Each group comes out to greet the substantial and frothing masses gathered in the studio. For some reason, Mnet chooses to use the first bars of BLACKPINK's "How You Like That" as walk-up music.

We've talked about hit Chinese reality television show Sisters Who Make Waves 3 already, most for the obvious reasons. But Jessica "听不懂"-ing her way through the show is not the only big story to come out of the premier. Taiwanese idol Cyndi Wang has also blasted back into public consciousness, on the back of a trend of viral videos showing middle-aged men dancing along to her introductory stage from the show.

Episode 9 closes out the third round with the last half of the FANtastic Queendom performances. The show gets to it right away, calling LOONA to the stage for their update of fan favorite, "Butterfly".

Episode 8 basically revels in Korea's pandemic "victory", in quotes only because they're still at around 25k new cases a day, though I'm all ears for discussions on the balance between safety and allowing people to live their lives.

In this episode, we finish the first half of the third round, with some surprising results. After some light reminiscing about how great Meat Party was and how wonderful it …

The Street Woman Fighter crews show up to teach some choreography and save the ratings of Queendom 2, also some ballads are sung

For the most part, Queendom Season 2 has been keeping pace with Season 1, which means we're in for a couple episodes of filler before the next round of competition. Which is totally fine, since seeing the groups interact has been where the majority of the fun has laid this season.

I don't think it's really that much of a spoiler to reveal that God Emperor Hyolyn has, yet again, taken the top slot in this round's rankings. In Episode 4, she continues the trend of making her doubters look foolish, easily out-concepting and out-performing her hoobae cast-mates.

Whether it's AOA's last stand with "Egotistic", Oh My Girl's format-defining rendition of "Destiny" or even the controversial "Sixth Sense" cover by Lovelyz, the Cover Battle round typically produces a healthy portion of each season's most memorable moments. Will Queendom 2 succeed in the same way?

The second episode begins with a montage of each team reflecting on their reasons for being on Queendom 2, fitting snugly with the narratives I described in my review of the first episode. All of which could be fixed by a big dose of viral popularity, which Queendom 2 offers in spades.