This ended up being my favorite of the three Reply drama's, which surprised me, as I thought one of the others would be my favorite. Would love to see the reunion, although I doubt it will be made available where I live, lol.
This special is essentially a full season's worth of plot sped up. The situations were mostly in-line with the sorts of things I would expect the various family members to go through, and I didn't dislike any of it. It was just too much to pack into a short special and deserved a full sequel season to unpack.
This special also takes the one element of the original drama that I actively disliked and made it the entire theme of the special. Namely, Kahoko's grandmother placing the (completely unhealthy and unrealistic) burden of being solely responsible for the entire family's well-being on Kahoko's shoulders. That was actively frustrating to watch.
Also, there is one (ONE!) almost romantic moment between Kahoko and the hubs which the drama mercilessly cuts off at the knees. I found that to be quite rude.
I wouldn't recommend watching this special as it's more frustrating than enjoyable.
If I had watched this when it aired or at some point over the next few years after, I probably would have enjoyed this a lot more. But watching this in 2025 and after watching and loving several dramas that have done a lot of the same tropes but better, in my opinion, I find this drama to be kind of mid. No hate for it or for the people who love it. I totally get why someone would. I just don't think it is particularly impressive.
This was a cute watch! There were some heavy moments, but overall, it's fairly lighthearted and upbeat. And the female lead is really fun! The actress' delivery is absolutely fabulous and keeps her character from coming across as really weird or self-obsessed or obnoxious. Now I want to watch other things with her in them.
I see this is available on Viki, but Viki says it is rated R. Can anyone confirm this? It doesn't look like the sort of story that would be more than PG or PG-13, lol.
Without having read the editorial yet, I would say it's because the second male leads were historically often…
Granted, I often ended up annoyed with the second male leads, because my mindset is always 'This is who the writer wants together, and I want what the writer wants, so I'm gonna root for the OTP and be frustrated with the second male lead for not respecting the writer's vision. And if the OTP sucks...I'll drop the drama or suck it up.'
I fully admit that I usually sucked it up and put myself through a lot of unnecessary torture, lol.
Without having read the editorial yet, I would say it's because the second male leads were historically often extremely decent guys who treated the female leads with love and respect while the male leads were historically awful, and if the female lead were our real-life friend, we would be telling her to dump the male lead and date the second, lol. I don't know how well this holds up today for dramas for certain countries (I feel like this is more of a thing of the past for Kdrama's, for example), but it was definitely true of most romance/rom-com dramas for a long time.
We grieved, lol. Honestly, I gave up a long time ago the thought of a season 2. But supposedly there will be one…
I'm surprised it took them so long to make a season 2. I know second seasons weren't really a thing back then but given how popular this drama was (and has continued to be) and that cliffhanger in the finale, it's kind of shocking they didn't make an exception for this drama, lol. Either way though, I'm really excited for season 2. I can understand why people might feel some anxiety around it though.
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This special also takes the one element of the original drama that I actively disliked and made it the entire theme of the special. Namely, Kahoko's grandmother placing the (completely unhealthy and unrealistic) burden of being solely responsible for the entire family's well-being on Kahoko's shoulders. That was actively frustrating to watch.
Also, there is one (ONE!) almost romantic moment between Kahoko and the hubs which the drama mercilessly cuts off at the knees. I found that to be quite rude.
I wouldn't recommend watching this special as it's more frustrating than enjoyable.
I fully admit that I usually sucked it up and put myself through a lot of unnecessary torture, lol.