WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Gyeongseong Creature season 2.Claudia Kim’s Lady Maeda was a crucial antagonist inGyeongseong Creature’s first season, and the actress' surprise turn in the newly released second season is one of the biggest twists of the thriller series. Starring Han So-hee and Park Seo-joon,Gyeongseong Creatureis aK-drama set during the Japanese occupation of Korea, putting a sci-fi twist on real-life historical events that happened in Gyeongseong (Seoul). However, the Netflix K-drama’s second season removes itself from its pivotal historical setting and thrusts its characters into the modern world, leaving many unanswered questions about how they got there.
InGyeongseong Creatureseason 2, Yoon Chae-ok (Han So-hee) finds herself living in the present day, once again working as a sleuth. Her work soon sees her cross paths with Jang Ho-tae (Park Seo-joon), who bears a striking resemblance to Jang Tae-sang (Park Seo-joon). The continual crossing of their paths leads them to Jeonseung Biotech, a company whose work shares a lot of similarities with Ongseong Hospital. It is here that theNetflix K-dramapulls out one of its biggest twists, revealing just how Claudia Kim’s season 1 antagonist manages to continue her work in the show’s second season.
Lady Maeda Survived The Explosion In Gyeongseong Creature Season 1
She Was Last Seen Alive In One Of Season 1, Episode 10’s Final Scenes
Despite a dramatic explosion at Commissioner Ishikawa’s (Kim Do-hyun) funeral set about by the Korean independence movement,Lady Maeda’s fate inGyeongseong Creatureseason 1was fortunate. She was soon revealed to have survived the event that was intended to kill her. Thoughit is unclear how Lady Maeda survived the explosion, a scene in season 1, episode 10 shows that she did not make it out unscathed. The young woman was covered in burns and appeared to be using a wheelchair. She appeared apathetic to her situation, but asGyeongseong Creatureseason 2 proved, this feeling was short-lived.
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While Colonel Kato (Choi Young-joon) and Lady Maeda’s exchange in the final moments of season 1 was short, it was very telling. In fact, it gave a lot of hints as to what was to come inGyeongseong Creatureseason 2. Lady Maeda does not say anything in this short scene, but Colonel Kato presents an interesting proposition for Claudia Kim’s character. This proposition plays a key part in the events of the Netflix K-drama’ssecond season and directly reveals how Claudia Kim was able to return as a part ofGyeongseong Creature’s main cast.
How Lady Maeda Is Alive In 2024 Gyeongseong Creature Season 2
She Shares A Similar Fate To Yoon Chae-ok and Jang Ho-tae
While Lady Maeda’s return toGyeongseong Creaturecertainly made sense, Claudia Kim’s return as the show’s main antagonist is shocking.Gyeongseong Creatureplays into this reveal through the use of a red herring; an elderly Japanese woman who resembles Lady Maeda is initially thought to be the show’s antagonist in the new season. Yet, thanks to the newly discovered properties of the najin, Claudia Kim is able to return as the same Lady Maeda as depicted in season 1, now healed from the burns of the past.
Claudia Kim appears as Lady Maeda in 4 of the 7 episodes ofGyeongseong Creatureseason 2.
It is heavily implied thatLady Maeda ingested a najin following the events of season 1. This allowed her to take on the properties of the parasite, which also answers the questions as to how Yoon Chae-ok and Jang Tae-sang exist in the present day. The najin, when not infused with anthrax, allows infectees to keep their human looks. However, they also give their hosts accelerated healing properties and seemingly stop the aging process. As such, it gave plausibility for Claudia Kim’s return to thethriller K-dramadespite her character being almost 100 years old.
What Lady Maeda’s Plan In Gyeongseong Creature Was
Her Plans Contribute To Her Downfall
InGyeongseong Creatureseason 2, Lady Maeda has two goals. Firstly,Lady Maeda intends to continue the work that she began in season 1. Colonel Kato directly references this inGyeongseong Creatureseason 1’s ending. He intended to continue their research, so he gave Lady Maeda a najin so that she could live life free from the constraints of the explosion. Colonel Kato, however, has not been infected, but he continues to work alongside his longtime partner in order to continue the research that was abruptly halted in season 1.
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Lady Maeda’s second goal is personal.Lady Maeda enacts revenge on Jang Tae-sangand his friends for orchestrating the explosion at her husband’s funeral and for destroying the work she had spent years carefully investing in. Despite their previous alliance, Lady Maeda does not go easy on the merchant. Episode 5’s flashback reveals that following her consumption of the najin, she storms The House of Golden Treasure with the Kuroko, ordering the murder of the three workers. She herself then infects Tae-sang with his own najin, considering it a mercy for an old friend.
Lady Maeda’s love of science and the discovery of the najin’s abilities continues to fascinate her.
ThroughoutGyeongseong Creatureseason 2, these two conflicting plans coincide. Lady Maeda’s love of science and the discovery of the najin’s abilities continues to fascinate her. As a result, she uses Tae-sang in further experiments for her own pleasure. She does this under the guise of seeing whether Tae-sang values all human life as the same, setting him up with an impossible conundrum about who to save first and how. This plan and greed for answers, however, would ultimately lead to Lady Maeda’s downfall.
What Happens To Lady Maeda At The End Of Season 2
Her Death Has A Lot Of Symbolism
Despite being a key benefactor in the discovery and the development of the najin, Lady Maeda is killed because of them inGyeongseong Creatureseason 2’s final episode. The first blow comes from her former friend, Tae-sang, who injects her with a serum that disables the parasite inside her temporarily. Then,Lady Maeda’s adoptive son, Seung-jo (Bae Hyun-sung), kills her,using his abilities as a najin to shoot tendrils into her stomach. Though callous and violent, these actions have a lot of symbolism.
Seung-jo is just as much a victim of Lady Maeda’s inhumanity as those depicted inGyeongseong Creature’s first season.
Firstly, Seung-jo is just as much a victim of Lady Maeda’s inhumanity as those depicted inGyeongseong Creature’s first season. He faced continuous experiments from his mother and her partner all to satiate their scientific curiosity. He was constantly seen as a monster, and being treated as one eventually led him to become one. But more than that,Seung-jo is the son of Myeong-ja (Akiko) and Commissioner Ishikawa. Myeong-ja became a victim at Ongseong Hospital due to Lady Maeda’s resentment of her pregnancy, so her Myeong-ja’s child being a najin and the one to end her life feels fitting.
Alongside this, Tae-sang assisting in Lady Maeda’s death also feels significant. Tae-sang and Seung-jo represent Lady Maeda’s goals inGyeongseong Creature, and the two appear to conspire to put an end to them for good. Tae-sang’s hand in her death finishes what was started in the first season, but as Lady Maeda dies in a similar way to many of Ongseong Hospital, ensures their horrific deaths are not in vain. This ends Claudia Kim’s return toGyeongseong Creaturein a very fitting, but gruesome way, that echoes the key messages the K-drama has attempted to portray.
Gyeongseong Creature
Cast
Gyeongseong Creature is an action horror-thriller television series that Kang Eun-kyung and Chung Dong-yoon created for Netflix. Set in 1945 during the Japanese occupation of Korea, Jang Tae-Sang, a wealthy informant in the heart of Gyeongseong, and Yoon Chae-ok, a highly skilled investigator, come together to face a literal creature created from the cumulative greed of humanity.
