Reply 1988: The End

I don’t know what to say. All I can tell you is that I sit here, a few hours after finishing this show, & feel…at peace.

This show explores the daily life of simple people leading simple lives on a simple street called Ssangmundong, in the year of 1988. And this simplicity is what makes this such an absolutely beautiful show. The characters, the relationships, the dialogues, the theme of the ep, they are all so so real, that it makes you cry. Because they echo you & the people who have been in your lives, so much. Throughout the show, me & my mom kept repeating how real the show was. How heart-touchingly real. My mom even ended up shedding tears while watching this, & she is a stingy crier whom I have only seen cry twice before in my entire life.

This show IS about growing up, but not just the growth of our teenage characters. Its also about the growth of the parents. While we watch the kids learning to take up the mantle of responsibility, we simultaneously see the parents learning to let go of it, as both the generations slowly come to accept the inevitability of time & start a new era in their lives. As I have said before, the reason why I could never bring myself to finish this show was because I knew what the last sequence was & thought it would break my heart to see it. I kept angrily questioning why this show couldn’t have been fantastical for just that one part & kept all our characters just the way they were, forever. But when the final scene finally rolled around, I didn’t think anything else could have been more perfect & done this story more justice. I was not sad. It felt right, & if anything, that was a true happy ending. Even when my mom & I talked about it later, she said how she had been waiting to see if they would keep them all together at the end, & that if they had, she would have been disappointed. Because you see, our characters made Ssangmundong, & not the other way around. Ssangmundong will never leave our characters’ hearts. It will forever be the part of them they can fall back on during hard times, whenever they need a little comfort & encouragement. Their lives there gave them the strong foundation they needed to build their own stable, happy lives upon. Yes, change is scary. But change also carries with it the possibility of a better life. It was only through that, that the characters reached where they are in the present time. Jung Bong actually reflects this want of ours of not wanting anything in Ssangmundong to change. He was a character that was just not ready to let go of his youth yet, years after all his companions have (its telling that we never hear even a mention of any friends he must have had when still in school), in turn flailing around & jumping from one obsession to another in order to find something to live for. But it was only when he finally found a dream that motivated him to change, that he found a stability within him, & well we all know how his character ends up in the future.

This show is like a love letter. Its a love letter from the children to their parents, & from the parents to their children. My mom & I are people who have trouble expressing affection for each other. But as we watched this show together, it was like the characters gave our unspoken thoughts their voices, and as they did, it was like we talked with each other, said all the things that we wanted to say, needed to say, without having tangibly uttered one word between us. It was cathartic, to say the least.

[spoilers ahead]
As for the nitty gritty stuff, I didn’t mind that we didn’t get answers for EVERY single thing. It would have felt forced & anyways, we did get a lot of answers still. We know that Bora’s family & Jung Hwan’s family moved to the same place, so we know that that friendship is still intact. Taek’s family & Bora’s family are in-laws as well so basically, these three families are still intact in their relationship, & by extension, the kids too. The only people we don’t know about are Dong Ryong & his family but its OK! I am sure that they are still friends too, but even if their relationship did indeed not stand the test of time & distance (which I highly doubt), I know that no matter where they are, however they are, they are happy, which is what puts me at peace. I also didn’t mind that we don’t find out more about Jung Hwan’s romantic life post-Dukseon, but that’s ok too. Again, I am sure he is happy, wherever & however he is. I saw a lot of people say that they missed out on seeing Dukseon realize her feelings for Taek, but I disagree. It was pretty obvious to me when she saw it, & no it was not when Taek carried her princess-style. It was after Dong Ryong gave her that speech at the staircase about finding out who she loves, instead of trying to find out who loves her. Ever since then, her reactions to everything Taek-related had been different, had just been….more. It was actually wonderfully done because of how subtle it was. Unlike when she thought the other boys liked her, this time she couldn’t be so open with her feelings. Not only because they were her genuine feelings, but also because she was just that scared of possibly ruining what she had Taek & losing him forever. I thought the progression of their romance was perfectly done, realistically. I appreciate it when a show does not try to throw romance at my face. Another moment I thought showed Dukseon’s feelings perfectly was when Junghwan confessed his feelings for her. Dukseon’s smile was not that of someone being happy at finally getting the confession they wanted from their crush. Her smile was peaceful, like she was finding closure for something that had long since passed her by. Junghwan was already six years too late. And Dukseon’s smile faltering at the end was her being disappointed at Junghwan for chickening out yet again, even when she knew he had been telling her the truth. Can’t blame her, I was disappointed too. In short – I was satisfied with the way the romance turned out, as well as everyone’s lives.
[end spoiler]

This is it for my journey with Reply 1988. It took me years, but I am finally here. This show was an absolutely beautiful one & deserves all the love it can get. It’s a gem & I am so thankful that such a show exists. No other show can come close to this for me. It is hard to explain why me & my mom loved it so much in logical words because it was such an emotional experience. I will not be rewatching this though, not because I don’t think this has rewatch capability, but because it leaves me a mess & I seriously don’t have so many emotions to spend all the time 😂 I have decided though, that when my kids hit adulthood, I will sit them down & watch this with them. Also, I REALLY need some fluff now.

So thank you, & goodbye, Ssangmundong 1988. I love you & I will miss you, and I will always carry you in my heart.