Season 2, Episode 6

Season	Episode	Overall
2	6	12

Air date

March 13, 2020

Writer

Kim Eun-hee

Director

Park In-je

Episode guide
← Previous	Next →
Episode 5	Ashin of the North

Episode 6 is the sixth and final episode of season 2 of the Korean Netflix original television series Kingdom, and the twelfth episode overall.

Synopsis[]

With the palace painted red with blood, Prince Chang is forced to pursue a risky strategy. Seo-bi takes the baby and hides.

Plot summary[]

Night falls on the palace, and the survivors of the outbreak remain trapped by the hordes of infected. Seo-bi is separated from the rest of the group in the throne room with the Queen and a few of the prince's guards. The infected soon break in and quickly dispatch the guards before swarming and killing the Queen. Seo-bi manages to keep them at bay with a makeshift torch. She notices that the monsters ignored the Queen's baby, which is crying on the floor. She quickly grabs the baby, then escapes by wrapping herself in a burning cloak and barricades herself in a storeroom.

Meanwhile, Min Chi-rok counsels Prince Lee Chang to escape. When the prince hesitates, Min argues that someone must survive to reveal the truth of what happened. Min suggests that the prince escape through the back garden, which inspires a plan. He orders some of his soldiers to drip their blood from the roofs to lure all infected to chase them. Several of them fall off the tiles to their death, and some monsters eventually find their way to the roofs, where the prince is forced to fight them. The departure of the infected saves Seo-bi, who realizes that the infant was bitten.

Having left the palace, the prince and his soldiers flee through the back garden to a frozen lake with the infected close behind them. They stop in the middle, where there is an island with a small pavilion that they set on fire for light. Determined to stop the plague once and for all, the prince and his troops prepare to fight the infected. As the monsters begin to charge across the ice, the prince has his gunmen shoot the ice in an attempt to break it. However, the sheer numbers soon overwhelm the princes' forces and the battle becomes a desperate fight for survival. As his soldiers go down one by one, the prince continues to try and break the ice; he eventually succeeds by using the body weight of a particularly large monster to smash through the surface. The ice begins to break, drowning all the infected and saving the survivors who were bitten by the monsters.

As morning breaks, the prince exits the palace, where he meets former chief scholar Kim Sun and General Lee Gang-yun, who greet him as the new king. He orders General Lee to send all soldiers to the palace, where they clean up the corpses. He then meets with Kim Sun, who is shocked to find out that essentially the entire government was killed overnight. Min Chi-rok enters and reports that the Queen's alleged son has not been located; Kim Sun repeats that the child must be found and killed, or remaining supporters of the Haewon Cho clan will use him revolt against Prince Chang. Yeong-shin finds Seo-bi's medical purse outside the Royal Shrine, and reports this to Chang. The prince finds Seo-bi hiding inside with the child, and is shocked to see that the infant has been bitten. Seo-bi swears that the child will not turn into a monster, and begs the prince to spare his life. Nevertheless, Chang counters that as long as the child lives, he will be a threat.

Seven years later, the plague is a distant memory and Joseon has returned to normal under a new king, Lee Yeom. After performing an ancestral rite, the young King meets with Won Yu, returned from exile. The King wants to know more about his family, who supposedly all died of the plague seven years ago; however, Won Yu replies that the records of that time were sealed. He agrees with Cho Beom-pal, newly promoted to the position of Second State Councilor, that the King can never know the truth. As the King returns to his quarters he passes his mother, who has entered service as a court lady.

On his way home, Beom-pal runs into Yeong-shin on the streets of Hanyang, and invites his old friend in for drinks. Yeong-shin congratulates Beom-pal on his good governance, and asks about the health of the King. Beom-pal says that he has raised him well, per Chang's request. In a flashback, it is revealed that Chang decided that for that sake of the kingdom, it would be better to pretend that Chang had died and to let an innocent baby ascend the throne. He swears his supporters to ensure the young prince is raised well, and to hide the truth about what happened.

Back in the present, Beom-pal wonders what became of the Prince and Seo-bi. Yeong-shin gives him Seo-bi's medical journal, which details the infection and how to cure it. Beom-pal is surprised that Seo-bi is still researching the disease, but Yeong-shin reveals that in their travels they found the resurrection plant growing throughout the country. In one place, a village elder reveals that the villagers planted it. The elder revealed that his son bought the seeds near the Yalu River on the Chinese border, where he was told that the plant could raise the dead. Beom-pal is shocked that someone would sell something so dangerous, and Yeong-shin adds that whoever sold the seeds also told the villagers exactly how to use the plants. Seo-bi is convinced that there is more to the resurrection plant than meets the eye. Chang asked Yeong-shin to return to the capital to warn Beom-pal and deliver the journal in case of another outbreak. Yeong-shin tells Beom-pal that Chang has gone to the far north to track down the person selling the seeds.

Far away from the capital in Hamgyeong Province, Chang and Seo-bi enter an abandoned village, where Seo-bi finds a sprig of resurrection plant. The group is surprised by an infected girl with bells on her ankle, whom Chang easily dispatches; more bells, however, soon begin to sound from the forest. In a nearby barn, a mysterious woman oversees experiments with caged infected. And back in Hanyang, parasitic worms slither through the young King's body as he sleeps.