October 26 1979 – K-wave Insider

Soldiers firing in heavy rain surrounded by key scenes from Made in Korea Season 2 Episodes 1–2

Made in Korea Season 2 Episodes 1-2: What Really Happened on October 26

September 10, 2026September 10, 2026 by KwaveInsider, posted in K-Drama & Film

The president is killed and Baek Kitae becomes acting KCIA director. What actually happened in history, and what the drama changed. Full spoilers.

Season 1 looked good but often felt like separate incidents forced together. Season 2 is different. There’s real pleasure in watching these villains maneuver inside a history whose ending we already know.

Everything from here is a full spoiler for episodes 1 and 2.

Nine Years Later, Kitae Meets the President as KCIA Deputy Director

Baek Kitae, now a deputy director of the KCIA, meets the president privately. The president tells him that KCIA director Cho has been looking at him differently lately, and to keep an eye on the man.

Mass protests break out in Busan and Masan. Three men meet to respond: chief presidential secretary Cheon Seok-jung, director Cho, and presidential security chief Gwak. Cho argues against provoking the public. Gwak wants to roll tanks over them. They trade insults.

Leaving the room, a furious Cho tells Kitae that someday he’ll have to end this himself, and that only then will everyone survive.

Nine Years Later, Baek Kitae Still Calls It Patriotism

Nine years have made Kitae and Cheon Seok-jung close enough to call each other brothers. The drug operation has grown enormously, managed by his sister So-young.

When his aide asks why they never sell domestically, Kitae answers: would you want to poison this beautiful country? And he calls it patriotism. It’s the same conviction he held in Season 1.

A Succession War in Osaka

Ikeda Yuji is maneuvering to become the next boss. Winning over Harimoto, the Tokyo branch head, would let her beat the front-runner Kimura. In exchange, she asks Kitae to release Harimoto’s brother, held in Korea on espionage charges.

At Ikeda’s funeral, the vote for successor goes against Yuji. Then Kitae and his agents storm the room and shoot the bodyguards. Yuji cuts down both Kimura and Harimoto, who broke his promise, and takes the top seat herself.

What Kitae Sees in Busan

What Kitae finds in Busan is soldiers beating civilians indiscriminately, and a KCIA branch office filled with the sounds of torture. His old colleague Pyo Hak-soo now runs it as branch chief. Kitae releases Harimoto’s brother.

October 26, 1979 — Gungjeong-dong

At a safe house in Gungjeong-dong, the president drinks with Cheon Seok-jung, Gwak, and Cho. Gwak says Cambodia killed three million and pushes again for tanks against the protesters. Cho snaps and tells the president to govern with some perspective. The president answers: you want to die?

Cheon steps out briefly and calls Kitae, saying Cho looks ready to do something. Kitae arrives at the safe house just as gunshots ring out. Inside, the president and Gwak are dead.

Who Actually Captured Director Cho?

The next day, at the Defense Security Command, Baek Kihyun interrogates his own brother. Kitae eats jajangmyeon through the questioning — noodles delivered to an interrogation room, eaten with complete ease. In Korea it reads instantly as a man who knows he isn’t in any real danger, and as an insult to the officer across the table.

He tells Kihyun to ask the army chief of staff who actually captured director Cho. It was Kitae.

That night, Kitae had intercepted him. Cho was leaving with the army chief of staff, who had also been at the safe house, intending to drive to KCIA headquarters — to win over the man holding military authority and seize power himself. Kitae told him to head to Army Headquarters instead, saying he’d handle the KCIA. Then he called Army Headquarters and had Cho arrested.

Kitae Becomes Acting Director of the KCIA

The chief of staff becomes martial law commander. Under emergency martial law, that position carries sweeping authority to direct and supervise administrative and judicial bodies within the martial law zone.

He appoints Kitae acting director of the KCIA — a move meant to check Hwang Daesik, commander of the Defense Security Command. Hwang is already ignoring the martial law commander who outranks him. He takes the top job at the Joint Investigation Headquarters and starts using its investigative powers to tear the KCIA apart.

“Let’s Cross the Han River Bridge”

Kitae tells Cheon Seok-jung they should cross the Han River bridge together. When Park Chung Hee launched his own coup in 1961, his troops crossed the Han River bridges into Seoul. In the context of this drama, the phrase amounts to proposing a coup. To win over the martial law commander, Kitae orders all his money in Japan brought home.

Meanwhile, Oh Ye-jin has become Korea’s first female prosecutor and restarts her drug investigation in Busan. The Joint Investigation Headquarters, realizing the drug money belongs to Cheon Seok-jung, summons her. At the same time, Baek Kihyun is assigned to investigate Cheon’s slush fund.

Before dawn, the convoy carrying Kitae, Yuji, and the money from Japan is stopped by soldiers opening fire. Through the open window, Jang Geonyoung speaks. Long time no see.

Who Was Actually in the Gungjeong-dong Safe House?

The real dinner included President Park Chung Hee, security chief Cha Ji-chul, and KCIA director Kim Jae-gyu — but also Kim Gye-won, the chief presidential secretary. Singer Shim Soo-bong and Shin Jae-soon were there as well. Kim Gye-won survived the shooting.

So putting a chief presidential secretary in that room isn’t an invention. What changed is his role. Kim Gye-won never stepped out just before the shooting to summon someone like Baek Kitae. The drama uses the fictional Cheon Seok-jung to open a path for Kitae into the events of October 26.

Which Was Stronger, the KCIA or the Security Command?

The drama presents the KCIA as a formidable organization. It genuinely was. But it had one decisive weakness: it couldn’t move troops directly. With the president dead and martial law declared, whoever could command military forces held the far stronger position. That’s exactly why, in the show, Kitae works to bring the army chief of staff onto his side.

In real history, Chun Doo-hwan’s faction moved first against army chief of staff Chung Seung-hwa during the December 12 coup, arresting him before anything else. Chung was later tortured during the Security Command’s interrogation.

Who Is Cheon Seok-jung Based On?

It’s hard to read Cheon Seok-jung as a copy of any one real figure. By title, he recalls Kim Gye-won, who actually held the chief presidential secretary post in 1979. The political weight of having been with Park Chung Hee since the 1961 coup brings someone like Kim Jong-pil to mind.

But the man most often described as the real number two in Park’s final years was security chief Cha Ji-chul. And the drama already has a far more direct stand-in for Cha in the form of Gwak.

Cheon Seok-jung looks less like a transplanted historical figure than a fictional composite, assembled from pieces of several powerful men of the Park era.

What If Director Cho Had Gone to the KCIA Instead?

In the drama, Kitae sends Cho to Army Headquarters and takes the KCIA himself. The scene inverts what many Koreans consider the most agonizing moment in the real history.

After shooting the president, Kim Jae-gyu set out for KCIA headquarters in Namsan with army chief of staff Chung Seung-hwa in his car. Chung insisted on going to Army Headquarters instead, the destination changed, and that is what led to Kim Jae-gyu’s arrest.

One historical what-if has circulated in Korea ever since. What if Kim Jae-gyu had gone to his own stronghold at the KCIA rather than Army Headquarters? His capture is what allowed Chun Doo-hwan, then only a major general, to climb all the way to the presidency. Whether anything would truly have been better under Kim Jae-gyu is another question entirely.

Which is what gives the scene its weight. A decision Kim Jae-gyu made himself in history becomes, in the drama, a trap laid by Baek Kitae.

A Parade of Villains

This is a contest between genuine villains. The KCIA is one, and Hwang Daesik — standing where Chun Doo-hwan stood — is another. The only character you can really warm to is Oh Ye-jin. I’m curious what happens to Korea’s first female prosecutor from here.

Anyone who knows Korean history can roughly guess where Baek Kihyun ends up. This is the history where the Security Command wins.

Will Jang Geonyoung’s Revenge Succeed?

He’s the one I’m most curious about. Does he become a hero or a villain? In Season 1, he attached himself to the chief presidential secretary to bring Baek Kitae down. In Season 2, he’s joined the Joint Investigation Headquarters. Each time, he chooses the stronger power. And this time, the side he’s chosen is the one that wins in real history.

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, 2026, with two episodes weekly through September 23, on Disney+ and Hulu

Before you watch Season 2, catch up on the story and the history behind it.

Made in Korea Season 1: Full Story and Ending Explained

Made in Korea: Is It a True Story? The Real History Behind Season 1

Made in Korea Season 2: What You Need to Know Before You Watch

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Looking for more Korean thrillers with this much twist density?

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What Caused The East Palace Tragedy? Full Story and Ending Explained

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A Shop for Killers Season 2: Full Story and Ending Explained

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Made in Korea Season 2: What You Need to Know Before You Watch

September 8, 2026September 8, 2026 by KwaveInsider, posted in K-Drama & Film

Baek Kitae has reached the top. Jang Geonyoung is back. But to understand what Season 2 is really setting up, you need to know one date, two powerful institutions — and the military strongman waiting in Korea’s future.

Watch the Made in Korea Season 2 trailer without any knowledge of modern Korean history and it looks fairly simple. Baek Kitae has grown more powerful. Jang Geonyoung is back. Baek Kihyun has become a military officer with real authority. The three of them are aiming at each other again.

Then you recognize one date in the trailer, and the whole thing changes.

October 26, 1979. The day of the most consequential political assassination in modern Korean history. The president from Season 1 is killed by the director of the KCIA, and the country falls into a political vacuum. Season 2 drops Baek Kitae right into the middle of it.

To follow Season 2 properly, read these two first:

Made in Korea Season 1: Full Story and Ending Explained — Before Season 2

Made in Korea: Is It a True Story? The Real History Behind Season 1

The short version: Baek Kitae was a KCIA officer running a drug operation on the side, and prosecutor Jang Geonyoung spent Season 1 chasing him. By the finale, Kitae had been promoted and Geonyoung had been framed as a corrupt prosecutor and destroyed. Baek Kihyun is Kitae’s younger brother, a military officer who — unlike his brother — tries to hold onto his principles.

What the Trailer Tells Us

In Season 1, Baek Kitae rose to branch chief of the KCIA’s Busan office. Nine years later in Season 2, he’s a deputy director of the agency, and by the end of the trailer he’s been named acting director.

Jang Geonyoung returns too, but not as a prosecutor. This time he joins the Joint Investigation Headquarters as a special advisor — which means he’s inside the Defense Security Command. Baek Kihyun is a lieutenant colonel there as well. On the surface, Geonyoung and Kihyun are now on the same side.

A new character appears: Hwang Daesik, the commander of the Defense Security Command. In the trailer, Baek Kitae says he’ll eliminate the man himself. In actual history, the Defense Security Command was led by Chun Doo-hwan, who would seize control of the military less than two months later and eventually become president — so Kitae probably doesn’t get to eliminate him.

Signs of the brothers turning on each other run throughout. In one shot, a figure who looks like Kihyun from behind is interrogating Cheon Seok-jung — the younger brother taking apart his older brother’s protection. In another, Kihyun is interrogating Kitae directly.

Even this much makes the structure clear. Season 1 was Baek Kitae versus Jang Geonyoung. Season 2 layers on the KCIA versus the military, Baek Kitae versus both Geonyoung and his own brother, and a dying power against a rising one.

What Was the KCIA?

International viewers need this part explained.

By name, the KCIA looks like an intelligence agency along the lines of the American CIA. In practice it was far stronger. It investigated domestic political and security cases directly, not just intelligence on North Korea, and it could coordinate the intelligence activities of other government bodies. Under Park Chung Hee’s government, it was notorious for surveilling, arresting, and torturing his political opponents.

In the Korea of that era, the KCIA wasn’t simply an intelligence service. It was one of the strongest pillars holding up a dictatorship. That’s exactly why, in Season 1, Baek Kitae could bug a prosecutor’s office and threaten to turn the man’s sister into a North Korean spy.

October 26 — The Day a KCIA Director Shot the President

On October 26, 1979, KCIA director Kim Jae-gyu shot and killed President Park Chung Hee. The presidential security chief, who was in the room, died there too.

Park had ruled Korea since the 1961 military coup and held power as president for nearly eighteen years. The core institution propping up that government was the KCIA. And in the end, the man who killed him was the KCIA’s own director.

This is what makes Season 2 work. Baek Kitae has spent his whole life climbing toward greater power, and he finally arrives near the summit of the KCIA. At that exact moment, the institution he climbed starts to collapse. He reaches the top of the mountain just as the mountain begins to shake.

The Position He Inherits Isn’t a Promotion

One thing needs saying here. Baek Kitae becoming acting director of the KCIA looks like success on the surface. It’s the opposite.

The man who killed the president was the KCIA’s director. So would any government trust the person who inherits that chair? Belonging to the same agency is enough to make him a suspect. Kitae arrives at the position he wanted his entire life, and the position is already a bomb.

In one sense the answer looks predetermined. But I doubt this show intends to end things that easily.

The Security Command and the Joint Investigation Headquarters

Season 2’s second power center enters here. The Defense Security Command was a military intelligence agency handling intelligence and security within the Korean armed forces. A president who had taken power in a coup was intensely interested in monitoring and controlling the military, and the Security Command was the core of that effort. After the president’s assassination, a Joint Investigation Headquarters was formed to investigate the case. This is the body Jang Geonyoung joins.

The relationship between the two is what matters. The Joint Investigation Headquarters was created under Martial Law Command after the assassination. But its chief was Chun Doo-hwan, who was also commander of the Defense Security Command. That gave the Security Command extraordinary influence over the investigation. Joining it meant standing with the Security Command.

And the organization was nothing like what its name suggests. “Investigation headquarters” sounds like a team of detectives. In reality it could direct the military, the police, the prosecution, and the KCIA. More importantly, because the body that created it was a military organization, it could mobilize actual troops when it wanted to. An organization holding both investigative authority and military force was running the investigation into a presidential assassination.

Which is what makes Geonyoung’s new position meaningful. He has attached himself to a rising power in order to strike at a dying one. It’s the same choice he made in Season 1, when he allied with the chief presidential secretary to bring down Baek Kitae. The difference is that the power he’s chosen this time is stronger and more brutal.

Is Hwang Daesik Supposed to Be Chun Doo-hwan?

This is what makes the character interesting. There’s no official statement that Hwang Daesik is Chun Doo-hwan. But the details overlap too heavily. 1979. Commander of the Defense Security Command. Military power expanding rapidly after October 26. A new faction in conflict with the KCIA. No Korean viewer is going to struggle to make the connection.

There’s a film called 12.12: The Day, about the coup that followed. It renamed Chun Doo-hwan as Chun Doo-gwang — close enough that the name alone tells you who it is. Made in Korea gives its character a completely different name. Hwang Daesik.

That difference says something about the show’s approach. Made in Korea isn’t trying to recreate history. It’s putting entirely fictional characters inside real events so it can move them freely. Season 1 worked the same way. The Yodogo hijacking was real. Baek Kitae was never on that plane.

In Season 2, October 26 happens as it happened. But Baek Kitae and Hwang Daesik are inside it. So the question isn’t “will Park Chung Hee die?” We already know the answer. The real question is what the show will invent for Baek Kitae to have done inside that history.

The Weight of the Name Chun Doo-hwan

International readers may not know this name. Koreans need no introduction to it.

Less than two months after Park Chung Hee’s death, on December 12, 1979, Chun Doo-hwan launched a military mutiny and seized control of the armed forces. He expanded that power and became president in 1980. In the process, the new military leadership put down citizens in Gwangju who were demanding democracy, and many of them died.

There’s a comparison that has circulated in Korea for a long time. A house is robbed, and the man who arrives to investigate the robbery strips the house of everything and installs himself as its owner. It describes what happened when the October 26 investigation became the pretext for taking the Joint Investigation Headquarters, and then the country.

Koreans hold a divided assessment of Park Chung Hee, weighing his accomplishments against his abuses. On Chun Doo-hwan, most have settled on something simpler: he should never have happened. That difference is what gives Season 2 its weight.

The end of Park’s dictatorship did not mean democracy arrived. Another military dictatorship was already at the door.

Korean Viewers Already Know How It Ends

This is the biggest gap between international and Korean audiences.

The characters don’t know their future. Baek Kitae is climbing toward the top. Jang Geonyoung is trying to destroy him. Baek Kihyun is deciding which side to stand on. Hwang Daesik is reaching for new power.

Korean viewers know more than any of them. After October 26, the balance of power shifted sharply. The Joint Investigation Headquarters, led by Security Command chief Chun Doo-hwan, effectively took control of the country’s intelligence and investigative apparatus. The KCIA was later reorganized and renamed the Agency for National Security Planning in 1981. Historically, the Security Command wins.

So what to watch for in Season 2 isn’t who wins. It’s whether the show follows history. Does the Security Command prevail as it did in reality, or does Jang Geonyoung? Stray too far from the record and Korean viewers may turn on it. How the show holds that balance will decide whether this season works.

Baek Kitae Is Still Talking About Patriotism

One thing hasn’t changed in nine years.

In Season 1, he called it patriotism to manufacture meth in Korea and sell it to Japan. Japanese people get addicted, foreign currency comes into Korea, therefore it serves the country. In the Season 2 trailer, he says it again: “I was being patriotic.”

The Baek Kitae of 1970 used patriotism to justify drugs. The Baek Kitae of 1979 says the same thing from the center of state power. Only the scale has changed.

The Real Question of Season 2

Baek Kitae won Season 1 because he understood how power moved better than Jang Geonyoung did. Geonyoung believed in the law. Kitae found the people who move the law.

But in 1979, the people who moved the law start collapsing themselves. The president dies. The KCIA’s power wavers. A new military faction emerges.

So Season 2’s question changes. When even the people who move power disappear, who does Baek Kitae choose next? That’s probably the most interesting fight this season has to offer.

Video: Made in Korea Season 2 Official Trailer / Source: Disney+ (YouTube)