Episode 8 of Arthdal Chronicles season 2 can be broadly divided into two parts, which are Eunseom and Saya’s individual efforts to take down Tagon and how they come together. Tagon hasn’t lost his senses the way we had been led to believe, and we are surprised that Saya did not pick on that despite the obvious clues around. This is quite unlike him, and it led to an overlooking of some very obvious things. On the other hand, the preview for the next episode should not have been given. It ruined the element of mystery in this episode, and all the work that went into making it so riveting was for nothing. But let us remember that the season is ending in two weeks, and the inevitable conclusions for the characters are not far. So, let us see what happens in Arthdal Chronicles Episode 8 through the detailed recap.
Spoiler Alert
How does Eunseom convince Karat to help the Ago tribe?
Everyone in the tribe hates waiting on Karat because of how potty-mouthed he is. As for Karat, he is enjoying this little dance of getting the tribesmen to do what he wants them to. He has a lot of disdain for them due to their past practices that they had to resort to when they were being terrorized by Arthdal, but Karat doesn’t care about the reason. Being as debt-free as he is, Karat liberally judges other people and has no problem provoking them, since he considers that his freedom makes him better than everyone else. Eunseom catches on to this, and he realizes that the only way to get this man to do anything is through debt. And that is the card he pulls when all other negotiations fail. When he lets Karat go, the man is confused as to why someone with so much power would be so lenient and forgiving. But the reason was that Eunseom was messing with Karat a little bit.
In Arthdal Chronicles season 1, Eunseom and his friends helped a prominent member of the Momo tribe through Sateunik, and the person had given them a token of the debt that they could claim back anytime. That meant that Karat owed Eunseom, and he had to help him if he asked for it. Karat and his tribesmen jump into the Lake of Stars and find a meteorite of iron. Since they can hold their breath long enough to approach that, they are able to latch the ropes to it, and together with the Ago tribe, it comes out of the water, giving the tribe the first step toward what they need.
Is Suhana the spy?
Right from the beginning of Arthdal Chronicles season 2, Eunseom has questioned whether there was a spy within the tribe. He gets his answer in this episode. Once the iron is pulled out of the lake, Kkadak tells them that it would take him six months to make the swords since he would have to build the mechanism for them and train people to help him. That is when Eunseom decides to hasten their plans to capture Molabeol Palace, as the apparatus is ready and waiting there. When he goes to tell this to Suhana, one of the members of his council, he notices a symbol on something on her table, which he had seen in Arthdal. This tells him that she is likely the spy who has been foiling their plans so far. Therefore, Eunseom thinks on his feet and tells her that they will be occupying Mobon Palace instead of Molabeol, as it was easier to steal Arthdal’s supplies than build their own. It is still a test, but this works since the Arthdal troops are protecting Mobon while Eunseom changes his plan at the last minute and attacks Molabeol, using the ball of iron as a tool to break down the fortress. He has killed two birds with one stone and done his share of the work.
What is Saya and Taelha’s plan?
When Saya comes back to Arthdal, Tagon tells him that he is pretending to be insane so that he can do what needs to be done while everyone is distracted by his antics. This should have been a good clue for Saya, but he missed it. After all, if Tagon is sure that there was a fake Saya in the palace, why would he not suspect that the real one would have something to do with it since they are ‘benetbots’ and the fake Saya risked his life fighting alongside the King, not to mention how the queen is also involved in it? The whole thing is a little too murky, and Saya should have understood that there was something wrong when Tagon did not ask him anything about it, especially after the revelation of him orchestrating that attack on Arok.
In the court, Yeonbal and Gitoha, two of the King’s most trusted generals, tell him that unless he returns to his old self, they will kill themselves. Tagon just calls this treason and throws them in jail while beheading them later. It ends up clearing the way for Saya and Taelha, who knew that the two generals were the biggest obstruction in their path. With this action, the King has convinced the entire world of his madness, and Saya and Taelha start moving on with their mission to kill him. Taelha and Tagon have a conversation where they apologize to each other, and Taelha admits that she has always been by his side. In her own way, she also admits to loving him, and Tagon just says, in his own way, that they could have had a different life if he had not been the King. As for Saya and Tanya, he tells her that should things go wrong, he has made preparations for her to escape to Eunseom. But Tanya lets Saya know that she will stay by his side till the very end and not abandon him. They may have never been lovers, but they were friends, and Tanya would be with him.
Is Tagon dead?
Tagon has been a formidable character right from the time Arthdal Chronicles started. It doesn’t even matter that he is so evil because he simply has too much substance to him. We have absolutely hated the plot of his madness because he definitely deserved more than that, and we are glad that someone was listening. Since the deaths of Yeonbal and Gitoha, Yangcha and his fellow troops have asked Tanya to perform a ceremony for them to move on to the afterlife peacefully since they had a violent death. Performing that ritual would mean that Tanya is also a traitor, but Yangcha promises her that the third corps will be on her side if she does that. This gives Saya and Taelha the army they need to do what they want. With everything seemingly in place, they all start moving.
Meanwhile, Nunbyeol is still the secret weapon waiting to kill the King. She is called into his chambers in the middle of the night to repair his armor, and again, this was a clue because why would he need it at that time? In the palace grounds, Chaeeun understands that they have been deceived, and Chojaha, the minister whose ear was cut off, is the one behind it all. Just as she said, that man’s ear is still intact. When he had tried to advise the King, Tagon had made him part of his plan to weed out the traitors in his circle. Even Yeonbal and Gitoha were alive, and that meant that Saya and Taelha’s forces were not as strong as they had imagined them to be. We are not sure if Yangcha is also a traitor to Tanya and Saya, but the plan to kill Tagon has failed.
In Tagon’s room, the King is aware that Nunbyeol was never who she had seemed to be. But what he doesn’t know is that she is blue-blooded, a Neanthal. That makes her stronger than Tagon ever accounted for, and at the end of Arthdal Chronicles Episode 8, she jumps at him with her knife drawn, ready to kill. We would have assumed her success if the preview for next week did not show us that Tagon is still alive and kicking.
Final Thoughts
Essentially, people on the good and bad sides of the war have been mixed up throughout the season. But as the end approaches, they are going to pick their side and stay there firmly while getting ready to fight. The politics are done, and now there will be pure war, so we have to witness how that will be made visually interesting in the coming episodes.
