EXO Theory Pt. 16 - I Need All 'Ya ~ Cream Soda
What a bop, SOTY, AOTY, I love EXO. The music video has too many fast cuts that it's kinda annoying to analyse, but the fast cuts really reminded me of Love Me Right and Love Shot and some other MVs that have strong dreamlike vibes - so that's fun! Anyway...
<<- First part | <- Previous part | * Masterpost
The first thing to note with this MV is that we have two sets of EXO in the MV. The colourfully dressed EXO:
And the EXO wearing black suits:
In this MV, I actually think the suited members are representing X-EXO and the colourful ones are normal EXO, so I will refer to the suited EXO members as X-EXO from here-on.
I think it's quite obvious that the brightly dressed EXO members in this MV are trapped in a dream state that they are trying to escape, as we have seen in many EXO MVs before.
We get a few different clips of the Bright!EXO members laying like this on the floor, asleep. Very reminiscent of Love Me Right.
In Love Me Right, we watch as the members take on the roles of Alice in Wonderland characters and try to escape the dream that the Red Force has put them into. In Cream Soda, we see the EXO members asleep, but not taking on characters. Instead, they are wondering around in this space that seems to me to be very cube-like.
However, we do also see EXO outside of this space. At the beginning of the MV they arrive at this fancy dinner hall where they immediately wreak havoc and destroy the layout with a skateboard.
Straight after this we see an image of X-EXO partying and a drink falling over, seemingly out of nowhere.
This is signifying to us that these two scenarios must be connected with each other; EXO cause drinks and plates to smash and fall in their scene and a drink also falls in the other X-EXO scene. So bearing that in mind, we move on.
Next, we get this scene of EXO Chen falling onto a bed and it kind of transitions to this image of some jugs and bottles under water.
From here on I think Chen sort of wakes up from the dream and takes the place of X-EXO Chen. This is sort of in keeping with this idea I've had in my theories where Chen was the spy for the Red Force, but since Let Me In, we have seen him repent and come back to the EXO's side. I think in this MV we get some more of this theory.
Once Chen falls into the X-EXO space, we watch a scene of X-EXO Chanyeol and Kyungsoo playing chess, and we see a clip of 'X-EXO' Chen playing cards.
The chess game gets interrupted by somebody putting their drink on the table. I cannot tell who it is, but the significance of chess is still quite interesting. We've seen chess in a few different places, most notably in the Tempo MV where we see Xiumin and Kyungsoo play and their chess game creates the cube which the EXO members reenter to try and solve the puzzle to escape. The cube is a tool of the Red Force, even if the members do need it in the Tempo MV. We also see chess in Obsession where we watch EXO and X-EXO Chen play against each other.
Chess is clearly used as a symbol of the Red Force, we even see chess pieces in one opening VCR to the MAMA 2016 performance which was heavily lore based.
The card game that Chen is playing is significant in the overall storyline for Cream Soda because we get the reveal later in the MV that Chen actually played the Joker card. Just before this, we get a clip of Xiumin dropping a drop of his glass and it shows us the members aimlessly wandering in the cube like space again.
Chen then sets the Joker card on fire and we see the EXO members from just seconds before begin to celebrate.
Right after this we then see this image of a wine glass smashing to the ground - which again, is signifying this idea that as the EXO members win this round, the X-EXO members lose (as the wine glass is definitely from the X-EXO member scenes).
Not long after this we also see time go backwards; at the beginning of the MV we get a close up of someone's watch which ticks forward a second. At the end of the MV, it ticks back a second again, resetting time.
We then also see Baekhyun and Kyungsoo leave the setting looking very pleased with themselves.
Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are shown in another few clips together as well, so clearly the two of them were up to something in this MV.
This duo actually really reminded me of the two of them in The War comics - as the two of them are the ones monitoring the other members and giving them instructions in that comic. I wonder if they were the ones that told Jongdae to go over to the X-EXO side and be the spy for them in this MV. As Chen seems to be the reason that they have got free and escaped from this scenario at least. We don't actually see any of the other members escape though, so maybe only Kyungsoo and Baekhyun did in this one. Hmm..
It could also be that the two were responsible for telling Suho to talk to the girl we see in the MV as well. Before I have been over how I think girls are significant in the EXO MVs - they are almost always a representative of the Red Force.
I wonder if Suho is distracting the Red Force from noticing that Chen has replaced X-EXO Chen in the other universe. We do see cream running down the car and blocking all the windows, blocking her sight, so that could make sense.
As I said before, we end the MV with the watch ticking backwards, in line with the Let Me In and Hear Me Out MVs where time was a pivotal theme of the MVs. I think it's less so here, but I do think it's still important that time was reversed back to the beginning of the MV, but now with Kyungsoo and Baekhyun freed. It could be that we will now get a continuation of that damn The War comic as it's driving me mad we still have nothing??? It's been 6 years SM c'mon!
Anyway we mustn't ignore the most important part of the MV:
These amazing outfits and the amazing dance. Not at all lore significant, but it did need to be noted.
Tbh this video really isn't lore heavy - it's mostly aesthetics and dancing. Not complaining, but not much to really read into imo. Hope it was somewhat interesting anyway! See you in 3 years when EXO has another comeback lmao 😭😭😭😭😭😭
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