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James Marsh

2/5 stars
Adolescent force of nature Kitty Song Covey returns to Seoul for a second semester of romance-infused chaos in season two of XO, Kitty, Netflix’s spin-off series from their wildly successful To All the Boys film franchise.
Anna Cathcart reprises her role as the naive know-it-all, who once again finds herself up to her neck in gossip and intrigue. Minyeong Choi, Gia Kim and Sang-heon Lee all return, as do a host of new characters, ready to have their lives upended by Kitty’s well-meaning antics.
Season one ended with a raft of revelations, not least with Kitty being expelled from the Korean Independent School of Seoul (Kiss) for secretly living in the boys’ dormitory all semester.


On the flight home, handsome rich kid Min-ho (Lee) drops the bombshell that he has fallen for Kitty, despite finding her incredibly annoying. This is complicated because Min-ho’s best friend Dae (Choi) is Kitty’s ex, but also because Kitty has discovered she is bisexual and has feelings for her best friend, Yuri (Kim), daughter of Kiss’s Principal Lim (Kim Yunjin).
Despite all this, Kitty finds herself back at Kiss following the winter break, where there have been a number of changes. Principal Lim is out, replaced by Professor Lee (Michael K. Lee). Kitty learns she will be sharing a dorm with Yuri and her girlfriend Julianna (Regan Aliyah), as well as new girl Stella (Audrey Huynh).
Min-ho’s father Mr. Moon (Philippe Lee), a conceited yet hugely successful K-pop talent manager, has become the school’s new donor and will be on campus all semester running a singing competition.
On top of all this, Dae reveals he is still in love with Kitty, while she pursues a potential new romance with classmate Praveena (Sasha Bhasin). All this while Kitty also continues to investigate the history of her dead mother, who was an exchange student at Kiss decades earlier.

At first glance, season two of XO, Kitty might seem like a stripped-down and simplified continuation of the series.
The season has been shortened from 10 episodes to eight, a number of prominent adult cast members have been cut – not least Yuri’s parents – while the action feels even more confined to the Kiss campus than before, with sojourns into Seoul or the Korean countryside curtailed noticeably.
By way of compensation, the drama this time out seems even more chaotic than ever, with Kitty careering through school like a whirling dervish of good intentions, incapable of keeping her nose out of anyone else’s business or, heaven forbid, actually doing any studying.

While Min-ho might find Kitty’s annoying behaviour to be one of her “most endearing qualities”, it is a difficult opinion to agree with.
In the preceding film series, Kitty was a supporting character, the mischievous younger sister to Lana Condor’s heroine. She made trouble for herself and others, but was never the centre of attention.
In XO, Kitty, series creator Jenny Han makes it all about her, and while Cathcart gives everything to her performance, the results are more often infuriating than endearing.
The narrative’s ongoing odyssey of inclusion also continues to be a somewhat implausible sticking point for a show whose single most defining characteristic is that it is set and filmed entirely on location in Korea.
The cast features an applaudable spectrum of ethnically diverse performers, with many of the characters depicted in the throes of exploring their sexual identity.

What the show never addresses or attempts to explore is how attitudes towards same-sex relationships, or mixed-race couples, might differ at elite institutions in other parts of the world.
Season one did include a storyline about Yuri coming out to her conservative parents, but it was quickly resolved and brushed aside.
XO, Kitty is obviously mainly targeting a young Western audience and nobody expects it to go as far as that other Netflix series, Sex Education, in terms of frank depictions of adolescent sexuality. That said, the all-embracing utopia of Kiss feels like a fantasy, and a wasted opportunity to explore something a little more serious.
Kitty came to Korea to find love and learn more about her mother. While a few blanks in the family tree are filled in by the end of this season, Kitty – and by extension, the audience – really learns nothing of value about Seoul or Korean culture during her time there.

Couple this with season two’s reduced scale and all signs point to Kitty packing her bags and heading home for good in the not-too-distant future.
XO, Kitty is streaming on Netflix.


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Anna Cathcart as student Kitty Song Covey in a still from XO, Kitty season 2. Photo: Netflix

Minyeong Choi as student Dae-heon Kim in a still from XO, Kitty season 2. Photo: Park Young-Sol/Netflix

Gia Kim as Kitty’s best friend Yuri Han in a still from XO, Kitty season 2. Photo: Park Young-Sol/Netflix

Audrey Huynh as new Kiss student Stella in a still from XO, Kitty season 2. Photo: Park Young-Sol/Netflix

Sang-heon Lee as handsome rich kid Min-ho Moon and Anna Cathcart as Kitty Song Covey in a still from XO, Kitty season 2. Photo: Park Young-Sol/Netflix

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Anna Cathcart returns as Kitty Song Covey for a second semester in Korea, but the new season wastes opportunities to explore engaging topics


Anna Cathcart returns as Kitty Song Covey for a second semester in Korea, but the new season wastes opportunities to explore engaging topics.


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Review | Netflix drama review: XO, Kitty season 2 – To All the Boys spin-off series loses steam

Anna Cathcart returns as Kitty Song Covey for a second semester in Korea, but the new season wastes opportunities to explore engaging topics