Kingdom (South Korean TV series) – Wikipedia

No.
overall No. in
season Title Directed by Written by Original release date It has been ten days since the King of Joseon became deathly ill from smallpox. The only ones allowed to see him in his palace at the capital Hanyang are the Chief State Councillor Lord Cho Hak-ju, leader of the Haewon Cho clan, and his daughter the Queen Consort Cho, who is pregnant with the King’s child. Seizing power, the Haewon Cho arrest and torture 89 scholars implicated in a treasonous plot to depose the King and replace him with his son, the Crown Prince Lee Chang, who is the child of the King with a concubine and thus a less legitimate heir than the unborn child of the Queen Consort. The ringleader of the conspiracy, Lee Chang himself, becomes suspicious of his father’s condition and sneaks into the palace to investigate, but is caught by Cho Beom-il, the son of Lord Cho Hak-ju and brother of the Queen Consort who is a commander of the Royal Army. Lee Chang decides to flee the palace with only his trusted bodyguard Mu-yeong to track down the royal physician, and Beom-il and a platoon of soldiers are dispatched to find and arrest him. Meanwhile at the city of Dongnae, ill patients are overflowing Jiyulheon, Lee Seung-hui’s clinic and there is not enough food to feed them all. The royal physician returns, with the corpse of his assistant Dan-i who was killed by an unseen monster in the king’s palace. One of the patients, Yeong-shin, uses Dan-i’s flesh in a stew to feed the patients and is discovered by Seo-bi, Seung-hui’s assistant. All of the patients die, but are soon resurrected into flesh-eating monsters. 2 2 “Episode 2” Kim Seong-hun Kim Eun-hee January 25, 2019( ) Lee Chang and Mu-yeong arrive at Jiyulheon only to find it barricaded and seemingly abandoned. Investigating, they discover the corpses of the patients, which are then brought to Dongnae for autopsy and funeral rites. Lee Chang and Mu-yeong learn from an herbalist in the city that Seo-bi survived the incident and track her to the Frozen Valley, a region home to what is called the resurrection plant. Meanwhile, Yeong-shin returns to Jiyulheon to find the corpses missing and hurries to Dongnae, where he is arrested by the local magistrate, Cho Beom-pal, another member of the Haewon Cho clan, under suspicion of killing the patients. Seo-bi explains to Lee Chang and Mu-yeong that the patients transformed into monstrous cannibals that apparently cannot be killed and are nocturnal, becoming active when the sun sets. The royal physician, Lee Seung-hui kept a journal documenting these changes and the events at the royal palace, which could be used as evidence. Lee Chang returns to Jiyulheon to find this journal, while Mu-yeong and Seo-bei travel to Dongnae to warn the locals. Instead, Seo-bi is arrested and imprisoned with Yeong-shin. When night falls, the corpses of the patients awaken and attack. At Jiyulheon, Lee Chang is confronted by Beom-il, and the two duel. Their fight is interrupted when the soldiers discover the corpse of Seung-hui, who attacks and infects Beom-il. Lee Chang personally witnesses the transformation and when the zombie Beom-il attacks, Chang decapitates the creature. 3 3 “Episode 3” Kim Seong-hun Kim Eun-hee January 25, 2019

 ( )

The zombified patients attack the living inhabitants of Dongnae and the surrounding areas, spreading the plague. Seo-bi and the magistrate, Cho Beom-pal, are trapped within a locked cell in the dungeon, while Yeong-shin, Lee Chang, Mu-yeong, and other survivors take refuge throughout the night. When the sun rises, the zombies become dormant, stuffing themselves into confined spaces to avoid sunlight. Revealing himself, Lee Chang assumes command of the local soldiers and orders the zombies to be burned and an immediate quarantine of Dongnae to take place, but there are not enough surviving soldiers to carry out his orders. Reading Seung-hui’s journals, Lee Chang learns that after the king perished from smallpox, Lord Cho Hak-ju ordered the royal physician to treat the corpse with the resurrection plant. However, when the king bit Seung-hui’s assistant Dan-i, he merely fell ill and died instead of transforming into a zombie. Seo-bi attempted to find another of the resurrection plant in the Frozen Valley, but without the plant a cure for the zombification cannot be found. Vowing revenge against the Cho clan, Lee Chang resolves to travel to the region of Sangju to meet with Lord Ahn Hyeon, a governor and retired war hero with ties to the royal family. At the same time, the Chief Scholar Kim Sun, part of the conspiracy to depose the king, becomes suspicious of the king’s disappearance and also attempts to contact Lord Hyeon. At Dongnae, Beom-pal and the other aristocrats take the only remaining boat and flee, abandoning the rest of the survivors. 4 3 “Episode 4” Kim Seong-hun Kim Eun-hee January 25, 2019

 ( )

On the aristocrat’s boat making its way to Sangju, a noblewoman who had secretly stolen away her zombified son releases the creature, causing the nobles on ship to be overrun. At Dongnae, Lee Chang assumes command of the abandoned peasants and gives the order to seek refuge at Jiyulheon for the night. When the sun sets, an overwhelming number of zombies awaken and lay siege to the clinic. Barricading the facility, the survivors hold off the zombies until dawn. The next day, a royal army arrives declaring the arrest of Lee Chang, but was actually sent by Lord Hak-ju seeking revenge for the death of his son Beom-il. The royal soldiers begin to indiscriminately massacre the survivors within the clinic, but are fooled by Mu-yeong and led away from the clinic while the civilians escape. Now fugitives, Lee Chang, Mu-yeong, Yeong-shin, and Seo-bi begin their travel to Sangju. In Hanyang, the Chief Scholar Kim Sun becomes alarmed when signal fires in the south are lit and demands to speak with the king. Lord Hak-ju allows the scholar and several ministers to witness the zombified king, then reveals his knowledge of Sun’s involvement in the conspiracy, ordering him to be arrested and interrogated. Warning his daughter the Queen Consort not to get in his way, Lord Hak-ju vows to kill Lee Chang and any remaining threat to the Haewon Cho clan. 5 5 “Episode 5” Kim Seong-hun Kim Eun-hee January 25, 2019

 ( )

On the road, Lee Chang, Mu-yeong, Yeong-shin, and Seo-bi are unexpectedly met by Cho Beom-pal, who escaped from the cargo ship alive, and they travel to Sangju together. Along the way, they encounter a village that looted the aristocrat’s boat when it ran aground, and buried the inactive zombies in a shallow grave. They go to the burial site and are attacked by the awakening zombies, but are rescued by Lord Ahn Hyeon, who is revealed to be the childhood tutor of the Crown Prince. Lord Hyeon takes the fugitives to Sangju and gives them refuge, but deflects when Lee Chang requests his aid against the Haewon Cho clan. In Hanyang, Lord Hak-ju conducts experiments to learn the mechanism of the disease by feeding the flesh of the infected to healthy prisoners. Hak-ju also gathers a number of pregnant women and widows within the palace, including Mu-yeong’s wife. He then places his daughter on the throne, naming the Queen Consort Cho the Queen Regent. As her first decree, the royal Five Armies arrive at the gates at Sangju and two other locations, closing them and sealing off the region of Gyeongsang from the rest of the peninsula to contain the disease. 6 6 “Episode 6” Kim Seong-hun Kim Eun-hee January 25, 2019( ) At Sangju, a platoon of royal soldiers attempts to arrest Lee Chang. Instead, Lord Hyeon has them all executed, and warns Chang that one of his group is a mole for Lord Hak-ju. With Lord Hyeon’s backing, Lee Chang assumes command of Sangju, and draws up a battle plan to fight the infected by fortifying defensible locations surrounded by water, which they know is a weakness of the zombies. Seo-bi learns that a region nearby to Sangju is named the Frozen Valley, and finds samples of the resurrection plant there. In Hanyang, the pregnant women gathered by the Cho family begin to give birth, as it is revealed that the Queen Regent is not actually with child. The soldiers in Sangju prepare for the zombie attacks on their fortifications, but night passes without incident. As they prepare to leave and rest for the day, the infected begin to arrive, and Seo-bi realizes that the zombies are not actually nocturnal, and their activity was determined by temperature instead. A massive horde then attacks Sangju.