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9.1.6 - Podcast Review of Season 1, Episode 6 of Kingdom

Today, we’ll be discussing Episode 6 of Season 1 of Kingdom, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryon as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

  • How Season 2 of Kingdom dropped at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic - crazy!

  • The power struggle between Chief State Councilor Cho Hak ju and the Queen Consort.

  • How Lord Ahn put himself squarely in the Crown Prince’s camp when his archers shot the palace guards.

  • How the Crown Prince seems like a new person. He’s determined and confident when he strikes down the chief palace guard.

  • Who might be the traitor among the Crown Prince’s companions?

  • The thousands of people amassing at the southern gates of Sangju. The magistrate doesn’t want to let them in, but the Crown Prince decides that the magistrate is NOT the person to make that decision.

  • The Crown Prince’s plan to protect Sangju by taking advantage of the bodies of water surrounding Sangju.

  • The Queen’s evil plan to have a baby boy by taking pregnant, peasant women and waiting for one of them to have a boy. The queen is not pregnant after all!

  • Joanna’s theory that the queen might have had a miscarriage or gotten her period the day she asked her head court lady to burn her clothes because they had blood on them.

  • How the queen punished the court lady who gossiped about her clothing.

  • Why Cho Hak ju left Hanyang to go to Mungyeong Saejae, why he’s traveling with a zombie, and what his plans might be regarding the Crown Prince.

  • How Seo bi finds the resurrection plant in the Frozen Valley close to Sangju. But while in the cave, she and Cheo Beom Pal are trapped by zombies, who have come out during the day! Seo bi realizes that it's the temperature, not the day and night, that controls when the zombies come out.

  • How the Crown Prince and the men have an uneventful evening, but come morning, when they think they have a day’s respite, they realize that a zombie horde is coming!

  • The versatile Kim Sung-kyu, the actor who plays Young shin

Next week, we will start Season 2 of Kingdom!

References


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K Drama Chat is a weekly podcast where we take one Korean (K) Drama each season and and recap and analyze each episode. K Drama Chat is available on Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotifyAmazon Music, and Pandora.

Comments

  1. What a finale! I am so glad that we are not in 2019 and I don't need to wait a year for season 2. 😁 I'll admit, it's getting harder and harder to stay up to date with the podcast releases, and not just keep on watching! My husband, Ryan, keeps me in check. We're having lots of fun - which is not something I thought I would say about a zombie show! 😁

    About the episode, I also wondered if the queen had a miscarriage when we saw the blood on her toe... something about how it was shot, but then it is weird that it would have been only on the toe and not down her leg. So I'm not sure.... we'll have to keep watching. Am I the only one thinking that as the zombies grow stronger (both in numbers and fear factor) that the villains, mainly the queen here, is also growing in just complete bold and scary ways. Like wow, talk about raising the next villain! At this moment, I'm more scared of the queen than her father.... i'm anxious to see how this plays out. There's also an added element for me in the queen being so horrible, because she is called the mother of the nation and yet is a horrible person to the people, such a break of trust and completely shattering my own mama bear heart!!! I am so scared for that little baby boy she plans to adopt. Ouf! 💔

    Admittedly, as great as this show is, I would have a hard time watching this alone, so thank again for what you do and have a wonderful week! I'm ready for the next episode! 😄

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    Replies
    1. Béatrice, thank you for your comments! So glad you are enjoying watching Kingdom, and thanks for watching along with us. Although Sung Hee and I watched Kingdom several years ago, we have forgotten a lot of the show elements, so it's been fun to be reminded of them. Plus, there are so many details that I completely missed last time!

      We are wondering the same thing about the blood on the queen's shoes and what it all meant. In the end, it might simply be that she got her shoes dirty from her father munching on a court lady.

      We agree with you that the Queen is growing in the scariness factor. Now she's gone rogue and is not involving her father in her plots. Wow. She and her father are so scary!

      Thank you for watching!

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  2. Well, this week’s podcast was a bit different. No discussion of Aristotle’s Poetics and the six elements of drama?! What about Bharats’s Natya Shastra and a discussion of Rasa? Perhaps a deep dive into Zeami Motokiyo’s treatise on Noh? Not even an exploration of Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis and the development of verisimilitude from the classical to the modern era? What has this podcast become!?

    Although we did get an in-depth meteorological explanation regarding the thermodynamics at play as the sun rose and so did the zombies. So there’s that….

    Even though this show is not my favorite, I would have been absolutely livid if I watched this season one “finale” and I had to wait over a year for season two! Instead I am just livid that there is a season two…. JK!

    The Queen’s non-pregnancy reveal was one of the least surprising things I’ve ever seen in a K Drama. If she is concealing this from her father, that is at least somewhat interesting. And frankly, good for her! I think she realizes that without a future king in her womb, her life is just as worthless as the Crown Prince’s. Girl’s gotta survive! Speaking of surviving, that court lady best run because she is about to become a zombie happy meal!

    Zombies who are awake during the day as long as its cold enough does seem like an unfortunate game changer! I was glad the soldiers were able to eat throughout the night, but would it have killed the Crown Prince to arrange for a few beef pancakes for Kim Sang-ho!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Also, you failed to fully acknowledge K Drama element 29 in this week's episode!

      Delete
    2. Malcolm, thanks, as always, for your comments! Sorry to get so academic in previous episodes! I think we're done with that line of discussion! Haha!

      Don't you think the Queen Consort is an evil genius? She's nobody without a son, and she's managing to be just as wily and evil as her father. She seems to have no feeling at all for the common people she's killing!

      Yes, zombies during the day are an unfortunate game changer, especially because it's winter and it's gonna be cold for a while. I agree that the Crown Prince should have served beef pancakes to his men, but I think they were short on beef. Darn famine! Potatoes had to do!

      And as for K Drama element 29, are you referring to the Quirky Best Friend? You are right! We've been neglecting Mu Yeong as the quirky best friend! Although the situation they find themselves in is quite horrifying and there's no room for quirkiness right now. Or did we miss an abs scene?

      And hey, start thinking about your recommendations for Season 10. It will be here sooner rather than later! Thank you for sticking with us this season!

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  3. I'm just saying I don't think the Queen is as evil as her father. I doubt this was fully her plan. Do you really think she knew the King could be kept alive as a zombie!? Also, I don't think she is the one feeding people to the zombie king! In fact, has she even seen the king as a zombie? I don't recall.

    Seems like this is all her fathers doing and she is just doing what she needs to to survive. What is she supposed to do? Tell everyone she's no longer pregnant? (I assume at some point she was, although, who knows). How do you think that would go over with dear old dad?! TBH, I surprised her father is not actively monitoring her pregnancy in some manner. My understanding is there was not a lot of bodily autonomy granted to the women entrusted with birthing the next heir.

    But perhaps I am just giving her a pass because I saw her fabulous abs - K Drama Element No. 29. Don't you have these memorized by now?!?!?

    Ok, I'm off to watch episode 1 of season 2. If only I had some beef pancakes to snack on....

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    Replies
    1. Hi Malcolm, thanks for pointing out the ab scene, especially since we finally had a female one at that. My thought is that seeing how nicely flat her stomach was, she was never pregnant at all, but faked the whole thing, knowing how vital it is for the Haewon Cho clan, but more importantly her, to produce a male heir.

      She in fact is fully aware of the King being fed young court ladies. We had that scene where she is watching the King munching on a poor girl and she notices the blood on her sock. Maybe that is not her idea, but her father's doing, but she rises to evil deeds with her activities at her private residence at Naeseonjae.

      Do give us ideas for the next season of Kdrama Chat. It will soon be upon us before we know it!

      Delete
  4. Personally I wasn't happy with the twist that zombies react to cold weather. I felt it was contrived, and there just to have a twist.
    I was much more appreciative about the Queen's (no) pregenancy.I still think it is almost impossible to pull this out when you do not have the ultimate power, but Ok, it is a drama :)

    I also like to say that I loved your venture into academia. I would even go further and say these tangents in all other fields is what make your podcast the best imo. There are tons of people who review the events of episodes, but your podcast branches out into history, customs, geography, medicines, and all sorts of other fields.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I completely agree with you about kdrama chat. I've tried several kdrama podcasts and I always come back to this one for many reasons, including what you mention in your comment. Such a wonderful community that our k-drama ladies have created here!

      I also agree that the queen not being pregnant was a big reveal. About the zombies and the cold, I definitely didn't see it coming and it changes things in a big way... so I think I like that twist, but we'll see where it goes! Personally, I don't need so many zombie chomping on limbs scenes haha we could just move forward with the events. It's taking a long time to know everyone's back story - but that's also part of why I keep watching!

      Delete
    2. Seven Seas and Béatrice, thank you for your nice comments! it warms our hearts to hear that you enjoy our discussions about history, culture, medicine, language, and so much more! The many layers of K Dramas are why we podcast! It's so interesting to peel back the layers and try to figure out what the writers were thinking, the many elements they incorporated into the story, and the cultural nuances that maybe most Korean would naturally know, but that we have to research to appreciate!

      Delete

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