History Series / Vagabond2019

A mysterious plane crash kills over 200 civilians, including Cha Dal-geon’s (Lee Seung-gi) nephew. Determined to find out the truth behind the accident, Cha Dal-geon travels to Morocco and embarks on an investigation that leads him to a tangled web of corruption. This leads him to get mixed up with Go Hae-ri (Bae Suzy), who appears to be a ditzy intern with the South Korean consulate in Tangier, but is actually a covert operative for the National Intelligence Service. Together they investigate the plane crash, which leads them to a criminal conspiracy that may reach up to the highest levels of South Korean government. The conspiracy may also involve one Jessica Lee, president of the Asian branch of an arms manufacturer called John & Mark; her company was bidding for a lucrative fighter plane contract, against the company that also made the civilian airliner that crashed.

** At first, nobody believes Dal-geon when he tells them that the plane crash was a terrorist act. Hae-ri starts to think he's telling the truth after hearing the recording from the plane's black box, and but has her doubts until the hotel cleaner Dal-geon insisted was a thief against all evidence to the contrary turns up to kill her at her house.

* DrivesLikeCrazy: Dal-geon is a stuntman, and drives like it. When the brakes of the car he's on are sabotaged in episode 4, his solution is to use an impromptu ramp to flip the car over in order to stop it so he and Gwang-deok can get out. In episode 12, he evades Min Jae-sik and his underlings during a highway chase by driving into the opposite lane and dodging oncoming traffic until he can take the exit to an overpass.

* FakingTheDead: Lily and Do-su save Dal-geon from Samael's death trap in episode 15, but thanks to a few coincidences (his bullet necklace slipping off his neck while he was trying to escape and the {{Mook}} caught in the explosion having the same blood type as him), everyone thinks he died back in that warehouse. Dal-geon decides to not reveal himself to any of his new friends, including Hae-ri, because it's the only way he can continue fighting against Edward Park without putting his loved ones in danger.

* OnceMoreWithClarity: Episode 2 reveals that the co-pilot's Spanish-language conversation with a girlfriend in Episode 1, right before the plane took off, was actually with the black-clad bomber. The co-pilot is revealed to also be a co-conspirator.

* TimeSkip: The series starts at an unknown point in time in the (fictional) "Kingdom of Kiria", before jumping back to 2006. From there, the passage of time is shown through a montage of Dal-geon working as a stuntman and Hoon progressing in his taekwondo training, until we reach 2012 (present). The epilogue, which [[OnceMoreWithClarity takes us back to the opening in the "Kiria"]], is set in 2012-2013, several months after the trial and a few weeks before the upcoming presidential election in South Korea.

* WhatDidIDoLastNight: In episode 6, Hae-ri gets drunk and kisses Dal-geon, much to his shock and embarrassment, and completely forgets about it when she sobers up. The next day she asks him if she did something she shouldn't have, and assumes from his flustered nonanswer and his awkwardness around her that she did something to offend him. Dal-geon eventually decides to forget about the kiss since she doesn't remember it, and continue being friends with her.

* HowWeGotHere: The opening scene of the first episode shows Dal-geon, in a sniper's nest, waiting for a target who turns out to be Hae-ri. As he hesitates to shoot her, the series jumps back thirteen years to 2006 and the story starts to play out.

* {{Qurac}}: In the HowWeGotHere 2019 prologue, Dal-geon is sitting in a sniper's nest, waiting for a target, in the North African "Kingdom of Kiria". This is a little weird, since a good chunk of the story will take place in the entirely real country of Morocco. "Kiria" is not mentioned again until episode 12, when Jessica asks President Jeong about an oil-drilling operation in that country.

* LeParkour: Dal-geon chases the culprit through the rooftops and ended up landing on the culprit's car in Episode 1. He uses the same parkour skills later to scout the slums of Morocco when looking for Kim Woo-gi.

* IdiotSavant: The delivery boy at Bullet Chicken (Kang's secret base and comms center) is mentally challenged and apparently autistic, but he's also a genius hacker. He masks Dal- gun and Hae-ri's IP location as the latter two are taking the boat back from Morocco.

* LoveTriangle: It takes a while to develop--Tae-ung does not even show up until episode 3--but eventually the love triangle sets in. Hae-ri is attracted to Tae-ung but also to Dal-gun, who is jealous.

* DeathOfAChild: Dal-geon's little nephew Hoon and the rest of the children in the Taekwondo demonstration team are killed in the first episode when the plane to Morocco that they were on is bombed out of the sky.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: When the president of South Korea, President Jung, first appears in the first episode, he complains about his makeup as he's getting ready to address the nation about the plane crash. He later is more concerned about liability for the aircraft manufacturer than he is about the deaths of over a hundred of his citizens, including twenty-odd children on a taekwondo team.

A mysterious plane crash kills over 200 civilians, including Cha Dal-gun’s (Lee Seung-gi) nephew. Determined to find out the truth behind the accident, Cha Dal-gun travels to Morocco and embarks on an investigation that leads him to a tangled web of corruption. This leads him to get mixed up with Go Hae-ri (Bae Suzy), who appears to be a ditzy intern with the South Korean consulate in Tangier, but is actually a covert operative for the National Intelligence Service. Together they investigate the plane crash, which leads them to a criminal conspiracy that may reach up to the highest levels of South Korean government. The conspiracy may also involve one Jessica Lee, president of the Asian branch of an arms manufacturer called John & Mark; her company was bidding for a lucrative fighter plane contract, against the company that also made the civilian airliner that crashed.

* AlmostDeadGuy: In episode 15 Oh Sang-mi, bleeding out after a mook slashed her throat, has just enough time to gasp "Sa-ma-el" to Dal-gun (Samael being the code name of the BigBad) before she croaks.

* BitchSlap: How President Jung works out his frustration with Director Ahn of the NIS, slapping him hard across the face after Dal-gun hijacks his meeting and reveals the coverup of the accident to the world.
* BondVillainStupidity: Does Edward just shoot Dal-gun in episode 15? Of course not! No, his people tie Dal-gun up in an elaborate booby trap and then walk away before triggering it. Dal-gun is promptly rescued by Lily, who had followed them to the scene.

** Dal-gun is outside Hae-ri's door in episode 2, calling for her, when she greets him by putting a gun to his head. It turns out that her gun wasn't loaded.
** The lady terrorist in Morocco does this with the sniper (the same guy who blew up the plane) in episode 3, just as the sniper is about to put a bullet into Dal-gun.
** Kim Woo-gi, the missing copilot, does this at the end of episode 7 when catching Dal-gun by surprise.
* CouldntFindAPen: Oh Sang-mi scrawls something in her own blood as she's dying in episode 15. Dal-gun eventually figures out that she was trying to draw the tattoo that he saw on Jerome's chest way back in episode 1.

* CrazyPrepared: In episode 3 Ho-sik, who's been shot and wounded, runs out of a hospital. Dal-gun and Hae-ri chase after him, and find themselves on a back street...where, somehow, a sniper is already perched and waiting.
* DeathOfAChild: Dal-gun's little nephew Hoon is killed in the first episode when the plane to Morocco that he was on is bombed out of the sky.
* {{Determinator}}: Dal-gun. He chases the man responsible for the death of his nephew through the streets of Tangier and despite the culprit pulling the brakes catapulting him out, he still stands up moments later.
* DramaticDrop: President Jeong does this in episode 13, dropping the glass of bourbon in his hand when Dal-gun is shown on live TV, looking straight into a camera and accusing him of complicity in the B357 crash.

* DutchAngle: Used heavily in episode 15 as Dal-gun is having his {{Eureka Moment}}s about how Edward Park is Samael and his secretary Micki is the FemmeFatale who got Michael and Kim Woo-gi together.

* EverythingIsOnline: In episode 4 Lily the assassin is able to "cut" the brakes of the car Dal-gun is in, by remotely hacking in to the car's control system and disabling the brakes.

* FaceDoodling: In episode 1 little Cha-hoon draws a kitty face on his uncle, who is apparently passed out from drinking.

* HowWeGotHere: The opening scene of the first episode shows Dal-gun, in a sniper's nest, waiting for a target who turns out to be Hae-ri. As he hesitates to shoot her, the series jumps back thirteen years to 2006 and the story starts to play out.

** Some more egregous examples in episode 12. An entire North Korean hit squad on the docks can't manage to shoot Dal-gun and the good guys once, despite pouring a hail of automatic weapon fire, even though the good guys with their pistols (and Chief Kang with a sniper rifle) nail the enemy with pinpoint precision. Then later in that same episode, the Seoul cops and the NIS goons unloose another storm of gunfire on the good guys and ''again'' hit no one. Once again Lily the assassin has a sniper rifle, and once again she only manages to wing Kim Woo-gi, this time in the arm.

* ItWasHereISwear: Dal-gun says this to the police when the body of the murdered reporter (episode 4) disappears from the hotel room.

* KubrickStare: "Jerome", aka the guy who blew up the plane along with Woo-gi, does this when confronting Dal-gun at the end of episode 14.
* LeParkour: Dal-gun chases the culprit through the rooftops and ended up landing on the culprit's car.
* LockAndLoadMontage: A goofy montage at the end of the last episode has Dal-gun getting ready for war, loading magazines and chambering rounds and sheathing knives and such, while Hae-ri is, just as dramatically, putting on makeup and lipstick and perfume.

** Dal-gun twice walks away from accidents that flipped vehicles. He spills out of a moving car and down a rocky incline in Morocco. He jumps from a three-story building and lands [[CarCushion on a car windshield]]. He takes a licking, and keeps on ticking.

* MicrowaveMisuse: In episode 3 Dal-gun escapes from an assassin in a convenience store by throwing a spray can of--something (WD-40?)--into a microwave and turning it on. The microwave explodes as the killer is passing by, delaying him long enough for Dal-gun to get out.
* MissingMom: A flashback reveals that after Dal-gun's brother, Hoon's father, died, Hoon's mother dumped the boy at an orphanage. Dal-gun took him home.

* NoEnding: Unlike most Korean dramas. The story ends in "Kiria", with Edward and Acting President Hong trying to get a drilling contract, Hae-ri trying to stop them, and Dal-gun a mercenary who apparently hopes to use that position to somehow take down Edward Park. There's no resolution to the plot.

* PiggybackCute: In episode 14 Dal-gun uses Hae-ri's sore legs (she's slowly recovering from a gunshot wound) as an excuse to give her a piggyback ride.
* PlotTriggeringDeath: The death of Dal-gun's nephew Hoon brings Dal-gun to Morocco, first to go to the mass funeral, then to find out what happened.

** Episode 15 reveals that if you're driving a Hyundai SUV, you can choose special settings for different terrain! Dal-gun chooses "Muddy, Unpaved, Uneven Road" while driving to his rendezvous with President Jeong.
* ProfessionalKiller: Lily the hitwoman, hired at the end of episode 3 by Jessica to kill Dal-gun. She [[GratuitousEnglish drops into English]] to proclaim herself "[[BadassBoast Angel of Death]]."

* {{Qurac}}: In the HowWeGotHere 2019 prologue, Dal-gun is sitting in a sniper's nest, waiting for a target, in the North African "Kingdom of Kiria". This is a little weird, since a good chunk of the story will take place in the entirely real country of Morocco.
** "Kiria" is not mentioned again until episode 12, when Jessica asks President Jeong about an oil-drilling operation in that country.

** Dal-gun escapes from the assassin sent to kill him in episode 3, because they are in a convenience store, and Dal-gun sees the killer reflected in the glass of a cabinet of drinks, JustInTime.
** This happens again at the end of that same episode when Dal-gun sees a killer approaching through the reflection in Hae-ri's sunglasses.

** Dal-gun does this in the first episode when chasing after the man he saw at the hotel--the man who should not be there, since he was caught on the video Hoon sent his uncle from the plane.

* SceneryCensor: Dal-gun gets so excited about figuring out Oh Sang-mi's dying message that he charges out of the shower, naked. Hae-ri's head hides his private area.

* ShowerScene: This isn't a romance like many {{Korean Drama}}s but there's still a shower scene in episode 4, as the show gets to show off Dal-gun's chiseled physique while he takes a shower and thinks about events in his investigation.

** The ship teasing gets strong in episode 3 when Hae-ri nods off on Dal-gun's shoulder during the long plane flight back to Korea from Morocco.
** In episode 11 the two are sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a cargo ship. Hae-ri complains about Dal-gun's snoring and teeth-grinding...but when she falls asleep she wraps herself around him, to his discomfort.

* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: A batch of drugged noodles knocks out the NIS guards and allows an assassin to enter the safe house and come after Dal-gun.
* TitleDrop: "Vagabond" is the TrustPassword that Chief Kang has set up as the secret base that only he and Tae-ung know about. Hwa-sook uses the password when calling an order to the chicken place in episode 9, so she can eventually transmit to Tae-ung in Morocco the word that the supposed replacement team sent to relieve them in Tangier, is actually a death squad sent kill Woo-gi and Dal-gun.

* UnflinchingWalk: Dal-gun simply chucks a grenade backwards over his shoulder, and then walks unflinchingly away as the grenade goes off, killing Jerome in the last episode.
* VehicularSabotage: Lily the assassin tries to kill Dal-gun in episode 4 by remotely disabling the brakes on his car using [[EverythingIsOnline some kind of fancy hacking device]]. He survives the crash.

** Hoon's MissingMom, who didn't care back in the day but calls Dal-gun in episode 4, suddenly very interested now that there's the prospect of financial compensation for relatives of the victims of the crash.

* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: By episode 13 it seems like the bulk of the story has been resolved. Kim Woo-gi has testified, John & Mark has been publicly exposed, Jessica is in prison, Chief Min has been arrested, Secretary Yoon is taking the fall. Hae-ri even calls the case "solved". But there are loose ends, like who sent the video that got Jessica arrested, and who was the mystery sniper taking shots at Lily, and just what was up with Dal-gun thinking that he saw supposedly dead Reporter Jo alive on the streets of Seoul. And of course there are [[invoked]][[SpoiledByTheFormat three episodes left]]. Sure enough, at the end of the episode Jessica sends Dal-gun his nephew's video from the fatal plane, and the mystery deepens.

* ShesGotLegs: Mixed with DistractedByTheSexy. Hae-ri is caught by another intern at the embassy in a locked room, a place where she really shouldn't be. So she rips her stockings and, when the man comes in, dangles her long legs at him while claiming that she has to change her stockings.

* BigBad: Jessica Lee is shaping up to this.