Gripping Netflix K-drama series Kingdom makes its return with a new special episode entitled "Ashin of the North." It explores the backstory of Ashin (played by Jun Ji-hyun), a mysterious character who appears briefly at the final scene of season 2.
The revealing prequel unpacks an engrossing revenge plot as well as the mysterious origins of the resurrection plant, which raises the dead back to life by turning them into zombies.
The new episode looks at the events that unfolded in the north before the plant was linked to the disease in the south, spreading from Dongnae to Hanyang (modern day Seoul).
The latest episode of the historical drama takes place at a time when "a storm was looming" in the northern region during the Joseon Dynasty, which ran from 1392 to 1897.
People known as Jurchens from the Manchurian plains in northern China had united under the flag of "the vicious and powerful" Pajeowi tribe, who are highly skilled fighters, raising fears of a possible invasion of the Joseon land.
The first few scenes drop several hints on the possible origins of the plant, with a deer feeding on a plant and convulsing in water before a face-off with a tiger and mysterious drawings on the wall of an abandoned shrine showing a deer and tiger with the words: "This plant brings the dead back to life but you must pay the price."
The tiger later appears to transform into a zombie-type monster after attacking the deer.
Ashin first appears as a child who enters a forbidden area known as the Pyesa-gun, in search of wild ginseng, which she'd heard could resurrect people and possibly help cure her dying mother.
However, she instead discovers the drawings and writings on the mural at the shrine that illustrate the resurrection plant, as well as explain its power to raise the dead.
Ashin is among the Seongjeoyain, who are Jurchens living on Joseon land in a village bordering the Pajeowi tribe and the Pyesa-gun, where a group of Pajeowi Jurchens were found dead after they went hunting for wild ginseng.
The marginalized Seongjeoyain are shunned by both the Pajeowi and Joseon people. But the Joseon military forms an alliance with the bordering villagers in a bid to keep an eye on the Pajeowi tribe's moves.
The mysterious killing of the Pajeowi Jurchens triggers the Pajeowi to take revenge against the bordering village, who they believe are the culprits behind the deaths. The Seongjeoyain are obliterated, with Ashin supposedly being the sole survivor.
She travels to the Joseon military camp to meet the head of the country's Royal Commandery, Min Chi-rok (Park Byung-eun), who years later, as seen in season 2, joins forces with Crown Prince Lee Chang to fight the zombies and help stop the spread of the outbreak.
Ashin grows up working as a helping hand at the military camp and becomes a sharp-shooting warrior in the making, mastering her archery skills.
She had first arrived at the camp to seek the Joseon commander's help to avenge the death of her people. But she later realizes—spoiler alert—it was the Joseon commander who led the Pajeowi leaders to believe the villagers were responsible for the Pakeowi Jurchen killings in a bid to avoid an attack from the Pajeowi.
The plot thickens as Ashin hatches her own revenge plan following a fateful discovery that her father, whom she previously had heard was executed by the Pajeowi, remained alive at a prison camp.
But where does the resurrection plant come into play in all of this? The answer—another spoiler alert—unfolds later in various forms, including at the Joseon military camp, where soldiers are killed off—or eaten, rather—by zombies. The zombie invasion ensues after Ashin kills a soldier whose blood spills onto a few resurrection plant flowers.
Later Ashin is seen overlooking the massacre below from a rooftop while shooting arrows at various soldiers to pin them down and let the zombies take care of the rest.
At the end of season two, Seo-bi (Bae Doo-na), the doctor's assistant who spends years trying to uncover the origins of the outbreak, outlines everything we know so far about the disease in her medical journal: that it's triggered in those who are injected with the resurrection plant, it targets the brain and zombies lose all sense of reason, they develop an insatiable thirst for human blood and flesh, they fear water and not all those who are bitten by a zombie become a zombie and you can avoid becoming one by immersing yourself in water.
But Seo-bi wrote in her journal: "There is still a bigger secret behind the resurrection plant yet to be uncovered." And that remains to be unveiled in, hopefully, a third season of the zombie thriller, which has not been officially confirmed but is likely to come to fruition, especially with the cliffhanger ending of the latest episode.
One of Ashin's telling final words ("When my job here is done, after I kill every living thing on Joseon and Jurchen soil, I will also join you.") before the last scene where she appears at a standstill with the Pajeowi, leaves room for plenty more questions to be answered and avenues to be explored.
