After many criticisms, Jenny Han finally produced a show where her half-Asian leads don’t only have white love interests. There are very few white characters at all, which is rare for young adult television.
I would watch another season, and I want there to be another season, but some improvements would need to be made to elevate this show from just being a guilty pleasure into a heartwarming teenage show centered around messy romantic plots.
“XO Kitty” is centered around Katherine “Kitty” Song Covey, younger sister of Lara Jean from the “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” books and movies. In the third and final movie of the series, Kitty meets a boy named Dae on a family trip to Seoul, South Korea, and they fall in love at first sight.
“XO, Kitty” follows Kitty as she transfers to the Korean Independent School of Seoul, or KISS for short – the same school that her long-distance boyfriend of about four years, Dae, attends.
But it’s not all about a boy, people. Kitty’s mom went to KISS, and as the youngest, Kitty sometimes feels like she’s not as connected to her late mother as her older sisters, so the school offers her a chance at that connection.
This doesn’t exactly go as planned, however. When Kitty arrives to surprise Dae, she finds out he’s “dating” a girl named Yuri who had given her a ride to the school.
While Kitty does spend a lot of the show pining over Dae, she gets caught up in a mystery involving a possible half-brother, as well as facing possible feelings for other characters in the show, including her supposed competition, Yuri.
The Wattpad allegations that the show are facing are valid because Kitty ends up living in the boys’ dorm, with Dae as one of her roommates. She also becomes close with her other roommates, Q and Min Ho, the latter of which she has a budding romance with as well.
Min Ho and Yuri are her superior love interests, but Yuri’s girlfriend, Juliana, deserves more than being tossed aside, and so does Dae, despite his reaction to Kitty’s sexuality being less than ideal.
Tossing Dae to the side felt rushed and out of character for Kitty. They’ve been so close for four years, so it doesn’t make sense for Kitty to throw that away so quickly. But I guess that it’s good that they’re so close, because at least they will be able to be good friends (I think).
The setting and characters are the biggest strengths of the show. It stands apart from the original series while maintaining the character of Kitty that we remember, but the writing is messy and cringey at times.
“XO, Kitty” doesn’t need to be Emmy-worthy or anything, but it could certainly be better.
Rating: 6.5/10