Eun Gyeol was taken back to 1995, and I was thrown physically back to circa 2009, when my younger brother, a very good guitarist now himself, would show me and binge watch guitar videos with me on Youtube, when that Canon Rock* was edited over Jung Hyun Joon playing young Eun Gyeol, and very much NOT playing guitar 😂😂😂

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*Also I can’t quite tell because I listened to like 6 versions of this in a row after finishing episode 1, but is that Lim Jeong Hyun/funtwo's version, in both scenes, btw???? Cos it sounds awfully like it… [link below], and if it is... I'm... That’s pretty funny, ngl:

Canon Rock was arranged by Taiwanese guitarist and composer Jerry C.

And then went viral in 2005, when Korean musician Lim Jeong Hyun covered it, and uploaded on Mule, first, and then when someone else uploaded THAT onto youtube.
(A couple of months later the original Jerry C version was also uploaded on youtube, and then eventually funtwo uploaded his version onto yt himself.)

It has since gone viral serval other times, including by other famous Korean guitarist Sungha Jung, and Laura Lace, and persists as an internet favourite.

(What I find amusing is that I posted very much the same thing on my wall when Hosplay used it in 2020, that is, the original Jerry C recording, but I completely forgot I did that till yesterday because for some reason despite enjoying it whilst watching, scandalously, Hosplay has not retained its stickiness for a drama for me at all.
Ergo for me the song has no direct Hosplay connotation whatsoever. 😅😂)

Anyway, I just it would just be funny if they used the version that first went viral, which also happens to be by a Korean, as the recording in this.

But someone with more advanced knowledge of music can tell me if Sic is just hearing things (highly possible) or not.

I was very confused on episode one. I didn’t get the two timeframe and literally made a weird love connection between Hyung and cello player student.
And episode 2 was better but still didn’t enjoy it as much. Not sure I relate to the time travel here. I only wanted to see Choi Hyun Wook, who is adorable just like in 2521.

I was really hyped for this drama but the first two episodes didn't really grab me. A lot of people said the same about My Lovely Boxer and probably for the same reasons: a lot of backstory and setting up of plot elements. So I hope going forward, this drama becomes as enjoyable as MLB did after the first week.

Anyways, god I hate that lil psycho kid so much. he almost got 4 ppl killed and received 0 consequences for it. So I wasn’t surprised he grew up to be a drunk driver. ML’s dad made a lot of good points - when you cover up your child’s problems instead of addressing it, you’re just planting the seeds of future trouble.

ppl keep inventing new and exciting ways to be bigoted. like, how would having deaf ppl as neighbours even affect you?

I also can't believe the music shop old man straight up killed himself.... there must be some time travel reason why he killed himself... and how is the little girl they showed at the end connected to everything??

Seol In-ah pulls off the high school student look surprisingly well, tho you can tell the difference in age with the rest of the cast.

Why did they make the actors voice the deaf characters' lines? they could’ve had subtitles for the sign language, like with the jdrama Silent. seems like a strange choice.

I really liked the first 2 episodes. There was a lot of heart and touching moments just from the set-up, especially emanating from the various relationships (within the family, between the brothers, and Eun-gyeol and Harabeoji), tugging at the heartstrings and making you feel for the characters. That's what makes good story-telling, without narratives to tell me how I should be feeling.

I also initially thought both timelines were concurrently happening in the present, but the old car models gave the past timeline away. I do tend to notice the weird little things haha. I enjoyed the little fake-out though.

Looking forward to the next few episodes!

Thanks for weecap, @dramaddictally!
I loved both first episodes and I found you didn't mention the first appearance of famous Korean rockstar Yoon Do-hyun as Yoon Dong-jin from the fictional MJ Entertainment during the second episode. I also totally loved the two PPLs that I found: snowman from the first episode and Kurt Cobain's Tshirts from the second episode. I also noticed that you didn't mentioned that the family was CODA (child of deaf adults).
Even the word viva la vida (long live life) which came to Chung-ah (unfortunately she will appear next week) (played by Shin Eun-soo) who resembled famous female painter Frida Kahlo. Another Viva was grandpa Viva and I am so excited to wait for revealing the real names of Eun-gyeol's parents.
Overall, this show might be serving as one of the best Kdramas featuring disabled characters/people. I also hope to getting more scenes that inspiring by 2021 Oscar best picture winner CODA.

So good!! I cried in the second episode when Harabeoji's daughter gave Eun-gyeol the guitar and read Harabeoji's will, and Eun-gyeol broke down in tears.

Poor Eun-gyeol! There is too much pressure on him. He already had to grow up fast to take care of his family, and now his parents guilt him into being the perfect son. I just want the world for him. I don't blame him for yelling at Dad, "You can't even hear" because it was in the heat of the moment, and he'll obviously regret it later.

I most want Eun-gyeol to go back in time to meet Harabeoji. I miss Harabeoji so much! Harabeoji was Eun-gyeol's one and only friend, and music was his one and only outlet. He lost everything in one day -- the fire and Harabeoji. Thank God the drama showed the present first, so we knew hyung Eun-ho wouldn't die, but when Dad ran into the burning apartment, I panicked because we don't know if he's alive or not.

If I hadn't read the premise of this drama, then I would've been confused because they did seem like parallel timelines. I thought the same that Choi Hyun-wook's character reminds me of Twenty-Five Twenty-One, especially when Yi-chan was talking to his boxers and his hilarious rocker hyung.

My predictions are Eun-gyeol's dad is the one who wrote the song by the unknown artist, and assuming Eun-gyeol goes back to the present, Harabeoji's same-aged cellist granddaughter will be Eun-gyeol's love interest. Unless she turns out to be Eun-ho's cellist girlfriend, but I hope not because she and Eun-gyeol have a childhood connection at her grandfather's funeral. Tsk at Jun-hyung for smoking while being a main vocal and sick.

Twinkling Watermelon is going to be one of my favorites. Thanks a ton for recapping, @Dramaddictally!

I LOVE THIS! This week's eps did a good job laying the foundations and I'm really looking forward to the chaos in the upcoming eps, the dynamic between CHW & RU and seeing all 4 leads together on screen.

This is gonna be so much fun! As usual, I pray HARD that they do not mess up the pace of the drama PLEASE WRITERNIMS PLEASE

Thank you for the weecap @dramaddictally

I feel really torn about live watching this drama because I feel slow watching will make me savour each delightful moment but on the other hand the wait between each episode let alone each week is going to be torture. It genuinely feels like I have been happily watching some amateur dramatics version of South Pacific at my local church hall and then someone gave me Box seat tickets to Hamilton in the West end so I get to experience what a musical play should be.

I am watching this alongside my first rewatch of Be melodramatic so I am even more aware of the reasons why this drama is standing out from the live watch dramas I have watched over the last three years. I prefer 2017 dramas that is my K drama golden era. In most of the dramas that I have ceased to enjoy I have either not liked the characters or an element of the darkness/conflict that has been brought into the storyline because it has felt unrealistic or at the extremes of my tolerance levels.

This drama world felt real and I could imagine the characters facing these kinds of troubles in their everyday lives. I am enjoying getting to know these characters and the world they live in. I think they did well in portraying the power imbalance for a deaf family in a hearing world and for a hearing child in a deaf family. They showed the reality of limited access to interpreters and other forms of communication or people not prepared to take the time to find appropriate ways to communicate. It was lovely to see a happy family and how they had become part of the community with their restaurant so it was hard to watch the prejudice of the landlady and her son.

I loved the introduction of time travel and why it would be hard for Eungyul to find his way back to his current life. It was shocking to find out that his dad was hearing until his late teens whereas it seems the mum was born deaf or became deaf during her childhood. The interconnection of the past and present is going to be interesting hopefully we will see the music shop owner in his former glory. The dad is aware that you can be a doctor and a musician as the girl of his dreams had a boyfriend like that so why wouldn’t he allow his son to straddle both worlds and be happy? I am assuming that Chungah who gave Sekyung the music T-shirt is probably Eungyul’s mum. She may have been into music at one point so may be able to help Eungyul win his dad round in his current timeline, if he ever gets back to it. I wonder if he got his name because he was named after the boy the dad knew from the band?

I am looking forward to seeing how they integrate the two timelines. Knowing this is the writer of Chicago typewriter which also had two timelines, I expect it to be have a nice balance of humour and tragedy alongside a great love story.

I really enjoyed the first two episodes. Since i had already seen the previews, I was not confused about the timelines.
I was just trying to find out which year was the father’s TL before the reveal based on a guess on his present age. I was wrong by 5 years or so. I thought it was suppised to be the early 2000’s.

And then, I don’t know if it was a subtitle thing only, but during the party the young version of dad crashed with his friend, the friend called someone “Mr McDreamy” which I thought was weird because I only know this expression as a Grey’s Anatomy reference. However, GA launched in 2005…

While I didn't care for the addition of bullying--will there ever be a kdrama featuring a school that doesn't focus on bullying? Overall I found these two episodes quite enjoyable, although like @dramaddictally it wasn't until the very last scene that I figured out that Yi-chan was in the past--that was clever but maybe a bit too confusing.

The funny thing is, I find myself as an old guy somewhat on the (older version of the) Dad's side. Sure, pursue your passion, but at the very least get your high school degree first! How long is the possible opening band tour? Two months? And you give up your future for that? Don't be stupid! If you are that good you'll get another chance for a tour with another band which has a drummer who doesn't punch you in the mouth. Plus, its highly likely that you'll just be a part time musician anyway, since there are a lot of amazing guitarists out there and only a few make it big. And playing in a highly skilled but only locally prominent band can be totally rewarding as long as you can make a living in other ways, which is a lot easier if you have a high school degree!

No need to go back in time to learn this bit of life wisdom!

The story reminded me a lot the French movie La Famille Bélier. But when the movie was using humor to show the pression on a hearing child in a familly with deaf parents, this one took the melo road making the parents relying too much on their son.

I don't think Eun-Gyeol should have hidden it. His parents could have accepted if it didn't distract him from his studies.

For the past, I wasn't very interested by the character except the mother. Seol In-Ah's character reminded me Oasis one and Choi Hyun-Wook reminded 25-24's one.

RYEOUN meets his 18-year-old dad yet again. Was that casting intentional?

Thank you for the recap @dramaddictally

Sorry that I do not know much about hearing impaired people, but I have a question regarding Eun Gyeol's dad. If he knew how to speak before some accident that led to his loss of hearing, why is he not speaking anymore? Shouldn't he be able to say few simple words like when he is in a situation where he needs help?

Regarding the plot, I am more invested in the current life of Eun Gyeol's parents, his brother and how they developed a stable career because it was interesting to see them use laser lights to grab the other's attention and use disco lights to indicate that someone's ringing door bell. The family dynamics was everything and maybe, because I am not a hardcore music lover, I do not care for the past/present band side plot.

Could it be possible that dad willingly chose to stop hearing because of his love for his wife?

I just love the family!

The mom is so sweet, she always makes me smile. The dad's awesome for defending what he believes in. The hyeong is so chill and funny. And Eun Gyeol is super cute!!

[...] THE PRESENT
1. I have no idea why we need to go to the 90's. We have such a lovely family right here in 2023, they have this big problem they need to solve right here in 2023, and the people that can solve the problem exist right here in 2023.

If after the fight, the dad decided to sit his children and say "kids, this is the story of how I met your mother", and they showed us the 1995 flashbacks that had some kind of relevance to the point the dad was trying to make, I would understand. But this isn't it.

For me, that time travel felt like someone changed the channel while I was watching my favorite movie. Totally random and unpleasant.

2. Eun Gyeol reminds me of Gang Tae (IOTNBO). But I feel like Eun Gyeol has a chance Gang Tae didn't get.

Gang Tae lived with the pain left from a big misunderstanding. He thought his mother didn't love him or cared about him like she did with Sang Tae. He thought his mother only wanted him to take of his brother in her place and that was reason of his existence. He didn't get to fight his mother, rebel or fix things.

But Eun Gyeol has this opportunity. He already took a step forward when he said "I'm not an angel, I'm just me".
He has the chance to fight, heal and start a new relationship with his parents, and guide his life into another direction.

So again, why in the blue fork are we going back to 1995?? 🙃 Everything that happened in the present timeline was a wake up call to the parents and a great opportunity for Eun Gyeol to be honest.

THE PAST

The dad.
What's supposed to be cool about the teenage version of the dad? He's like any other dude that's in love with Se Kyeong but he just went straight to stalker level.

He couldn't care less about her feelings or putting her in a uncomfortable situation, he does and says wtv he wants.

Can someone explain to me why do we need that storyline? We already know they won't end up together anyway.
I just hope they don't try to make some weird transition like "he started a band for a girl, but ended up bonding with his future son and that changed the conception EG had about his dad not understanding him (because he couldn't hear)". Nah, they wouldn't do something like that, it would be even worse that some controversial love square between parents, son and Se Kyeong.

...I just hope we get to see the present timeline sometime soon.

PS. I'm so curious about the hyeong and his love story with Se Kyeong's daughter. He's my favorite character so far.

I liked the first two episodes, even though the first episode was pure stress for me because I was convinced that at least one of the parents would die.

As I had read the comments on Reddit in parallel, I was aware that it would be about time travel and that some scenes were already set in the past. But I was convinced that it would be time travel to a parallel past where both parents can hear, until I realised that the mother here is probably also deaf.
So if the father lost his hearing later, why doesn't he talk at all later? At the latest with the fire, I would have thought that he tries to speak a few words, even if he can no longer articulate them perfectly. But I must confess that I am not familiar with deafness, so I may be making completely wrong assumptions here.

I loved these first episodes, specially the Episode 1. I would call it an almost perfect first episode. (Which is a rare phenomenon in K-dramaland, where I find that many times the first episode is not a good introduction to story/character/settings and we have to take a leap of faith and keep watching).

As I had seen the trailers, I knew the story was about time travelling and it gave me vibes of Back to the future or The Best Hit, with father/son meeting in their youth.
That's why I knew that Choi Hyun Wook's storyline was happening in the past, but I also think that it was not so clear for the audience.

Weak point of these episodes: the Band that invites the ML to join them. I dislike all of the members. Why would someone so sweet as Eun-gyeol want to share time with such people? I understand it's a great opportunity but... not the best companions.

The best so far: my dear Choi Hyun Wook, of course. He is great playing endearing, funny, sunshine characters.

like the Korean style magic realism in this drama a fair bit.

I’m a sucker for an influential teacher/mentor connection - cheon Hojin is an amazing actor - and he actually seemed to be able to play guitar which enhanced his cred for me unless I was somewhat credulous. Haha, The little Eungyeol learnt to riff a bit too quickly though so must have been a guitar prodigy for sure! The child actor - who I think was the one in See you in my 19th Life - was good enough and his somewhat resemblance to Ryeoun was believable for me. I find the transition from child to adult is important to try to hang on to a plausible narrative and stick with the drama. The worst one I’ve seen so far was in “King’s Affection” where the child actor playing Jiwoon had such a prominent nasal voice that it was impossible for me to accept that he had grown to sound like Rowoon.

Most importantly, I really appreciate how the drama is trying to treat people with disabilities not as disabled people but as those who are differently abled so that their humanity doesn’t become contingent on pity or noblesse oblige. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, the outdated terminology of “disabled” still appears to be used in Korean. I hope this is being contested and will change soon.

A child becoming an interpreter is also the experience of countless migrant children whose parents were/are not able to speak the new language but they could. These children had to become the conduit between the two worlds and navigate these difficult circumstances as best as they could like little Eungyeol. Of course, having a disability or many complicates such roles for children in significant ways.

I also really liked the inclusion of many scenes with the actors signing in Korean. I wonder if any of the actors are hearing impaired as given the likely challenges and obstacles they would experience, it would be a step forward for inclusion and diversity. I also thought about the signing proficiency and whether or not the actors managed to do it well or not. Not easily answered questions.

I’m enjoying Ryeoun’s acting as he is so much more natural here than in the “Secret Romantic Guesthouse” and was believable to me as an 18 year old high school kid. And, was that his real singing voice or was it dubbed?
I am not sure that I buy Seol Inah as a high school student though. However, I like her acting generally and will work to suspend my disbelief.

Last but not least, a question has been bugging me. Has Eungyeol travelled to a different timeline where his future parents didn’t end up with each other or is it the same timeline but his presence somehow alters the future? I like the young actor playing his future mum. I think she was in “Summer Strike” so I look forward to watching her.

This sounds interesting. I will prolly follow in the recaps for a bit before deciding if I want to watch it

High-key cute and has a lot of heart!! I thought it was a really strong set up that struck the right balance of tones and established a pretty strong emotional core for the rest of the plot to play from. It was kind of impressive how I was tearing up (at the present day timeline) and laughing (at the dad's antics in the 90s) over two episodes, without one emotion being diluted or undercut by the other. I also love the idea of music as a form of expression, passion and healing too, and the added time-travel is fun - it feels a bit like a Back to The Future adjacent plot-line with the ML probably about to spend time in the past learning much more about his parents as people and then coming back to the present to figure out what path he’s going to take and do it in a way that has his parents on board too.

And cast wise - Choi Hyun-wook is charismatic & fun as usual, but Ryeoun surprised me! Saw him last in Secret Guesthouse, which he was decent in but from memory he came across most ‘green’ during emotional scenes. He’s absolutely nailing them here though and hitting all the right emotional beats (like that fight with the dad was done really, really well!) - excited to see more of what he’s got to offer as Eun-gyeol!

I think my "favourite" thing however is the way the show established and navigated the 'family expectations' theme. Felt like they were tapping into a more complex dynamic than the usual 'overbearing/strict/necessarily harsh parent pushing child', because here the parents are genuinely lovely people who have very understandable and relatable logic behind why they were placing a lot of responsibility on Eun-gyeol's shoulders and wanted him to be their 'trophy'. Which isn't to say it's "right", but I think it's just much more complex than 'right' or 'wrong'. Things like "you can't be the reason people talk bad about our family" and "you need to do well to help 'raise' the family" are things I've heard around me a lot in the first gen. immigrant family circles (including in my own family). And Eun-gyeol feeling like he was suffocating under the pressure of the love & expectation from his parents - as well as the guilt of not being able to be honest with them - was really well portrayed. The scene that really stuck with me was when his mum comes to talk to him outside the library and he feels like he literally needs to run away from the weight that her care & attention was putting on him, especially because he was feeling really guilty as well for selfishly (in his eyes) pursuing his own passion without them knowing.

Gotta say though I'm not a huge fan of the present timeline band members, because although JUNE's character is nice, the others came off a bit standoffish and jerk-like. I get that they're strangers at this point but didn't appreciate them telling Eun-gyeol to just ‘cut them off [his parents]' or do whatever he wanted because he was 18 now. That sentiment could come from a good place...

what a weird experience I had with these two episodes.

I was really excited for this drama bcs I love a good time travel story, especially when the traveller is meeting people close to them. so when I heard about this drama I was immediately hooked. however, I didn't expect to take almost two episodes for us to finally get to the past but ok, I can work with that.

I feel like the drama had good ideas for this first 2 episodes structure, trying to be mysterious about the characters to make the final scene of ep 2 more impactful, but I think all the content we got before the drama aired killed any impact bcs we all knew who was who and what was going on. I also think the whole magical music store was too disney-ish and I think I wanted a more "my perfect stranger" down to earth time travel thing (as much as time travel can be realistic of course lol).

I'm not a fan of celebrity stories so the whole 2023 band thing, with the manager and stuff like that made me roll my eyes and I honestly hope it was just at the beginning and we will get more past timeline than this. if we want 2023, be with our main family and their issues and less about the label who is looking for a band.

talking about the past timeline brings my last point: choi hyunwook and seol inah stole the show for me. I love them.

I haven’t seen the second episode because I’m watching this with my husband who is a turtle when it comes to dramas. He dated a deaf girl in college. I had a crush on a deaf boy in middle school and was good friends with his younger (hearing Coda) sister in elementary school. 3 of 4 children in his family were deaf. My husband and I both learned sign language when we were young—me because the school I went to was also where all the deaf children were funneled and I was in a singing/signing choir—him because he was in-love. We have some definite nostalgia going on while watching this.

With that said, I’m not sure why the ML’s father is not speaking after he lost his hearing. He obviously can and you just don’t forget to speak. Even the boy I had a crush on spoke, even though you could tell he was deaf by the way he spoke, but man was he adorable.

I really do like the retro feel of this show right now, I hope it continues. I do wish they casted some deaf actors, even if they were smaller parts, or added parts for them to play in. Maybe they still will.

Oh, I quite liked this. I read all your praise and critiques Beanies. Thank you. It helped going in knowing there were two timelines. Nothing else to add except yes, Ryeoun was much better than in TSRG and Choi Hyun Wook, hello! So nice to meet you.

I wasn't gonna watch this cause the title made me think it was gonna be some mushy kinda thing (I don't know how else to describe it haha) but oh, so far I'm glad I did decide to watch it.

I knew NOTHING about this going into it and I didn't even realize the cellist was the music shop owner's daughter. And now I'm just full of questions the main one being how did Lee Chan lose his hearing? It seems like Se Kyung knows her schoolmate (I don't remember if she was named in the episode) or at least knows of her, so I'm wondering about that dynamic. Lee Chan created a band and one of the members ended up a legendary musician and the other a legendary manger turned CEO (I think) while the dad isn't involved with either of them so that's another question.

The show so far seems cute and adorable and has heart.

I felt so much for Eun Gyeol. He has so much pressure on him.

Kids are such little jerks (to put it nicely). Oh how I can't stand them.

Whenever I see the moment the (usually) guy character falls for the (usually) girl at first sight, I'm reminded of The Godfather when it was said Micheal got hit by the thunderbolt haha. That's exactly what came to mind when Lee Chan saw Se Kyung for the first time haha

I liked how sign language was used (the interpretation being audible when both people understand what's being said). I wondered if they really got deaf or hard of hearing actors for some of the roles.

This started off so beautifully.

At first, I couldn't help being wary the drama would try to milk the premise into something self-pitying and unnecessarily tragic, but despite the many sequences that could be bend that way, the story continued to be hopeful yet sobering. It never shied away from the harsh reality of our world which wasn't that ready yet to live side-by-side with empowered diffable people. Maybe it's just me, but even during the most mundane moment during which our little family contently lived their life, there was this feeling of denial and disbelief that they could experience a perfectly joyful life. It was apparent in the way stranger and friends coming up to Eun-gyeol to give him (burdensome) encouragement, and the way he himself took the role of a sole protector of the family. I appreciated how the writer never dictated viewers about the right and wrong action regarding this, but it was eye-opening to see all our instinctive reaction in such situation being put on screen that plainly.

Out of all the music-themed dramas I've watched, so far Twinkling Watermelon proved itself to be the one that used it the most seamlessly. The music tied in nicely with Eun-gyeol's emotional growth as he went through some harsh reality in life and some of his happiest moment. I love how, just like the necessity he felt to hide his love for music, the people related to his musical growth was constantly changing. They came and went in his life, seemingly from pure luck, but in what I liked to think as the fate's interference so that he didn't let music go from his life. From the Viva Grandpa, the rock band members, the cello-playing lady, the entertainment industry people. Everyone played important part in shaping him to be the hero that I love. I also like how his relationship with them gave us a rare glimpse into him as the precious maknae (youngest). There is just something extra charming in the way he interacted with people much older than him.

I've been away from k-drama scene for a while now, so I'm not that familiar with the younger actors and actresses in the industry anymore. It was such a pleasant surprise to see so many fresh faces here (at least to me) who could absolutely deliver a memorable performance. Everyone is doing a great job at embodying their respective characters, and the fact that 5 of those actors communicated mainly using sign language was indeed an achievement. Ryeoun is especially showing a wide range of emotion within these 2 eps alone. I was so moved by his journey, and he conveyed both his lighter and heavier moment so well that I'm so glad I discovered him here. I also appreciated how believable the transition was between the younger and present-time actors. People changed with time, but we can still see the traces of their younger self in the way the older actors carried themselves, which was great.

You are right that that the drama is quite sneaky, already giving us a peek into the...