[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Reply 1994" Episode 14

There's a great nineties aesthetic going on throughout this episode. "Reply 1994", like almost any drama produced today, is ultimately a product of popular current-day writing tropes and situations. In this episode, that scenario is conversations that are both emotionally stunted and emotionally expressive, as participants try to express themselves as much as they can without risking offending the other person. The nineties music selection here is amazingly well-suited to these scenes, communicating a particular sadness and intimacy that just doesn't seem to go far enough.

Advertisement

Incidentally, there's another giant time jump this episode. At this rate we'll almost certainly get a cameo from the drama's predecessor. At first this might seem to be a cheat- Na-jeong and Rubbish are finally couple, and we're skipping over all of that just to watch a relationship that's several months in? But the narrative reasons for this are sound. We, the audience, as objective observers, know exactly why this relationship has taken so long to happen and what the main personality problems are that have been preventing it.

But for all we know, these problems may yet still exist! So "Reply 1994"'s decision to pivot away from conversations between Na-jeong and Rubbish and focus instead on how other characters are interpreting their relationship is a wise one. It helps maintain the ambiguity of the situation. Not to mention that if we got too many scenes of those two being lovey-dovey, it might be a cheat to eventually find out Rubbish isn't the husband. This episode gets the cuteness just right.

It also has a pretty decent blend of comedy as Hae-tae has begun the long, arduous process of his mandatory service in the Korean army. It's about as fun and enjoyable as might be expected. He suffers from mild bullying, constantly getting told to do dumb things for no reason, and in the end learns that even uplifting moments are secretly cosmic jokes on the utter despair that is mandatory military service. Poor Hae-tae. I feel kind of bad laughing at his pain, but what other medicine is there?

Everyone does a fairly strong job this time acting wise. All of the characterization and drama manages to hit strong, convincing notes. I think it's just a matter of the style and synthesis coming together really well. Even the mystery gets an intriguing twist, as an object is revealed in Na-jeong's apartment that clearly has some sort of divisive emotional value to nearly every character in the story. Unfortunately, it won't be until next episode that we get any clear idea what that object's significance might be.

Review by William Schwartz

"Reply 1994" is directed by Sin Won-ho and written by Lee Woo-jeong-I and features Go Ara, Sung Dong-il, Lee Il-hwa and Jung Woo.