sub vocalists', and 'rappers'. Each song was then performed live by the two groups and each member was voted on separately by the live audience. The winning team among the two was determined by combining the individual scores. Members of the winning group would gain an extra 3000 points each, to be included into the ranking announcement of the week after. The group with the highest overall points would later perform their song again on M! Countdown. Only four teams covering "10 Out of 10" and "Call Me Baby" were covered this week.

### Episode 4

**(April 28, 2017)**

The remaining 12 teams performed their respective songs and rehearsals for the groups are shown. After the last performance, the contestants were shown their rankings based purely on individual live votes and the additional 3000 points for the contestants of the winning teams: Park Woodam took 1st place. His "Mansae" group, also scored the highest, and were able to perform a special stage on *M! Countdown*.

### Episode 5

**(May 5, 2017)**

For this episode, contestants from *Produce 101 Season 1* Kim Sohye, Choi Yoojung and Kim Sohee appeared as special panelists. The episode opened with the remaining 98 contestants from each company entering the main studio by company. In between announcements of each trainee's ranking, events leading up to the elimination were shown, such as their dorm life, exercise and a hidden camera prank. I.O.I's Kim Doyeon and Choi Yoojung met with the trainees and hosted a dance battle among the trainees, in which Hong Eunki was crowned "Dancing King". A poll for 'Top Visual' was also conducted, in which Park Jihoon was ranked 1st. Park Jihoon also retained his first place in the rankings announcement. Lee Daehwi was ranked 7th, the shocking fall in his rank surprised everyone. After announcing the top 59 trainees, BoA announced that the last trainee to be saved from elimination was Kim Sangbin, ranking 60th. At the end of the episode, BoA announced that the team formation for the 3rd mission, which was the concept evaluation, would be decided by online voting. This was a major difference to that of Season 1, where trainees got to choose the song they want.

### Episode 6

**(May 12, 2017)**

BoA once again met with the trainees to announce the next challenge. The trainees were tasked to perform live in groups based on positions they wanted to debut in: vocal, dance or rap. There were five songs for vocals (I.O.I's "Downpour", BTS's "Spring Day", BoA's "Amazing Kiss", Black Pink's "Playing with Fire", and Jung Seunghwan's "If It Is You") four songs for dance (Jason Derulo's "Get Ugly", NSYNC's "Pop", Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You", and Flo Rida's "Right Round") and four songs for rap (Mino ft. Taeyang's "Fear", iKON's "Rhythm Ta", Zico's "Boys and Girls", and Simon Dominic, G2, BewhY, and One's "Who You"). Each song had a member limit and would be picked by each trainee based on their ranks: Park Jihoon who ranked 1st from the first elimination round would have the privilege of choosing the song he wanted to perform first. BoA also announced that only 35 trainees would remain in the next round and that the winner from each position category would receive 100,000 votes while the winner from each group would receive 10,000 votes. After each performance, they were ranked by their groups first and then overall in the category. On the day of the stage performances, Super Junior's Leeteuk substituted BoA to host the show due to the latter's prior commitment. Only six groups were covered this week, with "Shape of You" group receiving the show's first-ever encore call.

### Episode 7

**(May 19, 2017)**

The remaining seven teams performed their respective stages and rehearsals for the groups were shown. After the last performance, the contestants were shown their overall ranking based on their positions. The additional 10,000 points were given to 12 contestants for receiving the highest points on their respective group and the extra 100,000 points to Lee Gunhee, Noh Taehyun, and Kim Jonghyun for receiving the highest points in vocal, dance, and rap position respectively.

### Episode 8

**(May 26, 2017)**

The episode opened with BoA treating the contestants to pizza before she temporarily went overseas during the Position Evaluation filming. Sometime after the performances and before the ranking announcement on May 12, BoA gathered the boys informing them about the coming elimination round (where contestants ranking 36 onwards would get eliminated). She then introduced the next challenge: Concept Evaluation. She introduced the five songs: Hyuk Shin's "I Know You Know", Veethoven, Oh Sunghwan, Kiggen and ASSBRASS's "Oh Little Girl", ASHTRAY & KINGMAKER's "Show Time", Devine-Channel's "Open Up", and Triple H's "Never". Group formations were based on the viewers' poll which was first introduced at the end of Episode 5. The top 12 trainees voted for each song were assigned to the songs first. Due to voting manipulation controversies, however, Kang Daniel, Lee Kiwon, and Kim Dongbin were banned from their alleged preferred songs. After they were given their designated songs, the formed groups started to rehearse.

The second elimination round took place during the second half of the episode with the remaining 58 contestants from each company were seen entering the main studio by company. Names of the top 35 trainees were called by BoA one by one starting from rank 34. In between the second elimination round, a mini contest of who punches the strongest was conducted. Kang Dongho was given the title "Punching King". Kim Jonghyun receives the 1st place in the ranking announcement while Kim Donghan ranks 35th, just escaping elimination.

### Episode 9

**(June 2, 2017)**

BoA announced that since there was an uneven distribution of members after the last elimination, groups with more than 7 people needed to vote on who stayed. The remaining groups, which had less than 7 people after the elimination, picked from the members who were voted out. All the composers for the concept evaluation songs visited the trainees and they performed in front of the composers. This episode showed the live performances for all five concept evaluations. "Open Up" group received an encore call and afterwards was also declared the winner of the concept evaluation, resulting in at least 20,000 benefit votes for each member, with the person from that group with the most votes, winning 100,000 benefit votes, to be revealed in the next elimination (Kang Dongho and Kang Daniel were the two candidates for 1st place). In addition, the group would also perform on *M! Countdown*.

### Episode 10

**(June 9, 2017)**

The episode opened with the remaining 35 contestants from each company entering the main studio. Amidst the eliminations, the trainees participated in a question relay and a team game event where "Open Up" group emerged as the winner. They were also asked to vote for the top 6 pick for the debut team in the trainees among them, with MMO Entertainment's Yoon Jisung taking 1st place and Kang Daniel, Jung Sewoon, Park Jihoon, Ong Seongwoo, and Park Woojin taking 2nd to 6th place respectively. At the elimination, BoA revealed that only 20 trainees would advance to the final stage. Kang Daniel was announced as the overall winner of the concept evaluation, winning 100,000 benefit votes. With ranks 19 to 3 revealed, Kang Daniel and Park Jihoon were called up as the contenders for 1st place, with Kang Daniel revealed to be 1st in the overall rank as well. The contenders for 20th place were then called up, Choon Entertainment's Kim Yongguk and Cube Entertainment's Lai Guanlin, with Lai Guanlin, whose massive rank drop surprised everyone, survived the elimination.

With the top 20 confirmed, BoA announced the next and final mission – the debut song evaluation. She introduced "Hands on Me" (produced by The Underdogs and Deez) and "Super Hot" (produced by Ryan Jhun) as the final line-up's debut songs. She explained that they will be split into two teams of 10, each team composed of one main vocal, six to seven sub vocals, and two to three rappers. The trainees chose their positions beginning with rank 20 up to 1, with the higher ranked trainees being given the advantage of replacing the lower ranked trainees and bumping them into another position. Due to voting manipulation controversies, 17th place Lim Youngmin had to choose his position first as a penalty. After positions were confirmed, the trainees begun practicing the choreography and memorizing the lyrics in preparation for the final stage.

### Episode 11

**(June 16, 2017)**

The episode began showing the boy's audition tapes, as well as their final confessional interviews. An announcement was then made that viewers would now be able to send SMS votes for one trainee only, which would be added to the online votes in order to determine the final line-up. The debut evaluation started off with the eliminated trainees joining the top 20 trainees for a performance of "It's Me (Pick Me)". BoA then revealed that the debut group would be named Wanna One.

The episode cut to the boys performing in two groups. "Super Hot" group performed first with Ha Sungwoon as the center of the group, followed by "Hands On Me" group with Bae Jinyoung as the center of the group. After the performances, a segment was shown during which trainees watch videos left by their families, some of which surprised the trainees by visiting them in person. The top 20 trainees also performed together a special song titled "Always" as a commemoration of their time throughout the competition.

Voting came to a close, and ranking announcements began. Bae Jinyoung, Hwang Minhyun, Yoon Jisung, Lai Guanlin, Park Woojin, Ong Seongwoo, Kim Jaehwan, and Lee Daehwi were announced as 10th to 3rd place, respectively, confirming them for debut. The top 2 trainees were revealed to be Kang Daniel and Park Jihoon. Kang Daniel once again received the most votes, confirming his position as the center for Wanna One, with Park Jihoon in 2nd place. Finally, 11th place Ha Sungwoon was announced as the final member.

## Controversy

According to Ilgan Sports, the staff of *Produce 101 Season 2* have tried to find a trainee who talked to the media about discrimination of the trainees by grade ranking. Ilgan Sports reported that trainees encountered discrimination, such as level-determined permission to go to the bathroom and eat different meals. Also, there were issues about boys who bullied other students and plagiarism of choreography.

Maroo Entertainment's Han Jongyeon left the show due to a serious bullying and sexual assault scandal. An alleged former classmate accused Jongyoun of making him masturbate in front of his friends, forcing him to fight with his friends, and locking him in the cleaning equipment room.

YGK+ Entertainment's Kwon Hyunbin deleted all of his Instagram posts after they were flooded with negative comments. This was in response to the show's fourth episode, in which Kwon was seen as unmotivated and received harsh criticism from the trainers for a lack of practice, but despite this his team won the live performance battle and he received the highest score out of both teams. During the performance, the trainers commented that the group was "ready to debut". After the performance, Hyunbin stated that "I'm here because I really want to debut as a singer" and "I've put everything on the line for this". Despite having received the most votes, netizens criticized Hyunbin for his "lack of sincerity".

The Vibe Label's Ha Minho allegedly tried to engage in sexual relationships with a minor. Screenshots of Instagram and Facebook conversations between him and a minor fan were posted online, and he was also accused of sexually harassing and bullying an ex-girlfriend in middle school. After discussion with Mnet, he left the show and canceled his contract with his label.

*For information on the voting manipulation controversy see: Mnet Vote Manipulation Investigation*.

## Results

The name of the group was revealed in Episode 11 to be Wanna One.

## Aftermath

* A finale concert was held by the top 35 contestants on July 1st and 2nd, 2017 at the Olympic Hall in Seoul.
* Wanna One released their debut EP 1×1=1 (To Be One) on August 7, 2017 and a repackaged EP 1-1=0 (Nothing Without You) on November 13, 2017.
* Wanna One released their second EP 0+1=1 (I Promise You) on March 19, 2018.
* JBJ debuted. The group was made up of six members who previously were eliminated on the show.

## References

1. ↑ 누가 밖에 말했냐"…'차별 논란' 멤버 추궁한 '프듀2' 제작진
2. ↑ 한종연 측 "'프듀101 시즌2' 자진 하차…반성 시간 갖겠다" (공식입장 전문)
3. ↑ '프듀2' 태도논란 악플에 인스타 사진 전부 삭제한 권현빈
4. ↑ "Produce 101 Season 2" Trainee Ha Min Ho Accused Of Bullying And Sexually Harassing Ex-Girlfriend
5. ↑ Ha Min Ho leaves 'Produce 101' and ends contract with current label