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This review may contain spoilers
Resolution leaves something to be desired
I have two review versions.
Reply 1988 is
like a Michael Jackson song
like the youth you never had
like the youth you had
like a warm blanket
----------------------------------------------------------------
There is not a lot that hasn’t been said about Reply 1988. That’s why rather than trying to simply rehash what others have written before I want to focus my attention on the love triangle, its resolution, on the last episodes and the ways in which they might be lacking.
It seems to me that there is some fluff during the last episodes and uncharacteristically the focus shifts from Deok Sun to Bo-ra, and from the young to the older generation. My theory for this is that Jung Hwan made up a huge amount of the drama, and when they finish the love triangle story arch with episode 18 it changes the dynamic very much.
Deok Sun and Taek, despite being really sweet together, have no real romantic chemistry and the moment Jung Hwan leaves the triangle their romance plot falls flat on its face. The writer/producers might have seen that and tried to stuff the episodes with other people's issues which is honestly fine, but it nevertheless leaves something to be desired. You can argue that even the writer/producers have not enough confidence in the Deok Sun/Taek storyline from the moment the love triangle is over to give them a proper ending. So did they make a mistake in choosing Taek over Jung Hwan?
I am sure Taek was supposed to be the one from the start, something many people in #teamJungHwan are doubting who say they switched the one Deok Sun ends up with midway. I don’t think that. But what couldn't and can't be accounted for, what nobody could anticipate, is the real-life chemistry between the actors on set, something that develops during filming, the chemistry which surely favores Jung Hwan over Taek. The other point is simply what an actor makes out of a role, and clearly Ryu Joon Yeol is an outstanding actor who gives depth and complexity to this character and is immensely charismatic. Everything he does is simply unmissable. This, too couldn’t be foreseen. Equally, Park Bo Gum is a terrific actor with a delicacy that is quite rare in Korean dramas.
Jung Hwan is notably absent form large portions of the last episodes, but so are Deok Sun and Taek. Basically the makers seemed to go out of their way to leave Jung Hwan out of the plot, and whenever he wasn't around something was lacking. Reply 1988 being based on a real story means Jung Hwan's ending originally was different (he was supposed to die in a plane crash, being a fighter pilot), which luckily they changed. They could've changed it even more and changed Taek's role too, if they wanted to.
Both the chemistry and acting point toward Jung Hwan's role having a bigger ending than somehow fizzling out. But be that as it may, crucially, the makers seemed to also not have been very confident about the main couple, so they circumvented putting more time and effort into their storyline by embroidering other's. This goes above and beyond of the mechanisms of Second Lead Syndrome where it might be calculated that viewers favor the second lead getting the girl because it spices things up. There is a weird vacuum because these miscalculations are not properly addressed. There is no solution to the plot being somehow anticlimactic, but I am kind of glad they didn't add insult to injury by making up a happy-go-lucky ending for Jung Hwan.
Not having romantic or sexual chemistry is one thing but the writing has Deok Sun/Taek's relationship as more of a child/caretaker or sibling one. Taek maybe needs a mother or noona more than a girlfriend, and I don't think it's desirable to couple a young woman with a young man who is unable to "tie his own show laces" because she is so good at caring for him.
Of course the equally valid point can be made, and has been made, that no woman would want a man who continuously treats her badly and calls her ugly and stupid because he can not deal with his own feelings. He consistently chooses a negative, petty, mean approach, to protect himself from hurt, or because he is somewhat of an asshole. There is no good explanation why he can not even be different when he is alone: He wishes for Taek to be a jerk which would be bad for her too, and he secretly enjoys the fact that Sun Woo doesn’t like Deok Sun back. He resorts to negative thoughts and wants nobody else to have her instead of wishing the best for her.
Some people say Jung Hwan doesn't deserve her, yes, but the way he behaves until the end is a writing decision. Others say Jung Hwan is stronger and can deal with losing Deok Sun, but it would hurt Taek, maybe send him into even worse drug problems, which he would never recover from. While this is an intriguing point I don't think Taek should be coddled the way he always was coddled, well into his adulthood, just because he is supposedly weaker. Jung Hwan might be able to get over Deok Sun but to say he has to because he can deal with it is kind of cruel. The way he tends to bottle up his emotions is no sign of strength and I would have loved to see him open up and be vulnerable for once.
Of course, Jung Hwan as emotionally unavailable, distant love interest with an equally huge amount of meanspirited quips as well as wordless galantries is the kind of guy women easily fall for. He seems like a mixture of a Tsundere with a Kuudere type character. Mean, harsh, jealous, vengeful, unemotional, guarded who has a huge amount of belligerent sexual tension with Deok Sun. But the extent to which I would argue this is abused here makes Jung Hwan seem like a cheap plot device. He is good enough to provide heartfluttering moments, raise the tension and keep the love triangle alive but not good enough to be developed into something more. He deserves better.
Maybe, just maybe, this is not a bad plot device, and not bad writing, maybe this is intentional and what I am just writing proves just how great Jung Hwan is written and played, and just how they have succeeded in breaking our hearts. And the heartbreak, sorrow, even trauma wouldn't have happened if it were any other way.
With motherhood being such a huge part of Korean culture and even of this drama, I can see why the writers don't have a huge problem with choosing a partner who is essentially child-like in many ways, who needs mothering, and have this be a fundamental part of their relationship. I think it romanticizes motherhood and leaves Deuk Sun with the short end of the stick. From a Western perspective at least it seems strange, if not icky, to show marriage largely as one taking care of the other. From this perspective a romantic relationship is about two people meeting at eye level, not one looking down on the other. Maybe the flaw lies in the writing and Taek/Deuk Sun is never shown to evolve into a more equal kind of relationship. Taek has his moments and is mature in different ways, but he always stays a needy child in others. To be fair, Jung Hwan equally is never shown to fully evolve into someone who treats Deuk Sun well. So you have someone who looks down on her or someone who looks up to her, and of course you would want the latter for your female lead character.
You can complain that Deok Sun has been forced into a caretaking role just because it is her nature, which is unfair. You can also look at it from another angle - Deok Sun is simply a stronger person. She can take care of Taek and be a grounding influence on him just because she is smart, pragmatic, realistic, tough and mentally strong. This makes her not stuck in an antiquated role but, quite the opposite, a very modern heroine.
Jung Hwan hurts himself as well as Deok Sun by pushing her away, hesitating, ruminating and giving major mixed signals. Taek never once deliberately hurts her. That in and of itself should be enough to give Taek the upper hand. But it also makes Jung Hwan so much more interesting, because you can never forget the people who hurt you and there will always be lingering questions like 'why....' and 'what if....?'.
There is a scene when Dong Ryung asks Deok Sun whom she likes more, Taek or him, and without hesitation she says Taek. But when he asks whom she likes more between Jung Hwan and Sun Woo, she answers evasively. This seems to mirror Taek's/Jung Hwan's feelings. I always felt that Deok Sun loves Taek, and isn't afraid to express it, and that she likes to take care of him and is very protective of him, but that she is in love with Jung Hwan. It is fitting that after being very vocal about her feelings for Sun Woo she would tread lightly and be cautious to not get burned again.
Mid-drama it is clear that both Taek and Jung Hwan have romantic interest in Deok Sun, but there is never an easy answer as to what she feels. If there is an imbalance of feelings the final episode unwisely exacerbates it: Once more we learn about Taek’s feelings which were never in doubt. This emphasizes even more that her feelings are still somewhat of a mistery, which leaves a bitter aftertaste. It makes me think of the cheesy male-written line from Titanic: “A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets”. If that were the case the writer could’ve worked that into the script, they could’ve left room for doubt, longing, inner conflict – particularly in a drama centered around sentimentality. Instead the romance is resolved and everything else is simply left to be forgotten, which is offensively stupid.
In a way whom Deok Sun ends up with is very fitting to who she is as a person. She has always been a people pleaser and never had a dream of her own, she always reacts to being liked rather than liking someone herself. So she ends up with the one capable of consistently showing his affection towards her. We'll never know whether what she likes herself is actually different. Probably she doesn't know herself.
Deok Sun is also pragmatic, and her whole personality is grounded in reality. Despite what other characters say about him I believe Jung Hwan is romantic, and sensitive, and the fact that he is not capable of expressing his feelings adequately only makes him more so. Jung Hwan has the most romantic gestures of the two love interests, and quietly he is very perceptive, very sweet, and very idolizing. I don't really know whether this at all translates into a real-life relationship and maybe Jung Hwan feels that adoring Deuk Sun from afar is already the best part of it. Maybe he wants her to remain an idea in his mind, untouched by reality. Maybe, like he says, he isn't very courageous and hides his insecurity behind a mean facade. In this regard Taek is very confident, he doesn't need to hide behind anything. He also experiences many tough moments with Deuk Sun (the flasher, being in China, carrying her out of the stadium, giving her medicine) and his strength lies in being there and dealing with it all like a mature person. Taek is already real-life tried and tested.
I think Taek is a great guy and I'd have no problem with Deok Sun ending up with him, if it weren't for Jung Hwan. In fact, they are both tremendously intriguing, flawed, complicated characters whom I love from the bottom of my heart and choosing between them is literally like Sophie's Choice, only worse.
As it stands this might be one of the most traumatic, heartwrenching, tragic endings I have ever seen. Maybe the impossibility to find a perfect solution with everything wrapped up neatly is part of what makes Reply 1988 so good. When all is said and done, and reality sets in, the reality we see drawn out which seems not a bad place to be in, there is still that someone in your memory, there is still something unfulfilled, just one more reason to be sentimental for your youth.
Reply 1988 is
like a Michael Jackson song
like the youth you never had
like the youth you had
like a warm blanket
----------------------------------------------------------------
There is not a lot that hasn’t been said about Reply 1988. That’s why rather than trying to simply rehash what others have written before I want to focus my attention on the love triangle, its resolution, on the last episodes and the ways in which they might be lacking.
It seems to me that there is some fluff during the last episodes and uncharacteristically the focus shifts from Deok Sun to Bo-ra, and from the young to the older generation. My theory for this is that Jung Hwan made up a huge amount of the drama, and when they finish the love triangle story arch with episode 18 it changes the dynamic very much.
Deok Sun and Taek, despite being really sweet together, have no real romantic chemistry and the moment Jung Hwan leaves the triangle their romance plot falls flat on its face. The writer/producers might have seen that and tried to stuff the episodes with other people's issues which is honestly fine, but it nevertheless leaves something to be desired. You can argue that even the writer/producers have not enough confidence in the Deok Sun/Taek storyline from the moment the love triangle is over to give them a proper ending. So did they make a mistake in choosing Taek over Jung Hwan?
I am sure Taek was supposed to be the one from the start, something many people in #teamJungHwan are doubting who say they switched the one Deok Sun ends up with midway. I don’t think that. But what couldn't and can't be accounted for, what nobody could anticipate, is the real-life chemistry between the actors on set, something that develops during filming, the chemistry which surely favores Jung Hwan over Taek. The other point is simply what an actor makes out of a role, and clearly Ryu Joon Yeol is an outstanding actor who gives depth and complexity to this character and is immensely charismatic. Everything he does is simply unmissable. This, too couldn’t be foreseen. Equally, Park Bo Gum is a terrific actor with a delicacy that is quite rare in Korean dramas.
Jung Hwan is notably absent form large portions of the last episodes, but so are Deok Sun and Taek. Basically the makers seemed to go out of their way to leave Jung Hwan out of the plot, and whenever he wasn't around something was lacking. Reply 1988 being based on a real story means Jung Hwan's ending originally was different (he was supposed to die in a plane crash, being a fighter pilot), which luckily they changed. They could've changed it even more and changed Taek's role too, if they wanted to.
Both the chemistry and acting point toward Jung Hwan's role having a bigger ending than somehow fizzling out. But be that as it may, crucially, the makers seemed to also not have been very confident about the main couple, so they circumvented putting more time and effort into their storyline by embroidering other's. This goes above and beyond of the mechanisms of Second Lead Syndrome where it might be calculated that viewers favor the second lead getting the girl because it spices things up. There is a weird vacuum because these miscalculations are not properly addressed. There is no solution to the plot being somehow anticlimactic, but I am kind of glad they didn't add insult to injury by making up a happy-go-lucky ending for Jung Hwan.
Not having romantic or sexual chemistry is one thing but the writing has Deok Sun/Taek's relationship as more of a child/caretaker or sibling one. Taek maybe needs a mother or noona more than a girlfriend, and I don't think it's desirable to couple a young woman with a young man who is unable to "tie his own show laces" because she is so good at caring for him.
Of course the equally valid point can be made, and has been made, that no woman would want a man who continuously treats her badly and calls her ugly and stupid because he can not deal with his own feelings. He consistently chooses a negative, petty, mean approach, to protect himself from hurt, or because he is somewhat of an asshole. There is no good explanation why he can not even be different when he is alone: He wishes for Taek to be a jerk which would be bad for her too, and he secretly enjoys the fact that Sun Woo doesn’t like Deok Sun back. He resorts to negative thoughts and wants nobody else to have her instead of wishing the best for her.
Some people say Jung Hwan doesn't deserve her, yes, but the way he behaves until the end is a writing decision. Others say Jung Hwan is stronger and can deal with losing Deok Sun, but it would hurt Taek, maybe send him into even worse drug problems, which he would never recover from. While this is an intriguing point I don't think Taek should be coddled the way he always was coddled, well into his adulthood, just because he is supposedly weaker. Jung Hwan might be able to get over Deok Sun but to say he has to because he can deal with it is kind of cruel. The way he tends to bottle up his emotions is no sign of strength and I would have loved to see him open up and be vulnerable for once.
Of course, Jung Hwan as emotionally unavailable, distant love interest with an equally huge amount of meanspirited quips as well as wordless galantries is the kind of guy women easily fall for. He seems like a mixture of a Tsundere with a Kuudere type character. Mean, harsh, jealous, vengeful, unemotional, guarded who has a huge amount of belligerent sexual tension with Deok Sun. But the extent to which I would argue this is abused here makes Jung Hwan seem like a cheap plot device. He is good enough to provide heartfluttering moments, raise the tension and keep the love triangle alive but not good enough to be developed into something more. He deserves better.
Maybe, just maybe, this is not a bad plot device, and not bad writing, maybe this is intentional and what I am just writing proves just how great Jung Hwan is written and played, and just how they have succeeded in breaking our hearts. And the heartbreak, sorrow, even trauma wouldn't have happened if it were any other way.
With motherhood being such a huge part of Korean culture and even of this drama, I can see why the writers don't have a huge problem with choosing a partner who is essentially child-like in many ways, who needs mothering, and have this be a fundamental part of their relationship. I think it romanticizes motherhood and leaves Deuk Sun with the short end of the stick. From a Western perspective at least it seems strange, if not icky, to show marriage largely as one taking care of the other. From this perspective a romantic relationship is about two people meeting at eye level, not one looking down on the other. Maybe the flaw lies in the writing and Taek/Deuk Sun is never shown to evolve into a more equal kind of relationship. Taek has his moments and is mature in different ways, but he always stays a needy child in others. To be fair, Jung Hwan equally is never shown to fully evolve into someone who treats Deuk Sun well. So you have someone who looks down on her or someone who looks up to her, and of course you would want the latter for your female lead character.
You can complain that Deok Sun has been forced into a caretaking role just because it is her nature, which is unfair. You can also look at it from another angle - Deok Sun is simply a stronger person. She can take care of Taek and be a grounding influence on him just because she is smart, pragmatic, realistic, tough and mentally strong. This makes her not stuck in an antiquated role but, quite the opposite, a very modern heroine.
Jung Hwan hurts himself as well as Deok Sun by pushing her away, hesitating, ruminating and giving major mixed signals. Taek never once deliberately hurts her. That in and of itself should be enough to give Taek the upper hand. But it also makes Jung Hwan so much more interesting, because you can never forget the people who hurt you and there will always be lingering questions like 'why....' and 'what if....?'.
There is a scene when Dong Ryung asks Deok Sun whom she likes more, Taek or him, and without hesitation she says Taek. But when he asks whom she likes more between Jung Hwan and Sun Woo, she answers evasively. This seems to mirror Taek's/Jung Hwan's feelings. I always felt that Deok Sun loves Taek, and isn't afraid to express it, and that she likes to take care of him and is very protective of him, but that she is in love with Jung Hwan. It is fitting that after being very vocal about her feelings for Sun Woo she would tread lightly and be cautious to not get burned again.
Mid-drama it is clear that both Taek and Jung Hwan have romantic interest in Deok Sun, but there is never an easy answer as to what she feels. If there is an imbalance of feelings the final episode unwisely exacerbates it: Once more we learn about Taek’s feelings which were never in doubt. This emphasizes even more that her feelings are still somewhat of a mistery, which leaves a bitter aftertaste. It makes me think of the cheesy male-written line from Titanic: “A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets”. If that were the case the writer could’ve worked that into the script, they could’ve left room for doubt, longing, inner conflict – particularly in a drama centered around sentimentality. Instead the romance is resolved and everything else is simply left to be forgotten, which is offensively stupid.
In a way whom Deok Sun ends up with is very fitting to who she is as a person. She has always been a people pleaser and never had a dream of her own, she always reacts to being liked rather than liking someone herself. So she ends up with the one capable of consistently showing his affection towards her. We'll never know whether what she likes herself is actually different. Probably she doesn't know herself.
Deok Sun is also pragmatic, and her whole personality is grounded in reality. Despite what other characters say about him I believe Jung Hwan is romantic, and sensitive, and the fact that he is not capable of expressing his feelings adequately only makes him more so. Jung Hwan has the most romantic gestures of the two love interests, and quietly he is very perceptive, very sweet, and very idolizing. I don't really know whether this at all translates into a real-life relationship and maybe Jung Hwan feels that adoring Deuk Sun from afar is already the best part of it. Maybe he wants her to remain an idea in his mind, untouched by reality. Maybe, like he says, he isn't very courageous and hides his insecurity behind a mean facade. In this regard Taek is very confident, he doesn't need to hide behind anything. He also experiences many tough moments with Deuk Sun (the flasher, being in China, carrying her out of the stadium, giving her medicine) and his strength lies in being there and dealing with it all like a mature person. Taek is already real-life tried and tested.
I think Taek is a great guy and I'd have no problem with Deok Sun ending up with him, if it weren't for Jung Hwan. In fact, they are both tremendously intriguing, flawed, complicated characters whom I love from the bottom of my heart and choosing between them is literally like Sophie's Choice, only worse.
As it stands this might be one of the most traumatic, heartwrenching, tragic endings I have ever seen. Maybe the impossibility to find a perfect solution with everything wrapped up neatly is part of what makes Reply 1988 so good. When all is said and done, and reality sets in, the reality we see drawn out which seems not a bad place to be in, there is still that someone in your memory, there is still something unfulfilled, just one more reason to be sentimental for your youth.
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