Don’t have time to read a full recap? Well, here is what happened in 500 words or less in every episode of My Country. We update as the episodes air. Viewership ratings and links to detailed episode recaps are included at the end of each summary.
My Country: The New Age is an epic historical story about the birth of the Joseon dynasty told through the eyes of two friends caught on different sides of the power struggle for Korea
MY COUNTRY: THE NEW AGE – EPISODE BY EPISODE RECAP SUMMARY
EPISODE 1
The first episode opens ten years in the future on the day of a coup. There are two opposing sides. One side is Prince Bang Won who is waiting on Hwi. The other side is Nam Jeon who has his son, Sun Ho on his side. When hwi shows up, the battle starts at Nam Jeon’s home and Hwi and Sun Ho square off.
Then we are sent back ten years to where we see that Hwi and Sun Ho are actually life long best friends who have grown up together. Sun Ho is the son of a noble man, though his mother is a slave so he is looked down upon by others. Hwi is the son of the best swordsman in Goryeo (aka Korea) but his father was dishonored with panghyung punishment (for someone who commits a crime) and had to kill himself, so Hwi and his sister had to live a hand to fist life since childhood.
To change their fates, both Hwi and Sun Ho want to pass the officers exam. Sun Ho is allowed to sign up for the exam, but Hwi is not because his father had Panghyung punishment. However, Hwi’s father killed himself which was supposed to save his kids from the shame of Pyunghyun. It is unfair that the officer at the exam did not acknowledge that, but he could not do anything about it.
However, Hwi was asked by Sunho to be his right hand during a hunting party with one of the Princes who is a head general in order to turn the generals head to notice him. Hwi was able to gain recognition from the general and could sign up for the exam with the Princes permission.
A side story is that they were pulled into the life of Hee-jae, a woman living at a Gisaeng House who likes spreading flyers about the corrupt government in her own time. She almost got Hwi and Sun-ho killed by guards but also helped save their life.
Recap: episode 1
Ratings: Nationwide – 3.51%, Seoul – 3.77%
EPISODE 2
Hwi, Sun-ho, Yeon, and Hee-jae are able to bond by flying kites. We also are privy to other background stories between the characters. For Instance, on the night that Hee-jae and her mother had to escape their home, Hee-jae’s life was saved by Hwi’s father. He gave her some advice and she later gives to Hwi. Though Hwi remains clueless to Hee-jae’s background story.
After kite flying, Hwi, Hee-jae and Yeon walk home together. Sun-ho gets attacked by one of the guards that has been looking for them due to Hee-jae. he is injured by the guards but ends up making it home. The guard gets killed by his partner guard named Chido.
Sun-ho and Hwi go to the exam and do very well for themselves. But Hwi ends up winning. However, the judge does not stop the fight even though Sun-ho is lying on the ground due to Hwi’s final blow to him. Sun-ho is able to stand up and hits Hwi hard on the head, causing Hwi to fall. The judge calls the fight right at that moment, so Hwi does not win first. But he still passes. However, Hwi lashes out at the injustice of it all and ends up getting beaten and disqualified for his troubles.
Hee-jae patches hwi back up at the Gisaeng House. But while at the gisaeng house, Hwi sees that Nam Jeon is eating with the judge from the exam.
Later on we find out that Sun-ho’s father, Nam Jeon, paid off the judge to make Sun-ho win so that Sunho can stand with Prince Sung-kye during battle. But Prince Sung-kye hears about this and makes Sunho kill the judge and anyone else that knows that he cheated. This means that he needs to kill Hwi.
Sunho does not want to kill Hwi so he sends him to the front lines of battle. Guards forcefully take Hwi from his house which leads his sister to have a seizure and hit her head dangerously on a table. Hwi begs to let him save her, but the guards do not let him. A hiding Sun-ho comes out and saves Yeon, but his father tells him that no one can find out about this.
Recap: episode 2
Ratings: Nationwide – 3.84%, Seoul – 3.98%
EPISODE 3
Hwi fights at the front lines of the war along with Chido who volunteered to go there. We later find out that Chido is a soldier that fought under Hwi’s father, so he has a lot of loyalty toward Hwi. he gives Hwi his fathers old battle armor to wear during the battles.
The fight rages on. But then Prince Sung-Kye realizes that the palace is empty. He could go back and claim that palace for his own. So he decides to leave the battle field and do just that. However, instead of just leaving, he decides to kill all the soldiers on the front lines before doing this and blaming it on the old regime. So assassins are sent in to kill Hwi and everyone else on the front line.
Sun-ho is one of the assassins. His father tells him that they have to kill everyone otherwise they should not come back. He gives Sunho his sword. Sunho does not know that Hwi at this particular camp at the front lines, though he does know he is at war, he does not know where he is.
Nam Jeon knows that Hwi is at this camp and decides to send his son to the camp to kill Hwi and everyone else anyway.
In a side story, Hee-jae leaves the gisaeng house after thinking that they are not doing everything they can for her and her past grudges on the people that destroyed her family. She makes her way to one of General-Prince Sun-kye’s wives houses. Bang Won is also sent to the wife’s house via his father, Sung-kye, in order to protect her and her sons in the coming days of the coup.
Recap: episode 3
Ratings: Nationwide – 3.75%, Seoul – 3.91%
EPISODE 4
Sunho and the rest of the assassins head out to kill everyone at the front lines camp. They are able to kill almost everyone until they get to Hwi, Chido, and two other soldiers who manage to fight back. Hwi protects one of his soldiers from Sun-ho’s blade which makes him and Sun-ho square off. They are both shocked to see each other.
However, one of the assassins slices his sword into Sunho during this stare off because he hates him. This assassin is Hwang Sung-rok (he wears all red so I often call him the red soldier in the main recap). Hwi kills the red soldier and then takes Sunho to a safe place where they try and nurse him back to health. Though the outlook does not look great.
Meanwhile, Sun-ho’s father, Nam Jeon, tells all the soldiers back on the other side of the river to kill all the assassins when they return. Including his son.
Hwi and team are able to get the other side of the river and kill the soldiers sent to kill them. They make it to a town where they nurse Sunho fully back to health. However, the red assassin was not dead and somehow comes back to full form and starts to hunt Sunho. He finds them in the town and starts to shoot torch arrows into the building.
Sunho tells Hwi and his men to leave, he then stays and convinces the red soldier to be on his side. The red soldier agrees and they both head back to the capital city.
In the capital city a lot has happened. Bang Won has successfully save his mother in law and her children from assassins and made it back to the Palace and the Prince-general has defeated the other King and is now in a place to become the new King. However, that debacle with killing all his front line troops has trickled back to the politicians and nobles of the city. Lucky for them, Sunho comes striding in to explain it all and save the day. His father is surprised to see him.
Later on, Hwi has also made it back to the Capital city and tries to settle back into his life. But he cannot forget his sister and how she died. So he goes to kill Nam Jeon. Nam Jeon is waiting for him and shows him that his sister is actually living happily in the house as a noble woman who lost her memories. So long as Hwi obeys Nam Jeon, Nam Jeon will keep his sister alive and will marry her off to another noble. Otherwise, he will kill her. Hwi reluctantly agrees.
The first task he wants of Hwi is to win the heart and loyalty of Prince Bang-won and then kill him.
Recap: episode 4
Ratings: Nationwide – 4.83%, Seoul – 4.99%
EPISODE 5
Episode 5 opens with us nicely established in the new reign of King Sung-Kye in the Joseon Dynasty. Though things are not pleasant in the castle as Prince Bang Won is around and wants a moment of his fathers time that his father is always reluctant to give him. This leads to awkward situations like Bang Won yelling his greetings outside the Kings room while theKing, Queen, and little prince pretend not to hear. The Queen tells her husband that he is too afraid of Bang Won.
Meanwhile, Hwi and Sunho have a plan to kill a miserable general who is terrifying the poor and helpless of Hanyang. He can not be touched by the palace because he helped establish the new world order. So he is more of a pain in the palaces side. Sunho’s plan is to kill him and get noticed by Bang Won. So they hatch a plan to kill him at the Gisaeng house and it works well. The only issues is that Hee-jae sees Hwi as one of the assassins and now knows that he is alive.
A side story is that Hwi and his friends attacked an illegal gambling house in order to trap the general. Sunho then kidnapped the general and tortured him to tell him as many secrets as he could about Bang Won and how many soldiers he had on his side. He later releases him which is when the general gets killed at the Gisaeng house, which was also part of their plan.
Recap: episode 5
Ratings: Nationwide – 4.209%, Seoul – 4.252%
EPISODE 6
Now that the general is dead, Sunho has to explain to the King why he ordered his execution without his permission. Sunho explains that his task is to find out what the King needs and deliver on it. This puts Sunho on the King’s good side and helps get him a seat in the politicians throne room.
In the gisaeng house, Seo Seol tells all the ladies there that they need to cover up this murder. So the bodies are gotten rid of quietly. Bang Won gets word of this and heads to the Gisaeng house to meet with Seo Seol to see if he can trust her. Hee-jae threatens to try and kill Bang Won but Bang Won is not threatened and offers her a job as an informant instead. It appears that he is thinking of having a coup, though he has not said this outright.
Meanwhile, Hwi and his team attack the an artillery that is owned by Bang Won. He does this in order to increase his chances of meeting with Bang Won. All this culminates on a hunting match that Bang Won has with his people. Hwi crashes it and proves his skills with a bow and arrow, then he gets beaten and dragged back to Bang Won’s home for his troubles. Bang won is about to run him through, but Sunho gets word of what has happened and bursts into Bang Won’s place with his sword drawn.
There is one big side story worth quickly mentioning . The big side story is a discussion on whether a citizen can have a private army. The King wants to remove all private armies from nobles to prevent the threat of a coup. Bang Won wants to keep the right to a private army.
A small side story is of Moon making a painkiller remedy that you would take before expecting to undergo a lot of pain, like if you are about to endure punishment of some kind, then you would take it so that you won’t feel as much. Hwi might have taken this before he got beaten by Bang Won, though he might not have.
Recap: episode 6
Ratings: Nationwide – 4.989%, Seoul – 5.239%
EPISODE 7
Sunho pulls his sword and says he has business with Hwi. So Bang Won happily watches it play out. Sunho says that he knows that Hwi killed the general, did someone here tell you to? If he tells him, then he will make sure he lives. Hwi basically tells Sunho to go away, he will take his life in his own hands.
Hwi then tells Ban Won that he killed the general and stole all Bang Won’s weapons, but his weapons are rotten and useless anyway. Bang Won sees this for himself at the artillery. Hwi tells Bang Won that he did all of this because he wants to be on Bang Won’s side and make the kind of country that Bang Won wants to make. A country for all, including abandoned people. Because of that, Bang Won decides to let Hwi live.
Meanwhile, Sunho is in huge trouble because he has been breaking into nobles houses to arrest or harass them for having weapons or private armies. He did this to Bang Won as well, though Hwi saved Bang-won by removing all his weapons from the artillery and giving them back to the King without Bang Won knowing. All of the politicians are highly upset at Sunho, so the King has Sunho tortured almost to death. His father saves him.
The episode ends with us finding out the connection of the letters. The letters that Hwi has (one he got from his fathers armor and the other from Seo Seol) are a pact between four people to kill Sung Kye. It is from several years ago and Nam Jeon is one of those people. But in a flashback, we see that Nam Jeon turned on those people, killing them and trying to take the letters back. But he could not find them all.
Hwi copies this letter and tapes it to the front of Nam Jeon’s house. Sun-ho and Yeon see it. Sun-ho realizes that this letter means that his father tried to kill General Sung Kye who is now the King. This could kill them all.
In a side story, Yeon is no longer treated well by Nam Jeon due to Sunho being tortured. She is locked in a storage room. But, while being locked up she accidentally hits her head and several memories come back. She breaks out of the storage room and makes her way back to her old house. But she still does not trust Hwi. Hwi tells her not to tell anyone that her memories are coming back.
Recap: episode 7
Ratings: Nationwide – 4.704%, Seoul – 4.662%
EPISODE 8
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EPISODE 9
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EPISODE 10
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EPISODE 11
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EPISODE 12
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EPISODE 13
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VEPISODE 14
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EPISODE 15
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EPISODE 16
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