In The Kingdom season 2, Emilio’s government loses support countrywide, while Tadeo gains popularity when he brings hope to the discontented citizens. The second season is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
The season begins with a group of teenagers blowing up a dam, as water is not cheap and not freely available to all. One of them, Thiago, is caught by the police and beaten to death.
The rest of the teens ask Tadeo, who has returned to Argentina with Jonathan, for help. Before the teen dies, Tadeo tries to save him with the help of a teacher, Pedro, and a doctor, Yaelí, but he fails.
An upset Tadeo publicly criticizes the authorities for killing innocent people like Thiago and depriving them of necessities.
His speech is recorded and posted online. It soon goes viral in different parts of the country, where people are already dissatisfied with Emilio’s theocratic government; violent protests have occurred everywhere due to rising poverty.
Julio is now working as a professor. Ana and Julio want nothing to do with Emilio; Ana has not even introduced their daughter, Carola, to him. She is dissatisfied with Julio also, as he constantly fails to keep his promise of sharing the responsibility of taking care of their daughter.
The rising opposition to Emilio is seen in the graffiti being painted everywhere, criticizing him. Even the Church of the Kingdom of Light, which is losing followers, gets bombed. This, among other things, leads to Emilio demanding a new cabinet, but Rubén assures him that he has a better plan.
Rubén wants to create a monster that people will fear. Emilio will then defeat that monster and earn public favor again. He shows him the viral video of Tadeo and feeds him lies about Tadeo inciting people against Emilio.
Emilio allows Rubén to do as he pleases but asks him not to hurt Tadeo, who is rapidly gaining followers. Rubén is also facing a personal crisis, as he sees Remigio following him with a rope in his hand and holding him accountable for his death.
Emilio, by some skewed logic, is convinced that God wants him to sleep with Jonathan. He asks Julio to meet him and shows him Tadeo’s video, which has been edited by Rubén. He asks Julio to warn Tadeo that he might be in danger.
Roberta, who is now working as a real estate agent, is still being threatened. When congresswoman Alejandra Orsi comes asking about the investigation of the money hidden in church walls, Roberta gives her Remigio’s diary that Julio gave them.
Although Alejandra initially does not trust or like Julio, they soon get close when Julio also starts working with her, Roberta, and Ramiro to expose Emilio’s past crimes.
Tadeo is aware that he, along with Jonathan, is not safe, so he never stays in one place for long. When he is leaving Thiago’s town, Pedro and Yaelí join his group.
Rubén visits a psychologist, who treats his old father, at her home and asks her to treat him. She agrees when he offers to pay a huge sum for it. She tells him to believe that Remigio is not really there; he is just in his mind.
However, his condition keeps getting worse as he starts seeing more and more people who were murdered because of him; these people haunt him day and night.
Emilio’s driver, Daniel, wins his trust and introduces him to retired and active high-ranking officers, who are willing to offer him their support no matter what happens. They are called the Pretorianos, and they target leftists, including feminists and the LGBTQ+ community.
Julio manages to lose the people who are following him when he goes to meet Tadeo. His popularity keeps growing as he goes to new places and meets new people who see him as their hope.
He refuses to stop helping those who are in need, even when Julio warns him that he is being targeted. When Emilio’s men come looking for Tadeo, the locals warn him and help him escape.
As the media is controlled by Emilio’s government, the attacks on leftists are pinned on Tadeo’s followers. A famous journalist, Paula, who furthers the agenda of the government, is asked to follow Tadeo and make him look like an insurgent.
However, eventually, it works in Tadeo’s favor because he is seen putting an end to a riot and propagating peace on live television, making him even more popular.
Emilio’s wife, Elena, wants the country to be ruled according to the conservative laws of the church, but the democratic procedure does not allow her to do so. The declining popularity of the church concerns her.
Her son, Pablo, and his wife, Celeste, stage a miracle in the church to rectify the situation, and the miracle is well accepted by the devotees only because of Pastor Bastián, who manages the church of Elena’s daughter, Magdalena.
Celeste then convinces Bastián to come work for them, and he leaves Magdalena’s church. Magdalena takes the complaint to Elena, but she does not help her at all.
With Pretorianos’ growing influence on Emilio, Rubén finds himself getting sidelined. Emilio then declares a holy war on national television to impose strict morality on the citizens of the country. Rubén immediately understands that Emilio is planning a coup.
Emilio goes against Elena’s wishes, who wants him to let go of his perverted desires, and shows a picture of Jonathan during the speech, falsely claiming that he is being abused by Tadeo. He expresses his intent to take him from Tadeo.
Julio and Alejandra go to find Tadeo, who is now in danger because of Emilio’s speech. The two are planning to release the testimonies of the boys who were abused by Emilio in the past to expose his crimes.
They find Tadeo, and he insists that he is going to accompany them to the Congress, where they will be displaying the testimonies in front of the media, despite the danger that he will face.
Emilio and the Pretorianos are going to carry out the coup on the same day. Emilio will shut down the House of Representatives and take all the power into his hands. The Pretorianos will be there to stifle the opposition.
Rubén and his team find out that Daniel is a former deputy commissioner of the Buenos Aires Provisional Police; he left the force when he was investigated for unlawful coercion and arms trafficking. Rubén and his team have their own plan in place to stop Emilio and the Pretorianos.
The Kingdom season 2 ending explained in detail:
What happens to Rubén?
Rubén’s mental health is getting worse. He stalks his psychologist, breaks into her house, and installs a camera there to watch her at all times. He breaks into her house a day before the plan and blames her for making his condition worse.
He then sexually assaults her and chokes her to death. He makes sure to clear the place of all evidence and proceeds to go to the Pretorianos’ headquarters in Bella Vista, where his troops have already subdued the Pretorianos.
He asks the defeated Pretorianos to work for him or go to prison, and the Pretorianos are forced to lie to Daniel that everything is going according to their plan. Furthermore, Rubén’s troops will not let Emilio enter Congress to deliver his address.
Rubén plans to make the vice president the president of the country, leaving Emilio powerless. Everything goes according to his plans, but Rubén starts hallucinating once again, and this time, the psychologist is also haunting him.
He is sent to a hospital, probably to a mental facility. His second-in-command, Lautaro, is seen updating someone on the phone, who calls Rubén a good soldier. Rubén’s paramedic is none other than Remigio, whose ghost has been constantly haunting him.
Does Tadeo die?
Tadeo bids goodbye to his group and Yaelí, who is now his girlfriend, to go to Congress. Before leaving, he is seen in a greenhouse where every plant is dead. He touches a plant, and soon after, the plant magically blooms.
As per Julio and Alejandra’s plan, the testimonies of the victims are played live. However, Daniel’s men enter the room and cut the live broadcast by damaging the equipment.
This is when Tadeo steps forward; he sheds his disguise and speaks about being sexually assaulted by Emilio. When Emilio hears his voice, he gets frantic, but Daniel goes to manage the situation himself.
Just when Tadeo is talking about healing and coming together to get justice, Daniel shoots him, killing Tadeo on the spot. He leaves a huge impact on those who believed in him, and people around the country mourn his death.
While Julio is initially upset, he later believes that Tadeo knew this was going to happen; his death was an offering to the people of the country to get them to act.
What happens to Emilio?
Daniel finds out that their plan has failed and sends Emilio and Elene to Emilio’s office. Emilio is forced to resign, and the vice president takes his place as the head of the country.
Daniel gets arrested after shooting Tadeo and is killed while being transferred to a high-security prison, leaving Emilio with no supporters. Elena calls her children, and even they do not answer her calls.
Magdalena wants to be away from her parents in order to be safe, while Pablo is seduced by Celeste and Bastián, who are trying to find the money in the church walls. Pablo does not tell them anything but does not stop them either.
Elena even calls Ana, who has started sleeping with another single mother, Stacy, in Julio’s absence. However, she does not say anything to her when she hears her crying over Tadeo’s death.
With no one to help or support them, a hopeless Emilio cries in Elena’s lap, but he still keeps mumbling Jonathan’s name. Jonathan and the rest of Tadeo’s group continue moving from one place to another after Tadeo’s death.
How does the country change?
The new administration declares a state of siege throughout the country. The National Congress, along with the appointment on the commission of the judges, is dissolved until the political and social condition is stabilized.
The police are seen marching on the quiet streets, but people still come out inconspicuously and draw graffiti on the walls in Tadeo’s memory. Tadeo is dead, but he continues to live as a symbol in the minds of the people.
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