This one comment on Dramabeans pretty much sums up my deal with Reply 1994:
mina December 8th, 2013 at 12:04 PM
I thought the baseball analogies in the earlier episodes were pretty cool, but I really, really did not like Chilbong equating not being able to win Na Jung’s affections to losing a game of baseball. And the whole ‘Oh, I’m gonna come back to take that ball back one day’. Ugh, please stop. I’ve been understanding of heartache so far. It sucks to be in love with someone who doesn’t see you in that light at all, and I do feel for him.
There might be some fundamental parallels between how love and baseball work, but I think the writers are being ignorant to the fact that when you play any sports, you play to win, you play to beat the rival, and the game itself is just a powerless entity that is only being swayed by the actions of the players. This is why equating Na Jung and her affections to a game of baseball is so problematic. It completely erases Na Jung’s own feelings, her preferences, her agency. Her being equated to a game of baseball means, she doesn’t have a say in who wins her affections, and I don’t know about you all, but to me, that’s a pretty troublesome statement to make about love. My beef is more with the writers than Chilbong the character. I still love him and truly hope that he finds happiness soon, be it in baseball, a different girl, or even Najung, granted the writers make it happen in an organic, believable way, though with each passing episode I’m getting more and more skeptical of the writers being able to pull that off.
I’m starting to think that I had been giving the writers way too much credit all along. I was confident they would be able to continue telling heart-tugging stories, while maintaining the husband mystery on the side. But, they’re letting the husband mystery, which is really just a gimmick and which adds nothing good to my watching experience, take over the entire show. They’re compromising characters, throwing misleading clues left and right, and honestly taking a LOT away from the fun, laidback watch Reply 1994 used to be in the first half, all for the sake of a gimmick. If Oppa is really the husband, what the heck is up with the overwhelming amount of clues pointing to Chilbong in the 2013 scenes? I’m honestly so freaking annoyed that I cannot enjoy them being adorable in love without feeling like something awful is lurking just around the corner. And if Chilbong is the husband, I’m almost certain that no matter how the writers try to work it, it’s going to be feel rushed and jarring after Na Jung spent 15 episodes being completely unaffected by him. I feel like the husband has to be Chilbong considering everything so far, but at this point, I would be disappointed with that even if I was a NJ/Chilbong shipper.
