Popular Disney Plus K-drama Vigilante airs its last episode on Wednesday, November 29, 2023, at 5 p.m. KST. The series follows the story of a young man named Kim Ji-Yong (Nam Joo-Hyuk), who leads dual lives. By day, he is a sincere and hardworking police university student. However, he turns into a vengeful vigilante by night, taking the law into his own hands and delivering his brand of justice to criminals.
Vigilante’s ending will make viewers re-examine the concept of law and justice. The K-drama ends without revealing Ji-Yong’s identity as the vigilante to the public. This ending also lets viewers interpret whether the vigilante’s activities are morally right or not. Although Ji-Yong successfully prevents his identity from being revealed, there are some things beyond his control. However, he does manage to turn Jo-Heon (Yoo Ji-Tae) into a vigilante and finds support for his cause from reporter Choi Mi-Ryeo (Kim So-Jin) and ally Cho Kang-Ok (Lee Joon-Hyuk).
Vigilante K-drama ending: Episode 8 delivers a bittersweet end to Nam Joo-hyuk’s journey
Episode 8 of Vigilante begins with Choi Mi-Ryeo suffering at the hands of Mr. Bang. He kidnaps her to provoke the vigilante and have him come to rescue her. However, Ji-Yong has other plans. He breaks into Kim Sam-Doo’s office, asking him to bring Mi-Ryeo to the World Cup stadium concert hall. Meanwhile, Sam-Doo calls Mr. Bang, asking him to join as well. He promises to let Mr. Bang kill the vigilante after he’s done taking his crypto wallet.
Ji-Yong and Kang-Ok discuss further plans when the former’s police university classmate and friend, Seon-Wook, sees him. Throughout the series, Seon-Wook has his eyes set on Ji-Yong, indicating that he might have a larger part in the drama. He calls out to Ji-Yong asking him to not skip classes so that they can graduate together as planned. Ji-Yong goes home and is overcome with emotions as he looks at pictures of him with his mother. The pictures, however, only make his resolve as the vigilante stronger.
The following day, at the stadium, Sam-Doo gathers his men and Mr. Bang brings his aide for a final battle. Mi-Ryeo, Ji-Yong, and Kang-Ok also arrive to witness the phenomenon. Sam-Doo asks his men to inform him when the vigilante arrives. However, a number of people arrive wearing a black hoodie seen as a classic vigilante uniform. This makes it difficult to identify who the real vigilante is.
Everyone makes their way into the stadium. Mr. Bang asks Mi-Ryeo to stop at the first sight of the vigilante so his aide can kill him. However, she manages to lure the aide to someone else and escapes with Ji-Yong. She live streams the entire incident where Ji-Yong and Kang-Ok fight with Mr. Bang, Kim Sam-Doo and his men. The live stream reaches Jo-Hoen, and he also leaves for the stadium.
Jo-Heon arrives, asking everyone to drop their weapons. Meanwhile, Sam-Doo tries to kill Ji-Yong. However, Seon-Wook arrives just in time to rescue his friend, but Sam-Doo stabs him. Ji-Yong stands shocked seeing his friend gravely injured, indicating two possibilities. Either Ji-Yong revealed his vigilante identity to Seon-Wook the previous night or the latter knew about it all along. Ji-Yong asks Mi-Ryeo to take his friend to the hospital.
Meanwhile, Ji-Yong, Sam-Doo, Mr. Bang, and Jo Heon battle it out inside a small passage. However, Uhm Jae-Hyeop traps them just as they are fighting each other. He previously discovered that his plans of turning against Sam-Doo or killing Choi Mi-Ryeo were unsuccessful, due to which he received a bad name. He tries to put an end to it all and kills Sam-Doo. However, just as he opens the water faucet to drown the rest, Ji-Yong and Jo Heon climb up to him.
Ji-Yong starts hitting Jae-Hyeop, but Jo Heon stops him, asking the Inspector General to come clean. However, after Mr. Bang tries to attack Ji-Yong, a series of events leads Jae-Hyeop to shoot at everyone. Mr. Bang dies and Ji-Yong falls unconscious. Jo Heon kills Jae-Hyeop. However, Seon-Wook also dies outside, and Mi-Ryeo looks helpless.
Vigilante K-drama: Is Season 2 on the horizon?
In the end, Mi-Ryeo reports Seon-Wook as the vigilante, keeping Ji-Yong’s identity intact. Viewers understand why she was interested in meeting the vigilante. Her father committed suicide after suffering the blame of corruption. None of the press outlets or police bothered to investigate the case, which became the reason for her support to the vigilante. She also calls Jo-Heon the vigilante, indicating that Ji-Yong was successful in turning the detective into another vigilante. However, Ji-Yong ended up losing his friend Seon-Wook.
As he sits at the bus stop, he discovers that Jae-Hyeop has been promoted and appointed posthumously as honorary Commissioner General for fighting a criminal organization. Ji-Yong is helpless at the turn of events, considering Jae-Hyeop was a criminal. However, he can’t do anything about it.
Vigilante ends with the university batch graduating as police officers. As the students stand up to take an oath, Ji-Yong doesn’t raise his hand. The episode ends with the conjecture that Vigilante still has to erase unjust people from the world, and that the law is still not just enough. Ji-Yong will continue his path as the vigilante, now having gathered some support.
Will Ji-Yong’s continued passion for delivering justice culminate in a Season 2? Considering there is significant potential for the storyline to develop, it cannot be completely thrown out of the picture. Viewers will have to wait for further updates.
Meanwhile, all episodes of Vigilante are available to stream on Disney Plus.
