K-Drama Flashback: ‘Twinkling Watermelon’

Sometimes, a drama comes along and makes you feel like you’re revisiting a soft, warm moment from a life you forgot you lived. Twinkling Watermelon (2023) creates exactly that kind of visceral experience. And if you think you know about K-Drama time travel fairly well, think again. Twinkling Watermelon isn’t just another trip down memory lane; it’s an emotional experience of family and a vibrant exploration of the moments that make us.

What would you do if you traveled back to 1995 and found out your father was a wannabe rockstar chasing the wrong girl? That’s Eun-gyeol’s reality in this series. Stuck in the past with a guitar and a bunch of questions, he goes back in time and forms a band with his teenage dad to fix a future he never truly understood. It’s a vibe-coded journey through time where music is the only language that really matters.

The drama captures an era so well that the time slip from 2023 to 1995 feels completely natural. You may well be longing for the 90s by the end of it, whether you’re a Millennial revisiting your childhood or a Gen Z in love with the retro aesthetic. The show swaps the usual time-travel gimmicks for a heartfelt look at our parents’ younger versions. It’s a reminder that they weren’t always just parents, but were also kids with big dreams and chaotic lives of their own. Instead of simply focusing on the consequences of the past on the future, it also explores the capacity of the present to heal the past — something that especially hits home during a heartbreaking scene where Eun-gyeol weeps while watching his teenage father, Yi-chan, clumsily but passionately practice the guitar, realizing this joy was a “stolen” version of the man he knew in 2023. Twinkling Watermelon is therefore a very human story that asks us to look beyond our own lives and hear the silent songs of those who came before us.

The real magic of the show is the chemistry between its leads, Ryeoun and Choi Hyun-wook. It’s the kind of camaraderie that feels more like two best friends on an adventure. Choi’s performance as the spirited teenager Yi-chan never fails to amaze. Opposite him, Ryeoun grounds the series with a soulful intelligence, giving a performance that’s subtly layered with the weight of his knowledge of the future. Watching him as the serious son trying to “parent” his own chaotic, teenage father gives us bursts of comic relief in this otherwise poignant story. At the same time, their shared vulnerability creates a kind of bond that makes you believe a friendship across decades is possible. This dynamic is the sun around which the entire emotional universe of the drama orbits, peaking in that soul-shattering moment when Eun-gyeol desperately tries to prevent the accident that caused his father’s deafness, crying out in a deep pain that never fades.

Music, however, becomes the most strategic narrative and healing device in the story. More than just a background score, it becomes a character and a bridge for the others to cross the vast oceans of silence and time. For Eun-gyeol, a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) whose world is often quiet at home, music is his “hidden voice,” and a powerful form of self-expression. In South Korea, the experience of being a CODA can be very complex in that they often carry a lot of social burden, acting as mediators between their deaf parents and a society that can be extremely isolating. But Twinkling Watermelon addresses this real-life challenge with a lot of heart, using music to highlight the struggles faced by the deaf and mute community. Rather than framing them through pity, the series presents their lives with empathy. When Eun-gyeol travels back in time and starts the band Watermelon Sugar with his teenage dad, it’s also about breaking down barriers and showing the bond between a hearing son and his deaf parents. It proves you don’t necessarily need sound to connect — sometimes a single guitar riff says more than words or signs ever could.

Twinkling Watermelon hits different because it shows how the past and present are constantly echoing each other. In 1995, we see the lively versions of Eun-gyeol’s parents before life got tough — dealing with toxic family and school bullies. Once again, it’s not just a time-travel story; it’s about Eun-gyeol realizing his parents were dreamers too. And once again, music becomes the catalyst here, bringing the two timelines together, with songs like “Shining” and “Tomorrow” that Watermelon Sugar performs. In the final episode, when Eun-gyeol returns to the present and performs as part of the famous group SPINE9, his father, who is now a successful director of a musical instrument brand, watches him from a distance. It’s one of the most crucial moments because Eun-gyeol is no longer just their CODA son; he has become a witness to the twinkling dreams that his parents could never let go of.

The show also subtly exposes the pressure cooker of the Korean education system and rigid parental expectations, suggesting that the “disability” of a character like Cheong-ah (Shin Eun-soo—the younger self of Eun-gyeol’s mother) is sometimes a societal construct. The acting is grounded in such realism — like the intense scene where Cheong-ah finally uses sign language to express her bottled-up anger and pain — that it gives incredible credibility to each role. The Frida Kahlo painting, “Viva La Vida,” becomes the ultimate symbol here: even when cut open or damaged, the watermelon is vibrant and sweet, a metaphor that perfectly mirrors the inner strength of characters who refuse to be defined by their silence.

Twinkling Watermelon finally delivers its most important message: about the relationship we share with our parents. It makes us think in a whole new way and ask ourselves, “If I met my mom or dad at 18, would I even like them?” The series promotes the idea that our parents were not born as figures of authority or decision makers but as individuals with their own dynamic lives, vulnerabilities, and untold narratives. Every small detail, from the vibrant color grading of the past to the symbolism of the titular fruit, reminds us that life is a miraculous, twinkling gift. It encourages us to look at our parents as fellow travelers whose dreams we might just be able to help keep alive, if only we make an effort to understand them better.