You’ve probably seen Reply 1988 pop up on your Facebook feed up ’til today, almost six years after it first aired, because it’s just that good. It had everything for every kind of viewer: a captivating love triangle, rewarding coming-of-age stories, and way too many tearjerking scenes. In this list of the best scenes from Reply 1988, we’re going to take a look at some of the most heartbreaking moments in this iconic k-drama.
Obviously, spoilers are ahead! If you still haven’t watched any show from the Reply trilogy, make sure to visit our guide so you’d know how you should be watching it.
In the first moment of the show that truly made us tear up, our bubbly protaganist Sung Deok-sun learned that she would not be able to be part of the Olympic opening ceremony. She was representing the country of Madagascar which would eventually withdraw from the competition. We knew how big this was for Deok-sun; she was practicing day and night for that occasion.
She was also never as bright as her sister, so you knew this was a huge deal for her. It just sucked to see her try to hold back tears when she was being interviewed about how she felt about being removed from the ceremony.
It’s a two-for-one special for the first episode! Deok-sun had a memorably terrible birthday celebration right after the whole opening ceremony debacle. She was sick of sharing a birthday cake with her sister, Sung Bo-ra, just because they were born three days apart. But because their family wasn’t really that rich to begin with, her parents really didn’t have a choice.
When it was time to sing a birthday song for Deok-sun, she stopped the whole thing and went on a tirade. It wasn’t really about the fact that she was sharing a birthday cake, but it’s about all the times she felt like she wasn’t being treated equally as her siblings. Later on, her father brought her to a store, apologized, and secretly gave her a birthday cake of her own. Deok-sun’s dad is definitely father goals!
It’s a small moment, but something that really stayed with me. In the second episode, the boys lightheartedly made fun of the food that Sun-woo’s mom had prepared for him because she was not exactly the best cook in the world. Even if Sun-woo knew this, he made sure to eat the entire lunch made by his mom before he went home so that she wouldn’t feel bad. Aww~
One of the best scenes in Reply 1988 could be found in Episode 4, where we really got to explore the dynamic in Jung-hwan’s family. It was the birthday of his mother, Ra Mi-ran, so his dad, Kim Sung-kyun, did everything he could to make it a fun one for everyone. He took them to a fancy American diner, but the whole family seemed like they weren’t into it. Kim Jung-bong was too busy playing with his Rubik’s Cube while Jung-hwan was… being his unbothered self.
But Sung-kyun didn’t seem to mind their lack of appreciation until he bought some ice cream for the family. The next day, he saw the melted ice cream on the same spot where he had left it which sent him to a miserable state!
Jung-hwan was able to deduce why he was feeling that way, so when Sung-kyun did his signature wacky greeting thinking that Deok-sun had entered the house, he reluctantly did the whole bit with his father even if it was probably killing him inside. Even Sung-kyun was shocked when he played along!
From one father-son duo to another, Choi Taek and Moo-sung had some memorable storylines that made us reach for the tissue a couple of times. One of the most heartwrenching moments between them happened in the seventh episode, when Moo-sung was interviewed by a reporter about his son, but got frustrated when he couldn’t answer any question about him.
His guilt was intensified when Taek returned with a birthday present for him — pink mittens — from his trip overseas. When giving it to him, Taek said that he loved his father. While the latter obviously wanted to say it back, he couldn’t muster up the words to do so. They just didn’t have that kind of relationship especially since the both of them were so reserved!
But later on, the reporter showed Taek a video of Moo-sung telling him he loved him. And of course, Taek broke down in tears.
In Episode 11, Jung-hwan’s parents were planning to go to Japan for a quick getaway. Jung-hwan was in the travel agency helping out with the documents and had to call Mi-ran because they were asking for her English name. However, Mi-ran kept delaying giving the name so she told her son to call her back later instead. Jung-hwan was able to put two and two together and realized: his mother can’t read!
He asked Sung-kyun about it, who confirmed that both he and Mi-ran only finished grade school. Either way, he thought that his wife was the smartest person that he knew. On their way to the airport, Mi-ran found a welcome surprise in her passport as she saw her English name written in Hanggul.
It was from her son who did not once judge her for not knowing how to read English.
Another great moment from the most perfect son in the world. There was a time when his mom, Kim Sun-young, was sort of keeping her budding friendship with Moo-sung a secret from Sun-woo.
But when he eventually realized that Moo-sung and Sun-young may be hitting it off, he cut night classes to spy on them. But what he didn’t expect to find out was that his mother was actually working a part-time job as a bathhouse cleaner and was keeping it a secret from him! This simultaneously broke Sun-woo’s heart and made him angry.
Why would she keep all these secrets from him, but more importantly, why was she feeling the need to get a job for him?
Thankfully, Sung Bo-ra was able to explain why it’s important he didn’t get mad at his mom: she was doing all this extra work for him!
We’ve never seen Taek’s dad show so much emotion until this moment. The Ssangmundong neighborhood got turned upside-down when news broke out about a plane crash which Taek was probably on. While everyone was amazed at Moo-sung’s calm behavior throughout the whole thing, we learned what really happened.
Since the number to Taek’s hotel room was locked inside his drawer, Moo-sung desperately broke the padlock and was trembling in fear. Sun-woo had to call Taek in his place, and when he wasn’t answering, his dad threw the biggest tantrum because he thought he had just lost him. After the call, Taek just sat in tears because he was oblivious about how much he worried Moo-sung.
What started out as a funny joke where everyone started to call Deok-sun by the name “Soo-yeon” ended up giving us one of the saddest moments in Reply 1988. When her mom, Il-hwa, went to the fortune teller, she was told that Deok-sun would only get into college if everyone called her Soo-yeon. So she got the whole neighborhood to do so!
But when Il-hwa gets the news from her daughter’s teacher that college was not in the cards, she would immediately call her by Deok-sun again. This broke Deok-sun’s heart because the fact that she didn’t call her Soo-yeon anymore meant that she had just disappointed her mother. The spunky teenager would desperately apologize to her mother thinking that she had given up on her the moment she called her by her birth name.
One of the most underrated characters, Dong-ryong, finally took the spotlight in Episode 15. He had always been known as the joker of the group at this point, but we were able to see a glimpse of his not-so-happy life at home for the first time.
When he got into a motorcycle accident, he was taken to the police and needed a guardian to get him out, so the gang called his always-absentee of a mother which stirred quite the frightened reaction out of Dong-ryong. But to his surprise, she showed nothing but concern for her son. She would then watch him eat the food she cooked as Dong-ryong told her the latest tea about him and Ssangmundong — the first time she had seen him talk that much to her.
Actually, can we just include all the scenes between Sung Bo-ra and the dad? I mean the little things like Bo-ra buying him a shirt for work was enough to make me tear up. But if I had to pick the best moment in Reply 1988 between them, I’m going with the scene in Episode 16 where Bo-ra leaves home.
When Bo-ra was moving out so that she could study for the bar exams, we thought that Sung Dong-il was absent because he had to work. But as it turned out, he was actually doing something nice for his daughter. He stopped her car to give her some medicine he had bought for her. Even the stone cold Bo-ra couldn’t hold back her tears from this touching gesture, and she would let her tears fall as she drove away. Her dad loved her after all!
Now we weren’t gonna forget about Jung-bong, were we? The brothers shared one last moment together under the shooting stars before they moved past their teen years. When Jung-hwan asked what he wished for during the cosmic event, he told him that it was for Jung-hwan to follow his own dream.
We learned that Jung-hwan would always dream to be what Jung-bong dreamed of being, but had to set aside because of his heart condition. First, he wanted to be a soccer player, and then he wanted to be an Air Force pilot — two things Jung-bong wanted to be, but couldn’t. Jung-hwan always wanted to live his brother’s dream so that he could do it for the both of them. When he realized that Jung-bong caught up to what he had been doing, he couldn’t help but tear up.
I mean… I just couldn’t leave this out. When I laid out my theory about why Taek was not supposed to be Deok-sun’s husband, I told you all that I was Team Taek. But even I couldn’t help but feel so heartbroken for Jung-hwan when he made “jokingly” professed his love for her.
All viewers were waiting for a moment where one of the two boys in our loveline would finally confess his love, so we were all glued to our television watching Jung-hwan finally do it. The whole speech was so passionate and really came from the bottom of the heart! He was recounting all the things he did for Deok-sun in high school, and everyone in the dinner table was freaking SHOOKT to the core.
But by then, Jung-hwan knew that Deok-sun had no (more?) feelings for him. So he ended that whole spiel by saying it was just a joke.
This was honestly more a sad moment for us than for him, although you could kinda see his pain through it all.
I have… thoughts about the Reply 1988 finale, and to sum it up, my disappointment in it is the only thing keeping me from claiming that this is the best k-drama ever. But when Deok-sun did the whole nostalgic farewell to the Ssangmundong neighborhood and the simpler 1980s era at the very end of the show, I couldn’t help but feel somber. Seeing it empty without our favorite people living there anymore just hurt.
Change is inevitable, but it still sucks.
It’s truly a testament to how well the cast and crew behind the k-drama did their job; saying goodbye to Ssangmundong brought out a lot of tears from someone who was not even born in 1988.
And that’s our list of the top moments in Reply 1988 that made us cry. We know there are some tearjerking moments in Reply 1988 that we left out here, so feel free to leave them down in the comments section below!
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