Nine years have passed since we last checked in on the Baek family, and the season 2 premiere of Made in Korea reminding us how much has changed while somehow keeping the family’s rot fully intact. We’re now in 1979, and the country is on fire, literally and politically. Busan and Masan are erupting in protest against President Park’s Yushin regime, a government that has clung to power for two full decades. If you came into this episode expecting a quiet re-entry point, you’re going to be disappointed in the best possible way, because the show throws you straight into a pressure cooker of political rivalries, family betrayal, and criminal ambition.
The Power Struggle at the Top: Cho, Gwak, and the Puppet Master Cheon
Made in Korea Season 2 Episode 1 opens by laying out exactly how fractured the country’s power structure has become. Director Cho of the KCIA and Chief Gwak of the Presidential Security Service are constantly at odds over how to respond to the growing unrest, with Cho pushing for restraint while Gwak clearly wants something harsher. Sitting above both of them, at least in terms of real influence, is Cheon Seok-jung, the Chief of Staff. Cheon has positioned himself as the reasonable mediator between the two men, but that’s a performance. In reality, he’s been using the role to quietly monitor both of them and protect his own standing as the second most powerful man in the country.
President Park isn’t sitting idle either. He brings KCIA Deputy Director Baek Ki-tae into the fold, dangling the promise of the director’s chair in exchange for Ki-tae spying on his own boss, Cho. It’s a classic move for a paranoid leader losing his grip, and it sets up the internal KCIA conflict that runs through the rest of the episode.
Then there’s Major General Hwang Dae-sik of the Military Security Command, a man who has spent his time quietly building alliances with the goal of eventually pushing Cheon out entirely. Cheon isn’t the type to let a threat like that sit unaddressed. He orders Ki-tae to put Hwang back in his place as a warning. At the same time, Cheon is dealing with Park’s fury over the last election results, pressuring Ki-tae to pump up campaign funding. And in a moment that feels almost throwaway but absolutely isn’t, Cheon lets it slip that President Park’s time is running out.
Ki-tae’s Criminal Empire Gets a New Look
Back on the criminal side of things, Ki-tae’s right-hand man Ki-hun floats the idea of pushing meth to boost their profits, but Ki-tae shuts it down immediately. Despite everything he’s done, Ki-tae still clings to this idea that he’s protecting his country rather than poisoning it, and he refuses to be the one who brings meth into South Korea.
The meth lab itself, however, is still running at full capacity under new management. The two supervisors now are Chang-bae and a striking woman playing the part of a mafia wife to the hilt, fur coat, styled hair, dark lipstick, pearls, sunglasses, the whole look. That woman turns out to be So-yeong, Ki-tae’s own sister, who’s now a mother herself.
Yakuza Succession Drama in Osaka
The story jumps to Osaka, where yakuza boss Ikeda is dying and trying to arrange his succession in a way that preserves his legacy and respect. Two names are on the table: Kimura, a loyal old-guard enforcer, and Yuji, Ikeda’s adopted Zainichi daughter (a Korean living in Japan). To lock down her position ahead of the vote, Yuji reaches out to Harimoto, another influential Zainichi figure in the clan. Her pitch to win him over is a big one: she offers to use Ki-tae’s connections to free Harimoto’s brother, who’s sitting in a Busan prison facing execution for espionage.
That brother is actually Professor Jang Gyeong-sik, and his “espionage” is essentially manufactured. He was picked up by the KCIA while visiting a family grave. This is where the episode connects its political and criminal threads directly, because Pyo, who now runs the Busan branch, admits to Ki-tae that he’s been fabricating communist spy narratives on purpose. Why? Because every fake spy caught keeps the President’s attention locked on the KCIA instead of shifting toward their rival agency, the MSC. It’s a cynical, self-serving game, and the more spies Pyo catches, the more money, perks, and presidential favor come flowing in, regardless of the fact that Pyo personally wants Park out of power just as badly as the protestors do.
Pyo also drops another piece of intel on Ki-tae: someone’s been selling his meth without authorization in Busan, and prosecutor Oh Ye-jin is now actively hunting the operation.
Enter Oh Ye-jin, the Prosecutor Who Won’t Play by the Rules
Ye-jin, following the same unconventional playbook as her mentor Prosecutor Jang Geon-young, goes undercover and doesn’t hold back. She beats a name out of a drug dealer, Chang-bae, and it looks like she’s closing in on the operation. Unfortunately for her, she’s too late to catch him alive. Ki-tae, discovering Chang-bae has been stealing from him, forces him into a game of Russian roulette and kills him on the spot.
The Baek Family Reunion Nobody Actually Wants
Meanwhile, the youngest Baek brother, Ki-hyun, is thriving through legitimate means. He’s now a lieutenant colonel, well-regarded, constantly praised for his integrity. But the moment his supervisor brings up Ki-tae’s name, that praised composure cracks into a forced, uncomfortable smile.
The family comes back together for their father’s memorial, and So-yeong tries to play peacemaker between her two estranged brothers. Ki-hyun clearly has a warmer relationship with his niece than with Ki-tae, and he’s visibly unhappy when Ki-tae asks him to start keeping tabs on Major General Hwang for him.
Yuji Makes Her Move
Back in Japan, Yuji tests the waters with her adoptive father, and when Ikeda refuses to name her as his successor, she kills him without hesitation. Ki-tae comes through on his end of the bargain too, getting Professor Jang Gyeong-sik to Japan just in time for Ikeda’s funeral.
The clan holds its vote for the next Kumicho, and Yuji loses by a single vote. Harimoto, despite the deal, backs out and throws his support behind Kimura instead. That betrayal doesn’t last long. Ki-tae storms in and kills the guards, Yuji personally kills both Kimura and Harimoto, and she declares herself the new head of the clan on the spot.
October 26: The Night That Changes Everything
The episode closes on a date that carries real historical weight: October 26. President Park, Chief Cheon, Director Cho, and Chief Gwak are having dinner together when tensions boil over, with Cho continuing to defend the protestors and Park growing furious at what he sees as outright defiance. Sensing something is deeply wrong, Cheon calls Ki-tae and tells him to get there immediately.
The moment Ki-tae arrives, gunshots ring out from inside the house. Then Cho himself stumbles out, grabs Ki-tae’s gun, and goes back inside as more shots follow. When the dust settles, Ki-tae realizes President Park is dead.
Why This Premiere Hits Harder Than Season 1 Ever Did
Episode 1 of Made in Korea season 2 pulls off something genuinely impressive: it widens the scope of the story without losing what made it personal in the first place. The nine-year time jump is a smart choice. It lets the show skip past the slower rebuilding period and drop us directly into a moment where every relationship, political and familial, is stretched to its absolute limit.
What struck me most is how the show uses the political backdrop of the Yushin regime and the 1979 protests not just as scenery but as the actual engine of the plot. Cheon’s quiet manipulation of Cho and Gwak, Park’s paranoid recruitment of Ki-tae, Hwang’s slow-building coup attempt, none of this feels like filler. It all folds directly into Ki-tae’s arc, and it makes his choices feel less like personal ambition and more like survival within a system that’s actively eating itself alive.
Pyo’s confession about fabricating spy cases genuinely got under my skin. There’s something quietly devastating about a man who agrees with the protestors, who wants the same regime change they’re fighting for, but keeps manufacturing lies against innocent people like Professor Jang Gyeong-sik because it’s profitable and safe. It’s the kind of moral rot that doesn’t announce itself with a villain monologue. It just sits there, mundane and horrifying, which honestly makes it hit harder.
So-yeong’s introduction as the fur-coat-wearing supervisor of the meth lab is a fun, almost theatrical touch, and I appreciated that the show didn’t waste time before revealing who she really was. It’s a small character beat, but it tells you everything about how far the Baek family has drifted from any semblance of a normal life. Meanwhile, Ki-hyun’s forced smile when Ki-tae’s name comes up is such a small, restrained moment, but it says more about their relationship than a full scene of dialogue could.
The Osaka storyline initially felt like it might be a detour from the main plot, but the way it ties back into Ki-tae’s world through Professor Jang and Harimoto’s brother is clever plotting. Yuji’s cold, calculated rise, murdering her own adoptive father and then both of her rivals in the span of a single episode, sets her up as a genuinely dangerous new player. This scene completely caught me off guard. I did not expect the succession vote to end in a bloodbath this quickly, but it works because the show has already established that loyalty in this world is disposable the second it’s no longer useful.
And then there’s that final stretch. Using October 26 as the closing beat is a bold choice precisely because of its real historical resonance, and Made in Korea Season 2 earns it by building the dinner scene with genuine, simmering dread rather than cheap shock value. My jaw actually dropped when Cho grabbed Ki-tae’s gun and walked back inside. The ambiguity in that moment, Ki-tae confused, gunshots continuing, Park’s fate only confirmed after the chaos settles, is a masterclass in tension. It’s a gutsy way to end a premiere, and it left me needing episode 2 immediately.
If I have one small criticism, it’s that the episode juggles a lot of threads at once, the KCIA power struggle, the meth operation, the Osaka succession war, and the Baek family tension, and there were a couple of moments where I wished the pacing slowed down just slightly to let a scene breathe. But honestly, that’s a minor complaint for a premiere that reestablishes its world this efficiently while still delivering real emotional and political weight.
