Made in Korea Season 2 Ending Explained & Analysis

Why Baek Kitae’s final gunshot matters, what “The world has changed” really means, and the Korean history behind Hwang Daesik’s rise. Full spoilers.

To understand the ending of Made in Korea Season 2, you have to look beyond the final confrontation between Baek Kitae and Jang Geonyoung. Behind their fight, the era of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency is collapsing, while the Joint Investigation Headquarters and the military are becoming the new centers of power. Hwang Daesik stands right in the middle of that shift.

This article contains full spoilers for Made in Korea Season 2.

Director Woo Min-ho has now confirmed that Baek Kitae is alive and will return in Season 3. That settles the question of his survival, while the ending still leaves much to explain. Why did Kihyun point a gun at his own brother, what does Geonyoung mean when he says, “The world has changed,” and why does Kitae sit in the president’s chair and say “Imja” in the final scene?

Some of those details are immediately recognizable to Korean viewers but far less obvious if you did not grow up with this period of Korean history. So before getting into the ending itself, a little political background helps.

The Political Structure Behind Made in Korea

Who Was Park Chung Hee, the President Killed in Episode 1?

Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, and Syngman Rhee became the first president of the Republic of Korea in 1948. After years of increasingly authoritarian rule and the fraudulent March 15 election of 1960, nationwide protests led to the April Revolution. Rhee resigned on April 26.

A new democratic government followed, but it did not last long. On May 16, 1961, soldiers led by Major General Park Chung Hee carried out a military coup and seized key institutions in Seoul. Park remained at the center of South Korean politics until 1979. His 18-year dominance ended suddenly on October 26, 1979, when KCIA Director Kim Jae-gyu shot and killed Park and presidential security chief Cha Ji-chul.

Made in Korea Season 2 begins right at that moment.

What Is the Difference Between the KCIA and the Joint Investigation Headquarters?

The organization Kitae belongs to is the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, or KCIA. In Korean, people often shortened its name to Jungjeong. Created in 1961, it had enormous power. It collected intelligence at home and abroad, investigated national security cases, and could coordinate or supervise intelligence activities across other government bodies, including the military.

Then the director of the KCIA himself killed the president.

The day after the assassination, the Joint Investigation Headquarters was established under the martial-law command to investigate the case. Its chief was Chun Doo-hwan, then commander of the Defense Security Command. The investigation gave his organization extraordinary influence at precisely the moment when the KCIA had been thrown into crisis.

That makes the power shift in Season 2 fairly simple to understand: Kitae’s KCIA represents the old power that is fading away, while the Joint Investigation Headquarters that Geonyoung joins represents the power now rising in its place.

In real history, the KCIA was badly weakened after its own director assassinated the president. Kitae’s ability to keep maneuvering at the center of events is the drama’s invention.

Did Korea’s Political Leadership Really Sell Meth to Japan?

There is a real historical background behind the drug trade in the series. Methamphetamine produced in Korea—commonly called hiroppong in Korean—was smuggled into Japan, and there were also cases in which officials responsible for drug enforcement were bribed by manufacturers.

But there is no documented evidence that South Korea’s top political leadership itself operated a state-backed meth business in Japan to finance political activities.

The more interesting connection is Kitae’s idea of “patriotism.” One notorious Korean meth producer, Lee Hwang-sun, was reported to have talked about selling meth to Japan as though it were an export business and even a patriotic act. So the huge state-linked drug operation in Made in Korea is fictional, but the bizarre logic that “selling drugs to Japan is patriotic” did not come entirely from nowhere.

Is Hwang Daesik a Real Person?

Hwang Daesik is fictional. But his position is very difficult to separate from the real Chun Doo-hwan.

Hwang is commander of the Defense Security Command. After the president’s assassination, he takes control of the Joint Investigation Headquarters and begins putting pressure on the KCIA. Chun Doo-hwan held those same two key positions in 1979.

That does not mean Chun already controlled the entire military immediately after October 26. Army Chief of Staff Chung Seung-hwa was also the martial-law commander and remained above him in the formal military chain of command. On December 12, 1979, forces led by Chun detained Chung and other senior commanders and began taking control of the military.

So Hwang at the end of Season 2 is already extremely powerful, but he has not yet completed his takeover.

Kitae survives, but his place in the old political order has collapsed. Hwang’s power is still growing, and the history he evokes is only beginning. That is why knowing Kitae is alive does not make the ending any less troubling.

I covered what happened next in more detail here:

Made in Korea Season 2: What Happens to Hwang Daesik? The Real History Behind His Rise and Fall

Season 1 Was One Giant Setup for Season 2

In Season 1, Geonyoung tries to bring down both Kitae and Cheon Seokjung, and he fails. Kitae understands the mechanics of power far better than Geonyoung does. He even turns Pyo Haksoo, whom Geonyoung had recruited, back against him. It is a fight between a man who believes in the law and a man who understands the people who control it.

Season 2 reverses that structure. Kitae sets traps again, but Geonyoung now knows how he thinks. He gets to the bomb at Cheonungak first, anticipates the second assassination attempt, and finally uses the person Kitae cares about most—his younger brother Kihyun.

In Season 1, Kitae defeats Geonyoung using Kitae’s methods. In Season 2, Geonyoung learns those methods and uses them to defeat Kitae.

In that sense, Geonyoung may have become the Kitae of the new era.

Why Does Kihyun Shoot Kitae?

Kihyun has spent most of his life owing his brother a debt he can never repay. When he killed another student in high school, Kitae covered up the incident. His brother saved his future that day, but from then on, Kihyun could never fully escape him.

By the finale, the situation has changed. Hwang orders Kihyun to kill his brother, and letting Kitae escape could put not only Kihyun but also Soyoung and Minju in danger. He is forced to choose between his brother and the family that remains.

He still understands his brother. But he has decided this is the only way he and the rest of his family can survive. That is why Kihyun is crying when he raises the gun, and it is also the clearest possible sign that he has crossed from Kitae’s side to Hwang Daesik’s.

Did Baek Kitae Really Die?

When I first watched the finale, I interpreted the scene as Kitae’s death. Kihyun points a gun at his brother and a shot is heard, but the drama never shows Kitae being hit or shows his body afterward. Director Woo Min-ho has since settled the question in a post-finale interview: Kitae is definitely alive.

Woo said Kitae was written to die in the original script, but he changed the ending during production. His explanation is that Kitae disappears from that era, with the gunshot marking the end of the 1970s. That confirms my reading of the political shift: the KCIA’s power collapses, while the military force represented by Hwang Daesik begins to rise.

The man survives. His era does not.

Kitae’s survival does not undo his defeat. His sister has become addicted to the drugs their family helped sell, and the younger brother he spent his life protecting now points a gun at him. He survives, but his beliefs about family and patriotism collapse along with the political world that gave him power.

This is no longer an open ending that merely leaves his survival possible. Woo said Season 3 was already in preparation while Season 2 was being made, and that Kitae will return. The question now is what kind of Korea he will return to, and what kind of man he will be when he does.

Who Is the Villain?

Almost every major character in this drama becomes a villain in one way or another. Kitae obviously does. Kihyun is not free of responsibility either. He finally points a gun at his brother in the name of protecting his family, but that decision also means choosing the side of Hwang Daesik, the most dangerous figure of the next era.

Geonyoung is no longer the man we met in Season 1. He accepts torture and uses political power when it serves his purpose. By the end, even his own words about giving his patriotism to power suggest that the justice he has pursued is no longer as clean as he once believed it was.

Oh Yejin comes closest to remaining on the right side. She criticizes the torture and repeatedly questions what Geonyoung is becoming. But she remains inside a system where illegal investigations and torture are taking place, and ultimately she does not stop them.

The most dangerous character, though, is Hwang Daesik. Kitae commits terrible acts while calling them patriotism. Hwang is different. He talks about fighting corruption, justice, service to the country, and rewarding men who have served the nation, while quietly deciding for himself who will be punished and who will survive.

At the end of Season 2, Hwang walks away surrounded by men in military uniforms, with Pyo Haksoo following behind them. It is a small scene, but it tells you exactly where the next source of power—and the next source of evil—is going to be.

As a Korean, I found that image chilling.

“The World Has Changed” — What the Drama Is Really Saying

When Geonyoung tells Kitae “The world has changed,” the line carries more weight than a simple declaration of victory.

Kitae belongs to an era in which he can convince himself that economic development, national security, and patriotism justify almost anything. He sells drugs, kills people, and manipulates state power while continuing to believe that he is serving his country. Even at the end, he still sees himself as a patriot.

But the end of Kitae’s era does not mean a better era is about to begin. The real government associated with the historical figure Hwang evokes later adopted “Realizing a Just Society” as one of its official national policy goals. The irony is hard to miss: the language of justice existed alongside authoritarian rule and the suppression of pro-democracy movements.

That is why I read Made in Korea Season 2 this way: an era in which a villain justifies everything in the name of development and patriotism ends, and an even more dangerous villain begins taking power in the name of justice.

Woo Min-ho’s description of the final shot as the sound that closes the 1970s fits that reading. After December 12, the new military leadership seized control of the armed forces, and military rule continued through Chun Doo-hwan and then Roh Tae-woo. Kim Young-sam’s government took office in 1993.

More than thirteen years separate Kitae’s 1979 ending from that point.

Why Doesn’t Kitae Kill Geonyoung?

Kitae does not think of himself as evil. He genuinely believes that he is a patriot, and he holds on to that belief almost to the very end. By the time he has Geonyoung at gunpoint, however, killing him would no longer change anything.

Cheon Seokjung is gone. Kitae has lost his organization. Soyoung has fallen apart, and Kihyun has left him. Killing one more man cannot bring his world back.

Kitae’s decision to spare Geonyoung reads less like mercy and more like Kitae realizing that killing one more man would change nothing.

There is also a reason Geonyoung needs to survive within the structure of the drama. Kitae disappears from the political order he once dominated, but power does not. Geonyoung remains to see Hwang Daesik—the man whose power he used to destroy Kitae—become the center of the next order.

With Kitae returning in Season 3, I can no longer read this scene as the final conclusion of their relationship. In Season 1, Kitae defeated Geonyoung; in Season 2, Geonyoung learned his methods and used them to bring him down. Both men survive, leaving open how their conflict might continue.

Who Is Madam Shin?

Even the official character introduction describes Madam Shin only as a “mysterious figure.” She moves freely around the president, speaks as though she knows what lies ahead, and is treated almost like a spiritual adviser. It is natural to read her as some kind of shamanic figure.

But as a Korean, I found her strangely unfamiliar. She does not look or behave like the Korean shamans most of us would immediately recognize. She speaks Japanese, wears clothing with a distinctly Japanese feel, and even the ritual scenes do not look much like traditional Korean shamanic rites.

That could simply be a production-design choice. To me, though, it looks as if the drama is visually drawing on remnants of the Japanese colonial period that were still present in Korean society at the time.

Park Chung Hee himself was fluent in Japanese and received military education in institutions tied to imperial Japan and Manchukuo. He attended the Manchukuo military academy and later trained at the Japanese Military Academy; records also show that he remained personally connected to former Japanese instructors after becoming Korea’s leader. There are also accounts of him singing Japanese military songs at drinking gatherings.

Madam Shin doesn’t seem meant to reproduce any one real historical person. She works more as a device showing that even people at the very top of political power grow anxious when confronted with their own future.

The president seeks her out. Jang Mujin, the army chief of staff, meets her. Kitae listens to her.

These men may believe they control the country, but they still cannot see what is coming for themselves.

What Does Kitae’s Final Word “Imja” Mean?

In the final scene of Season 2, Kitae sits down in the president’s chair, puts a cigarette in his mouth, and says one word.

“Imja.”

Imja is an old-fashioned way of addressing someone, often with a degree of familiarity or from a socially senior position. It is rarely heard in ordinary Korean conversation today.

It is also a form of address Park Chung Hee was known to use with officials around him.

That makes Kitae’s choice of word important. Sitting in the president’s chair and saying imja, he is imitating Park Chung Hee.

Kitae spends the entire story insisting that he acts for the country rather than for money or power. The final scene leaves us with a different question.

Did Baek Kitae really want to serve the president for the sake of his country? Or did he ultimately want to sit in that chair himself?

Basic Info

Director: Woo Min-ho
Writers: Park Eun-gyo, Park Joon-suk
Cast: Hyun Bin, Jung Woo-sung, Woo Do-hwan, Jang Hye-jin, Heo Jung-do
Episodes: 6
Release: September 9–23, 2026, with two episodes weekly, on Disney+ and Hulu