Tempest episodes 1–3 recap: Assassination, conspiracies, and the storm that binds a widow and a mercenary

In the beginning of Tempest, under a blood-red dawn, former UN ambassador Seo Mun-ju (Jun Ji-hyun) wakes from a nightmare steeped in violence. The world outside her window is no less volatile: North Korea has tested missiles, U.S. forces have advanced into the East Sea, and Seoul teeters on the edge of crisis.

Mun-ju has stepped down from her post at the United Nations to return home, where her husband Jang Jun-ik (Park Hae-joon), a conservative rising star, prepares to challenge President Chae Kyung-sin (Kim Hae-sook).

The stage in Tempest is set not only for an election but for catastrophe.

A candidate silenced by bullets

Jun-ik takes the podium at a mass prayer service for reunification, banners billowing above a restless crowd. His words call for peace, but anger brews among those who see compromise as betrayal. A soldier in the audience shouts “Traitor!” and opens fire. The chaos is instantaneous: screams, gunshots, the candidate collapsing. A cameraman lunges at the attacker, subduing him before he swallows cyanide and dies on the spot.

Hours later, the announcement shakes the nation. Jang Jun-ik is dead. What should have been another campaign speech has become an assassination that sends shockwaves through South Korea and beyond.

A funeral of widows and a will of fire

Rain lashes the black umbrellas at Jun-ik’s funeral. His family mourns, but ambition cuts through grief. His mother Lim Ok-seon (Lee Mi-sook) recalls that in politics, widows inherit power as often as heirs. She suggests that Mun-ju herself step into the race.

When Jun-ik’s will is read, the storm intensifies. Every asset, from campaign funds to corporate holdings, passes not to his relatives but solely to Mun-ju. Outrage erupts. Ok-seon and Jun-ik’s brother Jang Jun-sang (Oh Jung-se) vow to fight the decision. Yet the path in Tempest is already clear: the widow is now the figure the cameras follow, whether she wants the role or not.

Tempest and the fractured family dynasty

The assassination in the beginning of Tempest shatters the nation and the Jang household. Ok-seon insists Mun-ju must step forward to protect their influence, while Jun-sang schemes to replace his brother. What begins as grief collapses into rivalry, each word at the table carrying the weight of a campaign slogan.

Jun-ik’s choice to leave everything to Mun-ju exposes the cracks in his dynasty. She becomes both target and heir, the only figure strong enough to carry the family into the next battle, even as her in-laws brand her an interloper.

The mercenary in the shadows

The mysterious cameraman is identified as Baek San-ho (Gang Dong-won), a mercenary with ties to the private firm Valkyrie. He disappears as suddenly as he arrived, but his presence becomes an obsession for Mun-ju.

Her aide Yeo Mi-ji investigates the assassin’s family and vanishes under suspicious circumstances. Father Yang, a priest close to Jun-ik, warns San-ho that enemies are moving quickly. Soon after, he is murdered, leaving behind cryptic words and a trail leading to an underground tunnel beneath a church.

Secrets in the tunnels

Beneath the cathedral, they uncover tunnels carved during the Japanese occupation. Dust and shadows cling to the stones, echoes of wars past feeding the atmosphere of conspiracy. In a wine bottle hidden among relics, San-ho finds a letter from Anderson Miller (John Cho), U.S. Deputy Secretary of State.

The revelation is seismic. American intelligence discovered a North Korean nuclear submarine, and the Pentagon is preparing a strike. Miller sought Jun-ik’s help to prevent escalation, but his death silenced the possibility. A cryptic phrase uttered by one of the killers—“the whale in the distant sea”—suddenly aligns with the submarine threat. Jun-ik’s assassination was no isolated act, it was the opening of a much larger war game.

The president who burns evidence

Armed with the letter, Mun-ju confronts President Chae Kyung-sin. Chae listens, then throws the document into the fire in the ashtray. She already knew, she says, and Jun-ik’s death will serve her political leverage with the Americans. To Chae, Mun-ju is naïve, a liability. She orders her to leave Seoul before she meets the same fate.

But Mun-ju refuses exile. If the conspiracy killed her husband, she will carry his vision herself.

A widow enters the race

Mun-ju strikes a deal with Lim Ok-seon. She will cede Jun-ik’s assets back to the family if they support her candidacy and silence Jun-sang’s ambitions. The bargain holds and Mun-ju steps into the campaign, a widow framed as a symbol of resilience and peace.

She takes her message to Gwangju’s Memorial Park, Seoul’s National Cemetery, and packed rallies across the capital. Her speeches, raw and deliberate, turn grief into momentum. Cameras linger on her face, and the public begins to believe.

In the crowd, Baek San-ho appears again. He does not step forward, but his eyes never leave her. Protector or threat, both? His real role remains unreadable.

A bomb beneath the lectern

During one rally, the danger resurfaces. Mun-ju’s lectern is rigged with a bomb timed to detonate as she moves. Security scrambles, but San-ho moves first, pushing her aside and saving first her then himself (with seconds left). The crowd can only imagine how close they came to disaster.

Mun-ju takes the stage again that night, her resolve sharper. On live television she declares that Jun-ik’s dream of peace will not die with him. Across the country, millions watch a widow transform into a contender, her vulnerability turned into steel.

The storm widens

As Mun-ju consolidates power, the conspiracy grows darker. Foreign operatives move through Seoul in secret. Intelligence leaks hint at betrayals within the highest offices. And far from the city, in the waters of the East Sea, a North Korean submarine surfaces and launches a missile into the sky.

The world watches the plume of fire arc into the night. For Mun-ju and San-ho, it is proof that the storm has only begun.

Closing thoughts on Tempest

Across three episodes, Tempest establishes itself as more than a thriller. It is a story of assassination and succession, of conspiracies written in smoke, of a widow forced into power and a mercenary bound by shadows. Its scale stretches from Seoul’s cathedrals to the corridors of Washington, from campaign rallies to missile launches, each scene shot with the urgency of a world on the brink.

Tempest also shows how personal grief and global politics collapse into one. Mun-ju’s shift from diplomat’s wife to reluctant candidate mirrors how South Korea is pulled between private wounds and international calculations.

Scenes of whispered deals in cathedrals and bombs wired into public rallies remind viewers that survival in Tempest depends on navigating the collision of family, faith, and state under the shadow of war.

What began with bullets at a podium ends with fire rising from the sea, and a promise that the tempest will only intensify.