SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Season 3 of “XO, Kitty,” now streaming on Netflix.
Another season of “XO, Kitty,” another season of messy romantic decisions set against the backdrop of a posh private school in Seoul, South Korea.
Created as a spin-off series to Jenny Han‘s popular book and film franchise “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before,” “XO, Kitty” focuses on “To All The Boys” lead Lara Jean’s precocious younger sister, the titular Kitty Song Covey (Anna Cathcart). Now streaming on Netflix, the show’s third season follows Kitty and her friends as they tackle senior year at the Korean Independent School of Seoul (K.I.S.S.).
“XO, Kitty” is the only show in the Jenny Han Cinematic Universe (as fans have dubbed her creations, which includes the Prime Video hit “The Summer I Turned Pretty”) that isn’t adapted from a book series. While Han created the project and served as the initial showrunner of “XO, Kitty,” Valentina Garza took over from Jessica O’Toole as showrunner and executive producer for Season 3.
A slew of characters have been introduced to Kitty’s life in school, the main group consisting of Dae (Choi Min-yeong), Kitty’s ex-boyfriend and part of the reason she moves to Seoul; Yuri (Gia Kim), Kitty’s frenemy-turned-best friend-turned-crush (for a time); Min Ho (Sang Heon Lee), now Kitty’s main love interest; and Q (Anthony Keyvan), Kitty’s best friend and roommate to Min Ho and Dae.
Season 3 opens with a romantically charged moment between Kitty and Min Ho, who enter an official relationship by the end of Episode 2, with Kitty working to get into NYU and Min Ho building his career as an entertainment manager. Elsewhere, Yuri, once a rich heiress, loses her family fortune in a lawsuit and is forced to start working and sell off her clothes to be able to afford her K.I.S.S. tuition. Meanwhile, the return of Marius (Sule Thelwell), the boys’ fourth roommate and Q’s secret closeted ex-fling, throws a wrench in Kitty’s plans and Q’s romance with his boyfriend Jin (Joshua Hyunho Lee). Kitty’s family plays a bigger role this season as well — her cousin Jiwon (Hojo Shin) takes on a teaching role at K.I.S.S., and Lana Condor makes her highly anticipated return as Lara Jean, relying on her sister amidst her relationship issues with her “To All The Boys” love interest, Peter Kavinsky.
“This is a season — for all our characters — that is so much about personal growth and being on the precipice of adulthood and figuring out who they are,” says Garza. And Kitty is the prime example. After a mid-season break-up with Min Ho — as she falsely accuses him of getting their friend pregnant — Kitty works on building her independence, committing to NYU for college. The pair has a dramatic reunion in the finale, swapping “I love you”s after a train station chase, and ending the season with Min Ho flying back to Portland with Kitty.
Garza spoke with Variety about taking on Lara Jean and Peter’s relationship, introducing adulthood into the show’s plotlines — and the original ending to Season 3.
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This season features Kitty and Lara Jean’s sisterly bond pretty heavily. What was it like to bring back Lana Condor and their relationship? Did you try to get Janel Parrish, who plays their older sister Margot, on-board as well?
We did have Margot featured in Season 2, as well as Peter. We wanted to up the ante and go bigger this season and bring back Lara Jean. It just felt like a natural escalation, and it was an opportunity for Kitty and Lara Jean to really lean on each other as they were going through personal issues, and remember how much they are able to learn from one another.
Speaking of Peter, Noah Centineo doesn’t make an appearance this season, but his relationship with Lara Jean is part of a lot of her scenes. Was there ever a discussion of him appearing in the season with her? How’d you tackle adding to the story of such a beloved couple?
I definitely consulted with Jenny Han about talking about this couple and making sure that she was happy with what was going on there. We just wanted to have an opportunity for Kitty and Lara Jean to grow from one another. This season, for Kitty, was so much about personal growth, and Lara Jean is having her own growth journey off-screen.
There are no “XO, Kitty” books, but Kitty is a character from the “To All The Boys” books and the movie adaptations. There’s a nod to some previous dialogue where Lara Jean tells Kitty she’s “going to miss her a 12” on a scale of 1-10, something Kitty told LJ when she was leaving for college. Are there other references to the “To All The Boys” world in the show?
Yes! That is a reference to the movies, and they’re mirroring each other’s relationship to one another as they’re both growing into themselves. We have some little Easter eggs in there throughout the season. We have the about the song “About Love” from Marina, which is a callback to the movies as well. [The song appeared in the final scene of “To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You.”] There are little things for our audience that is watching carefully. Kitty picks up a pen to start writing her senior sunset list, which was gifted to Lara Jean by Peter, who bought it in Korea when he was with Kitty [in Season 2].
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Kitty and Min Ho finally get together at the beginning of the season, and every episode, there’s a hurdle that they have to overcome. Was that intentional to set them up for that bigger breakup that happens mid-season?
I don’t know if we were trying to give them hurdles, but Kitty and Min Ho are both also going through their individual growth journeys. This is a season — for all our characters — that is so much about personal growth and being on the precipice of adulthood and figuring out who they are. So, I think that a lot of those hurdles are really coming from the journeys that they’re going on, as they’re discovering who they are and what they want, and asking questions about what the future holds for them as individuals.
The incident that instigates their break-up is pretty dramatic, with Kitty thinking Min Ho got Eunice pregnant. Why did you choose to have her react like that and jump to conclusions?
Kitty is learning not to let her own insecurities get the best of her. From the beginning of the season, when she’s seeing the way that he’s interacting with these K-pop stars, I think she’s feeling a little bit insecure, and that’s sort of a moment where she reaches peak insecurity. It’s also a little bit of a classic misunderstanding trope when it comes to first loves. Things are just not going the way that Kitty expects them to go, and she is having to learn to let go of those expectations. That’s another really big theme for her this season.
We’ve talked a lot about this season being focused on the character’s personal approach, along with their relationships. Did you like it was important for Kitty and Min Ho to break up and go through their own character arcs before coming back together?
I think so. Kitty enters her senior year with this perfect plan for what a perfect year looks like for her, and she has very specific expectations. When it doesn’t look like what she thought, that really shakes her, and for her personal growth, she’s going to have to learn that life and love very rarely follow a script, and she has to lean into the unexpected.
One of the obstacles that presents itself is Min Ho’s friend/former crush, Gigi, making an appearance. Kitty’s worries about their relationship don’t end up leading anywhere, and it’s the first season where Kitty and Min Ho’s only love interests have been each other. Was there ever any discussion about exploring the romantic side of Min Ho and Gigi’s friendship?
What we really wanted was for Gigi to come in and represent his first love, which is something else that Kitty wasn’t expecting — to have a ghost from his past come in and crash into her present. It creates an opportunity for her to deal with her insecurities and grow through that challenge. What we’re really trying to do is make it something that was landing on Kitty’s insecurities, but is not necessarily a reality. It was less important to give her an actual foil than it was to show how she’s processing everything.
What is that relationship going to look like in the future? Are there any issues that you think they’re going to have to overcome?
I’m sure that’s a question that all our fans are asking! We’re all just trying to live in the moment and bask in Season 3 right now. We’re very excited for the fans to see what we made this season, and we’ll just have to wait and see.
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Yuri undergoes a pretty big character arc this season and is forced to grow in a lot of ways. How did you decide where you wanted to end her story in Season 3 — and getting back together with Juliana? Was that always the plan?
In Season 2, we left Yuri really heartbroken and realizing that she has a lot of personal growth that needs to happen. This season was very much about that for Yuri, and she’s dealing with really huge things. She’s lost her fortune. Her parents aren’t in her life. She doesn’t know if she’s going to be able to come back to K.I.S.S. and isn’t planning to until Kitty kind of saves the day. But she’s really working on herself and trying to figure out, “If I’m not Yuri Han, the heiress, who am I?” This season was about her reinventing herself, but in the process, she becomes somebody who is able to be worthy of that love and that relationship that she broke in the previous season. So, it felt very full circle to be able to get back to that place with Juliana.
Marius’ character was a bit of a plot twist, being one of the more openly antagonistic characters, in the beginning, at least. What was the thought process behind introducing him to the show? And was there ever any hope for his relationship with Q?
This season, we’re telling stories about first loves, and they’re very complicated and messy. Marius introduces the idea of Q’s first love as well, in the same way that Gigi does. It shakes Q’s confidence in his relationship with Jin and makes him ask himself some questions. It was another opportunity to create a complication for Q and have him ask himself what’s really important as he’s looking ahead to his future. For all of our characters — Kitty and Min Ho, Q and Jin, even Mihee and Madison — they’re all asking at the precipice of adulthood and transitioning into this other phase of life — are we going to be in each other’s lives? Marius comes in and helps complicate that question for Q and Jin, and ultimately, it’s a resounding yes for them.
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Most characters have had a couple of love interests by this point in the show. The couples we have at the end of Season 3 – can they be accepted as the show’s endgames? Including Kitty and Min Ho?
[Laughs.] I think that they are right for each other right now. I think only time will tell what will happen in the future.
I feel like I’m going to get a similar answer for this next question. But is the romantic aspect of Kitty and Yuri’s relationship done with? How did you know you wanted them to be platonic this season and going forward?
Kitty and Yuri are always going to be in each other’s lives. The journey that they’ve taken this season was very deep and very profound, even though it was platonic. At the end of the day, they are winding up being family, because Yuri’s brother is marrying Kitty’s cousin, and so they have a new kind of familial bond that they’re forging, which is also really significant.
The pregnancy storyline this season is probably the most mature one the show’s had so far. What was the inspiration behind that storyline, and how are you planning on tackling more adult topics as they grow up?
We were very intentional about writing a season that was more adult and had a more adult theme. All of our characters are on that precipice of adulthood and transitioning out of being kids and out of being in high school, thinking about the future and having to be adults. It seemed fitting that we would have some slightly more adult themes, and so that pregnancy scare was in keeping with that more mature content that we wanted to have.
As you mentioned, Kitty’s cousin Jiwon and Yuri’s half-brother Alex are in a relationship now, and Jiwon’s expecting a child. How did you decide that it was the right time to bring Hojo Shin, who plays Jiwon, up to series regular and have her character be more of a presence this season?
With it being Kitty’s senior year, one of her goals is really spending quality time with her family in Korea, because as far as she’s concerned, this is her last year at K.I.S.S., and her time with that family is coming to an end. We really wanted to deepen those relationships, because it’s a priority for Kitty.
The show focuses on friendship heavily. Are there any other friendships you’re looking forward to developing on-screen?
We did have one moment this season where Min Ho visits Yuri at work, and we realized, “Oh, we don’t think we’ve had another scene this whole season, where we have these two characters playing against one another.” So that could be interesting. Of course, they are brother and sister in real life, and they don’t get to act against each other. In the moment, we were all thinking, “Why don’t they ever interact on camera?”
The season ends with Min Ho chasing Kitty across Seoul and a very dramatic train station reunion that reminded me of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” finale, which is also a Jenny Han show. In your mind, do the characters of these shows exist in the same world? Could there potentially be a crossover one day?
That would be a question that you’d have to ask Jenny Han! But I will say that when I was watching the finale of “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” I said, “Oh no, they’re on a train too!” That was very unexpected and serendipitous. For a lot of the season, that wasn’t what we were expecting to do. We did imagine that there was going to be an epic race to the airport, but for most of the season, it was actually going to be Kitty racing to stop Min Ho from leaving. It was going to be a motorcycle race through the city on the back of Marius’ motorcycle. But as the season developed, it became clear that it was part of Min Ho’s journey, that he was someone who needed to change and make the overture towards Kitty. Fun fact!
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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