I loved the first season of "Kingdom", a wonderful epic story about a Zombie outbreak in Korea during the Joseon period. The second season is, if anything, even better - as it wraps up the initial phase of the story and then just when you think that the show might be reaching an overall climax, a time jump and a new character freshens everything up.
Picking up exactly where the first season ended, Crown Prince Chang (Ji-Hoon Ju) and his allies are shocked to discover that the creatures assailing them are capable of attacking during the day time and not just at night. Tired and underprepared, they concede yet more land to the threat as they head back towards the capital. News of the outbreak is spreading though, and the leaders are becoming more concerned, as they are with the discovery of a number of bodies being transported from Queen Consort Cho's (Hye-Jun Kim) private chambers.
Everything that I loved about the first season of "Kingdom" comes back into play with this second one. I love the practical effects, the scale of the assaults and the fact that they mostly seem to be actual stuntmen, rather than digital ones. Everything about the fight scenes remains wonderful. The story though remains key, and here "Kingdom" progresses at a speed that very few shows would have decided too. Major characters are killed across this second run, some heart-breaking, some heart-warming before the show seems to wrap up all its stories very early in the season finale. Then a new character and with it a new story seems to open up to take us forward from here into season three.
As I said in my review of season one, I'm watching with Subtitles and Korean audio so can't speak to how well the dubbing is done, but for my money performances are excellent, the comedy works and show is truly brilliant. And once more... the best hats in television ever.