XO, Kitty has a lot of love interests for the main characters, but Kitty (Anna Cathcart) and Min-ho (Sang Heon Lee) have become one of the most captivating potential pairings in the series. A spin-off series of the To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before movie trilogy, the Netflix series is set in South Korea as Kitty attends the same boarding school her mother did. Kitty’s purpose for attending the school is initially a dual one: she wants to reconnect with her long-distance boyfriend Dae (Choi Min-yeong) and she wants to learn more about her mother, who passed away when she was too young to remember her.
The series has proven itself to be a worthy romantic comedy successor to the movies, and Kitty is a worthy successor to Lara Jean (Lana Condor) when it comes to love. While Lara Jean crushed hard on a handful of people over several years, Kitty falls quickly when she does, and that allows the show to explore multiple romantic pairings in a shorter amount of time, and for Kitty’s love interests to also become her friends.
Min-ho Is Kitty’s Best Love Interest
Kitty Has Had Four Love Interests In Two Seasons
Min-ho and Yuri are the only two of the four that are not immediate love interests for Kitty.
In the first two seasons of the show, Kitty has not exactly been lucky when it comes to love. Anyone who has been interested in her has essentially had their heart broken, and anyone she has been interested in has not worked out – yet. Though she comes to Korea with a boyfriend, Kitty and Dae decide they work better as friends, Kitty discovers she is bisexual thanks to her feelings for Yuri (Gia Kim) and she explores the idea of dating girls with Praveena (Sasha Bhasin). While all of this is going on, however, her frenemy Min-ho develops feelings for her, and eventually, she does for him as well.
Of the pairings presented in the show so far, Min-ho is Kitty’s best love interest. That’s largely because Min-ho is the only person she does not immediately follow up on her attraction with. Dae is a boy she meets while on vacation and ends up in a long distance relationship with, while Yuri is someone she initially fights her attraction to before giving in and kissing her while they’re both interested in other people, and Praveena is a crush-at-first-sight that Kitty thinks will allow her to explore her sexuality without pressure.
Min-ho and Yuri are the only two of the four that are not immediate love interests for Kitty. When she discovers her attraction to Yuri, however, Kitty does spend time agonizing about it, confiding in Q (Anthony Keyvan), and accidentally ruining the relationships around her. It is all-encompassing for Kitty very quickly, and it’s the kind of crush that starts to burn out just as quickly. Much of how the show treated Yuri and Kitty, from the secrecy to the cheating, made the relationship feel too toxic to continue at this stage of the show.
Min-ho, however, is more of a slow-burn, which is how most of the best romantic comedies set up their romances. Min-ho and Kitty get to know one another before either of them develops feelings for one another. They also are not opposed to acknowledging that the other person is attractive to them even when they are not considering romantic potential. They are often bluntly honest with one another and surprise one another, gradually building a friendship and the potential for more through the first two seasons.
That slow build has provided them with a foundation for a relationship. So has seeing what works and does not work in other relationships.
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Kitty And Min-ho Fulfill A Classic Rom-Com Trope
Romantic comedies often utilize classic love story tropes to tell their stories. While the idea of a “trope” can get a bad reputation, they exist because they work. The same tropes are used with new characters and new writers to make a similar idea feel fresh. Enemies-to-lovers is one of the oldest and most beloved tropes in rom-coms. It’s the kind that works for Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice or Anthony and Kate in Bridgerton. It’s also what is currently working for Kitty and Min-ho and is incredibly popular in K-dramas, which XO, Kitty pulls inspiration from.
Min-ho immediately judges Kitty upon meeting her, determining that she is stalking his best friend by following him to their boarding school. He does not initially know that Kitty is there for more than just Dae, and it allows his judgment to be clouded. Min-ho’s initial treatment of her makes Kitty standoffish with him at first as well. She sees him as selfish and spoiled until she gets a better look at his home life. XO, Kitty Season 1 sees the two of them treat one another unfairly until they bond while preparing a holiday meal. It’s then that there is a turning point. They are no longer solid enemies, but frenemies.
It’s Season 2 in which that frenemy angle is really solidified. Even though Min-ho confesses his feelings to Kitty at the end of the first season, it confuses her, and they have a bit of an awkward time finding their rhythm as friends at first. Min-ho proves that he is a solid choice when he is the one there for Kitty through every step of her journey to reconnect with the Song half of her family though. Kitty, in turn, proves that she is a solid choice when she is there for him when his girlfriend turns out to be trying to sabotage his father.
The two have already made the journey from enemies to frenemies to genuine friends all while acknowledging their own attraction to one another. There is only a small step forward to fulfill the classic rom-com storyline.
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How The Series Has Hinted At Kitty’s Endgame Romance
Lara Jean And Peter Provide Hints
If the XO, Kitty Season 2 writers really wanted to hint at Kitty and Min-ho being endgame for the show, they did a great job. It was made abundantly clear to me, in spite of their enemy-like start on the show, that Kitty and Min-ho actually have a lot in common with Lara Jean and Peter thanks to Noah Centineo stopping by for a visit in Season 2.
Peter’s appearance is like an extended cameo, allowing the audience to be secure in the information that he and Lara Jean are still going strong despite attending college on opposite sides of the country. The distance has just given her the chance to write him love letters. If that isn’t already sweet enough, Peter also clues the audience (and Kitty) into Min-ho’s behavior toward her. He clocks that Min-ho has feelings for Kitty almost immediately thanks to the other boy calling her by her last name and remembering all of her “annoying oversharing” – just as Peter did with Lara Jean.
That might call to mind how a lot of the relationships in the series have provided callbacks to the relationship between Lara Jean and Peter, or how most of those callbacks have utilized Min-ho. There is a scene of Kitty “fainting” on the track with Min-ho being the one to check in on her. The two also share a moment in a hot tub.
While both of these scenes and Peter tracking the use of her last name provide callbacks that hit the audience over the head with their similarities, the most important way that Peter gives us a clue about Min-ho is that he is the only love interest that Kitty talks to Peter about. Peter undoubtedly knows about Dae from the first season of the show since he and Kitty appear to be as close as ever, but Kitty actively talks to him about Min-ho during his visit. Min-ho is important enough for Kitty to discuss him, even as she tries to brush off a lot of what Peter says.
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What The Actors Have Said About Min-ho And Kitty
The Actors Are Unsure About Their Characters’ Relationships
All of the actors involved in XO, Kitty have typically refrained from committing to wanting their own characters to be with one person over another. Not only do they likely see how divided their audience can be, but they have also acknowledged that the decisions are all up to the writers, and they never know what is happening next until they get their scripts, that anything can change at any time.
When Entertainment Tonight asked the actors about Kitty and Min-ho ending up together, Sang Heon Lee explained that he was not sure how he felt about them getting together after the events of Season 2:
I’m not sure. I think Min-ho is very… he’s a free spirit as well – I think he wants to be a free spirit, at least. But, he is willing to spend time with Kitty since she offered and he accepted it. I don’t think he’s the type where he would reject it, but he would go with the flow.
He also called the enemies-to-lovers romance “classic” and one that the audience should not be surprised by. Cathcart, in turn, called choosing between Yuri and Min-ho when the interviewer posed the question “dangerous territory.” She did, however, go on to say that they deserve the chance to explore their feelings.
Gia Kim said that, as a viewer, she wants to see Kitty and Min-ho end up together in the same interview. Nearly all of the cast also told Buzz Feed’s A*Pop that they preferred the idea of enemies-to-lovers when talking about K-dramas, which means the Min-ho and Kitty relationship is the kind of story they’re all interested in watching. While the cast are not the ones writing the scripts, that means they will enjoy watching the story play out.
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What’s Next For Min-ho And Kitty
Min-ho And Kitty Will Be Spending More Time Together
Whichever direction the show chooses to take, it seems clear that Kitty and Min-ho are the slow-burning endgame couple of the show.
At the end of Season 2, Min-ho and Kitty agree to spend their break from school together. Min-ho’s family is big in the world of K-Pop, and Kitty asks if she can join him on a tour. While this is a friendly invitation, the tension between them has been building all semester long. That could go a few different ways before XO, Kitty returns for season 3.
On the one hand, the two could become romantically involved while spending their time together on a K-Pop tour. Their relationship, however, has been named “complicated” several times in the show because of their past, their circle of friends, and their closeness to Dae. It seems unlikely that a relationship between the two would last as they come back to school. Being alone together would provide them with something of a relationship bubble, but returning to school would mean facing all of their friends – and especially Dae – with that new relationship. It would likely go badly, breaking them up, and then fans would have to see if they ended up together.
On the other hand, they could hang out as friends, getting to know one another even better away from their friends and the school environment. That could allow them to bond and return to school as even better friends – without the romantic element just yet. The tension between them would likely only continue to increase until they finally admitted their feelings and got together later in the show, likely in the final season as a culmination of their storyline.
The final possibility is that Kitty does not get to go on the tour at all. Despite the cliffhanger ending, it’s likely her father is going to want to get to spend more time with her at home. Kitty will be disappointed that she did not get that experience, and she and Min-ho will spend a lot of time missing one another until they reunite at school. Kitty, however, needs some time to just focus on Kitty instead of leaping from one crush to the next, so this decision would be in the best interest of the character.
Whichever direction the show chooses to take, it seems clear that Kitty and Min-ho are the slow-burning endgame couple of the show. XO, Kitty will end with them together, even if the path to get there is long, winding, and drama-filled.
8/10
- Release Date
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May 18, 2023
- Showrunner
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Jenny Han
- Directors
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Jennifer Arnold, Jeff Chan, Katina Medina Mora, Pamela Romanowsky
- Writers
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Jenny Han
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