In the second season of D.P., a tragedy at the base leaves everyone shaken. Eventually, An Jun-ho decides to go against the system that has resulted in the loss of so many lives. The second season is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
With 413 days until his discharge, An Jun-ho continues serving in the military. Not much has changed since the events of the first season. Seniors still bully and mistreat their juniors, who have no choice but to endure it.
Han Ho-yeol has been in the hospital for months now, so Jun-ho is given a new partner, named Park Se-ung, to track down the deserters. Jun-ho is the leader of their unit, and he soon realizes that Se-ung only joined D.P. because he wanted to step out frequently. Se-ung is not very useful, as he keeps playing the fool.
The incident with Suk-bong affected Jun-ho to the extent that he now stands up to his seniors when he sees them bullying another soldier. Apart from Jun-ho, Ho-yeol is also struggling, as he is suffering from PTSD and cannot speak.
Oh Min-u, a military investigator from the High Prosecutor’s Office, wants Park Beom-gu to sign a statement claiming that Suk-bong was mentally ill. Park Beom-gu does not want to sign the statement and cover up the fact that Suk-bong was bullied.
Captain Lim Ji-seop, who is still unassigned, convinces him to sign for Jun-ho and Ho-yeol’s sake. Soon after, sick of being bullied every day, Suk-bong’s friend, Kim Ru-ri, shoots the soldiers in the barracks and runs away.
Jun-ho is asked to catch him, but Se-ung is too scared to join him. Ho-yeol, who is a sergeant now, returns to help Jun-ho catch Ru-ri. The higher-ups in the military want to cover up the reason behind the mass shooting, and Colonel Seo Eun, Ji-seop’s wife, will be leading the investigation.
The military portrays Ru-ri as a dangerous criminal. As they do not show his side of the story, Ru-ri shares a video online, telling the general public how he was bullied day and night.
To get Ru-ri to return, Seo Eun releases a video of Ru-ri’s mother getting harassed by the mother of one of the soldiers who was killed in the mass shooting. Seo Eun and her superior, General Gu Ja-woon, plan to kill Ru-ri on sight, despite Ji-seop’s pleas and warnings.
The plan works, and Ru-ri comes to his mother’s house with a grenade. He is immediately surrounded by armed soldiers, but Seo Eun cannot bring herself to give them the order to kill him.
Furthermore, Ho-yeol, who gets his voice back under pressure, and Jun-ho try to convince Ru-ri to surrender. They even live stream everything to prevent the soldiers from killing him. Finally, Ru-ri listens to his mother and surrenders.
While Jun-ho and Ho-yeol are awarded for their services, Seo Eun is discharged from the military, as she did not kill Ru-ri. Before leaving, she hands over a USB, which contains confidential documents, to Ji-seop, who gets reinstated. At the same time, Suk-bong wakes up in the hospital.
Jun-ho and Ho-yeol are then asked to find a deserter named Jang Sung-min; he has been on the run for five years. While looking for him, they discover that he was a theater artist. He was talented, but he was relentlessly tormented for being queer.
Ho-yeol had found him 10 months ago, but Sung-min had stabbed him and ran away. As Sung-min’s story unfolds, Jun-ho and Ho-yeol come to know that he worked two jobs just to be able to do what he loved the most — perform and sing. He had adopted the identity of Jang Nina and had gotten the opportunity to perform with a theater group in London.
However, when he was leaving Korea using a fake passport, he thought that the authorities at the airport had caught on, so he ran away. In the process, he was badly injured. He did not make it far and succumbed to his injuries. Jun-ho and Ho-yeol can now close Sung-min’s case.
With the growing concerns regarding the treatment of soldiers in the military, the Human Rights Division wants to reopen an old case. Staff Sergeant Na Jung-seok died saving a soldier from an old GP landmine. Ji-seop was Jung-seok’s friend and had raised questions about his death.
Now, General Gu, who knows that Ji-seop has the USB, wants him to go to the Guard Post and reopen the case. Ji-seop takes Jun-ho with him, and the two of them suspect that Shin A-hwi, the junior who was saved by Jung-seok, had something to do with his death.
Ji-seop knows that the case was not handled properly in the past and that there was no proper autopsy. Frustrated and angry at A-hwi’s attitude, Ji-seop locks himself in a room with him and beats him up to get him to confess the truth.
Meanwhile, Min-u meets Beom-gu and finds out why Ji-seop was sent there. He, along with Ho-yeol, go to the Guard Post. They are a little too late because Ji-seop’s actions were caught on camera, just as General Gu and Min-u had intended.
Furthermore, the truth behind Jung-seok’s death turns out to be the opposite of what Ji-seop had assumed. It was Jung-seok who used to bully A-hwi. That night, A-hwi pushed a drunk Jung-seok, and he ended up dying because he accidentally stepped on a landmine.
A-hwi’s arms were also burned in the accident, and witnessing Jung-seok’s death changed him forever. GP covered up the truth because A-hwi would have been court-martialed. Now, Ji-seop has no choice but to hand over the USB to General Gu.
Jun-ho is supposed to bring the USB from the shop where Beom-gu had sent it, but when he sees Shin Hye-yeon, a manager at the Center for Soldiers’ Human Rights, talking about getting the government to compensate the soldiers who have suffered, he changes his mind.
Jun-ho sees the contents of the USB and realizes that it contains the reports of all the incidents that the military has covered up, including the fact that they could have saved Corporal Jeong, one of the soldiers who was shot by Ru-ri, if the orders from the higher-ups were not delayed.
Jun-ho can no longer stay quiet, so he decides to give the USB to Shin Hye-yeon, as it would help the Human Rights Center win the lawsuit against the government. Seo Eun will be representing the Human Rights Center in court and going against her former senior, General Gu.
While Min-u and General Gu want to catch Jun-ho to prevent the general public from finding out the military’s dark secrets, Beom-gu and Ho-yeol want to stop Jun-ho to protect him, as they know that this will not end well for him.
Jun-ho becomes a deserter and asks Shin Hye-yeon to meet him at the columbarium, where he met her for the first time. This time, Jun-ho, the D.P. with the highest arrest rate, is the one being chased.
D.P. season 2 ending explained in detail:
Does Min-u get the USB?
Min-u has dozens of soldiers looking for Jun-ho. The soldiers find him, but Jun-ho is an experienced D.P., so he is able to take them down. When an injured Jun-ho has to fight Min-u, Ho-yeol comes to his rescue, which allows Jun-ho to get away.
Soon after, Park Sung-woo, who had worked with Jun-ho in the first season and was beaten up by him, finds him. After getting beaten up by Jun-ho, Sung-woo got the reputation of a loser. His father also lost the election, and his family could not pay their loans.
Sung-woo gave up his dreams and continued serving in the military. He prepared himself to beat Jun-ho up whenever they crossed paths again. This time, he defeats Jun-ho. Sung-woo takes satisfaction in Jun-ho’s pain and destroys the USB before handing him over to Min-u.
Despite Sung-woo’s efforts, Min-u fails to get what he wanted. When he repairs the USB, he realizes that Jun-ho could not copy the contents of the USB, so he changed the chip inside it. The USB with the main chip is hidden somewhere else.
Is Jun-ho sent to prison?
To prevent Jun-ho from being sent to prison, Ho-yeol gets Colonel Yang Du-gwan to confess that General Gu knew that the truth about Na Jung-seok’s death had been covered up. He records this confession and uses it to blackmail General Gu.
Ho-yeol asks General Gu and Min-u to cancel Jun-ho’s arrest warrant and suspend all operations against him. In return, he will catch Jun-ho and get them the USB before the trial. General Gu agrees to cancel the arrest warrant.
Sung-woo is asked not to take Jun-ho to the detention center. While he is still in the car with Jun-ho, Jun-ho causes an accident and escapes. Jun-ho never reached the columbarium to meet Shin Hye-yeon, but she finds Jun-ho’s lighter, which her brother had used to kill himself, and comes to meet Beom-gu at the base.
Who wins the trial?
General Gu prevents Ru-ri, Seo Eun’s key witness, from testifying, but she is told that the USB is being brought there. Until then, Ji-seop takes the witness stand and reveals that Corporeal Jeong died because of the high command’s negligence.
Ho-yeol tries to stop Jun-ho from going to the court, and he is not the only one; Sung-woo also arrives at the scene and fights Jun-ho, who knows that Sung-woo’s anger is a result of his guilty conscience. Eventually, Jun-ho and Ho-yeol manage to subdue Sung-woo, but Jun-ho claims that he does not have the USB.
It turns out that he contacted Beom-gu when he was with Shin Hye-yeon, who was told about Jun-ho’s connection to her brother’s death. Beom-gu had convinced Jun-ho to reveal the location of the USB. Shin Hye-yeon and Jun-ho were to distract Min-u and his men, while Beom-gu was to take it to the court.
Beom-gu successfully delivers the USB to Seo Eun, and the court accepts the Human Rights Center’s claim. However, it only includes some cases, as further evidence is needed for other cases, so the ruling is delayed.
What happens to the D.P. unit?
Beom-gu is arrested then and there and charged with leaking classified information. He knew this would happen, and that is why he chose to bring the USB to the court himself instead of letting Jun-ho bring it and face the consequences. Jun-ho and Ho-yeol cry as he is taken away.
Sometime later, he is seen serving time. Jun-ho, Ho-yeol, and Ji-seop go to visit him. Beom-gu thinks that it was all worth it and does not regret taking the blame for everything. This time, they neither won nor lost, but he believes that they will win next time.
At the same time, Ho-yeol finally gets discharged from the military, while Jun-ho still has to serve for 364 days. When Ho-yeol talks about being done, Jun-ho says that he is just getting started. The two friends say goodbye to each other and part ways.
Jun-ho seems to be feeling better, as he smiles on his way to the base. From the window of the bus, he also sees Sung-woo in civilian clothes with his friends. The last scene shows a healthy Suk-bong coming to meet Jun-ho, who is relieved to see him back on his feet.
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