“XO, Kitty” Season 2 Review: Enjoyable, but the Ladies Deserved Better

Kitty Song-Covey (Anna Cathcart) is back at KISS for her second semester in season 2 of XO, Kitty. She’s determined to do better with the second chance she’s been given. Her main goals when she returns are getting over her crush on the taken Yuri (Gia Kim) and learning more about her mother’s past. Neither of those tasks will be as easy as she hopes.

Spoiler Warning: This review contains spoilers for all eight episodes of XO, Kitty Season 2.

For starters, it will be hard for her to get past her feelings for Yuri when she’s currently living with her and her girlfriend, Juliana (Regan Aliyah). Constantly faced with the two being all lovey-dovey, Kitty decides that the best course of action is to try and develop feelings for someone else. While avoiding some awkward hangout time with the two of them, Kitty ends up meeting Praveena (Sasha Bhasin), who is pretty and cool and perfect for exploring her newfound bisexuality.

Now, I’d like to preface this by saying that for the most part, I really enjoyed XO, Kitty Season 2. However, I think they really failed the ladies – particularly the sapphic ladies – in most of their storylines. I think they did a disservice to both relationships and did not give Juliana and Praveena what I feel they deserved. Considering how important Kitty’s bisexual awakening was in season 1, I thought her first foray into dating girls would be given more weight than it was. (And I say this as someone who actually ships her with Min-ho, don’t @ me.)

It was actually extremely upsetting that Kitty’s first and only kiss with a girl was with the still taken Yuri. Y’all know how much I hate cheating as a plot point, and while I felt that they dealt with the cheating appropriately, I’m still angry it happened at all. It felt very out of character for Yuri. The way it happens absolutely makes it seem like a moment of weakness on Yuri’s part and not due to any true feelings – something that is multiplied by the dismissive way she treats Kitty afterwards.

That does make sense, on some level, as Yuri is desperate to repair her relationship with Juliana and her friendship with Kitty has been a sore spot all season. Which was something else that bothered me. There’s a scene later in the season where Juliana explains why she was weird about Yuri and Kitty (mostly Kitty). And it was even a perfectly valid reason. But by having her be weird for seemingly no reason for a while got in the way of her and Kitty having the friendly relationship they end up with later, which is a shame.

Likewise, Kitty never really allows herself to explore her relationship with Praveena because she’s still hung up on Yuri. Which, to be fair, is a totally normal thing that happens to lots of people, particularly teenagers. (They don’t even get to kiss!) Praveena, naturally, does not want to be someone’s rebound. But I really liked Praveena as a character, and I thought she really added something to the cast. They didn’t utilize her as well as they could have.

Basically, I felt robbed of what could have been. With four sapphic leads, I expected better. Like, at least one decent, healthy relationship? And I really wanted a big, fun foursome friendship. If they are intending a Kitty/Yuri endgame, I think they’re going about it in the wrong way. Especially because Yuri spent ages trying to win back Juliana (only for her to end up with Praveena, which on the one hand, at least someone came out of this mess with a girlfriend, but on the other I feel like that’s just an easy way to shunt them to the side if the series returns for season 3).

Plus there’s that cliffhanger ending, where Kitty seemingly runs off for the summer with Min-ho (Sang Heon Lee) and his family. More on that later.

Of course, a bisexual character ending up with a character of the opposite sex doesn’t make them any less bisexual. But if this season was going to be the only exploration of Kitty’s sexuality they were going to do, they definitely could have done a better job. So I understand why people are upset. Like, do I wish that the only wlw relationship we ended up with got more than, like, a one-off scene in the final episode with absolutely no development? Absolutely I do. (Especially when you factor in that Dae and Q both had love interests that were much better developed.)

But as someone who ships Kitty with Min-ho, I was giggling and kicking my feet for most of the season. 

Anyway, Kitty’s other goal is to learn more about her mother’s past, particularly the identity of the mysterious “Simon”, who was mentioned in her mother’s letter to Yuri’s mother. It turns out that Simon was actually a long-lost cousin, and Kitty discovers an entire branch of her family that she never knew existed. Through some typical shenanigans (breaking into the school archives, for example), Kitty is able to track down her great-aunt. It doesn’t go well at first, but thanks to the efforts of Yuri (and to a lesser extent, Min-ho), Kitty gets another chance and learns the truth.

While Kitty’s desire to connect with the mother she barely remembers was the driving force sending her to Korea in the first place, I appreciate that this subplot did not take over the season. In the first season, it was a way to bring Yuri and Kitty together, because of their mothers’ friendship. But this season, with Yuri’s mother no longer a factor, Kitty’s family subplot was used to get her closer to Min-ho, who was also dealing with family drama. And as they spend enough time together as it is, there really wasn’t a need for a lot of screentime.

This subplot did a few things really right. The first was that it highlighted how disconnected Kitty feels from her Korean heritage, while at the same time showing how it is still such a huge part of her. Her great-aunt is insulted by her poor grasp of the language, while Kitty is elated to learn that her long-lost side of the family are matchmakers, just like she is. The second is that it finally brought one of the other Song-Covey sisters to the show, with Margo (Janel Parrish) helping their grandmother and great-aunt reunite.

Should the show be renewed for a season 3, it will be Kitty’s senior year, and she will be back at KISS. So there is the opportunity for her to learn more about her family. But since the whole deal was to learn more about her mother, I’m not sure how big of a factor her family would be in a potential third season. I imagine they would still show up occasionally, particularly cousin Jiwon (Hojo Shin). I feel like their jobs as traditional matchmakers will absolutely have a role to play in any relationship drama Kitty has.

And speaking of relationship drama, we come back to Min-ho! Having confessed his feelings for Kitty on their flight back to the US for semester break, their first few interactions are awkward, to say the least. (Min-ho literally runs away from her at one point.) However, even while no longer being roommates, Kitty and Min-ho spend a lot of time together and eventually return to their natural, bickering state. Which is how I love them.

Though Min-ho insists that he just had a crush on Kitty that has since evaporated, and enters into a new relationship with Stella (Audrey Huynh) to prove it, it’s pretty clear that he still has feelings for her. When Stella (who was only dating Min-ho to get revenge on his father) threatens Kitty, Min-ho almost goes feral. They have a lot of charged, intimate moments – such as when they have to hide in the archives, or when Min-ho comforts Kitty in the hot tub, or when Min-ho comforts Kitty in the rain. And while Kitty often goes to Q (Anthony Keyvan) for advice, it’s Min-ho who goes with her on these adventures.

I really liked how they sort of mirrored Min-ho’s feelings journey last season, this time with Kitty. I think the thoughts are in the back of her head most of the season, especially after Min-ho points out that she smiled after he confessed. As in season 1, she has a dream about Min-ho. And there are multiple times when she’s obviously jealous of him and Stella. She even has a similar moment where she sees him all dressed up and has to take a breath.

And of course, there’s the grandest parallel of them all, when Peter (Noah Centineo) visits Kitty while in Korea for a lacrosse tournament. In fact, there were a couple of nods to Lara Jean and Peter’s relationship, mostly from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. For example, Min-ho continually calls Kitty “Covey” in season 2, something he did not do in season 1. This is one of the things Peter points out, and of course, he did the same with Lara Jean, so I see why he would think it means that Min-ho likes her.

Like Lara Jean, Kitty has chaos ensue after the love letter she wrote  (to help sort her feelings) gets out. Now, Stella “released” it anonymously to cause a diversion while she dug for dirt on Min-ho’s dad, but eventually everyone is able to figure out that Kitty wrote it for Yuri and it blows up both Kitty’s relationship with Praveena and Yuri’s relationship with Juliana. And after, Kitty and Min-ho share a tender moment in the hot tub when he comforts her as she cries. (He gets in fully clothed. Come on.)

It is difficult at this time to determine which way they’re headed for the endgame. I feel like it honestly could go either way. While Kitty and Min-ho had a lot of parallels to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before this season, Kitty and Yuri had some similar parallels in season 1. And though Yuri spent the second half of the season doing her best to make amends with Juliana, I’d like to hope that her kiss with Kitty didn’t come out of nowhere.

But then Kitty literally runs off with Min-ho at the end of the season. I feel like something major would have to happen to pivot away from that and back to Yuri. Or something just as simple as Kitty and Min-ho realizing they’re better off as friends. We just don’t know what will happen if XO, Kitty comes back for season 3. And while I’m rooting for Kitty and Min-ho because I’m basic and I love them, I honestly wouldn’t be upset if she ended up with Yuri.

OK, I’ve already rambled for a really long time, but I do still want to mention some of the other subplots from season 2. So bear with me for just a little while longer.

I’ve never been a fan of toxic family members being redeemed for no reason, so I wasn’t sure how to feel about Min-ho’s dad. And honestly, for most of the season, he was still the same neglectful, absent parent that it seems he was for most of Min-ho’s life. I can understand why Min-ho might still want a relationship with him, so I get why he decides to go on tour with him and his brother at the end of the season. But I don’t think that his dad did enough to earn any forgiveness, so he’s still on my list.

However, I did genuinely enjoy the Stella/Esther quest for revenge, because I watch a lot of K-dramas, and this show needed something completely ridiculous. Couple this with Dae’s seemingly sudden interest in singing and it led to a fantastic climactic scene where everyone had to band together to pull off the performance of a lifetime. Yeah, I really got a kick out of this whole plotline.

After his relationship with Florian crashed and burned, I was worried when it looked like they were going to have Q end up with another jerk. But I ended up really loving Jin. I feel like it’s such a jock thing to think that bullying someone is flirting, but I appreciate that he stopped when Q told him to. And I also appreciate that he apologized for bullying Dae and Min-ho when they were kids and offered to let them bully him to even the score. Because it led to the hilarious scene where Min-ho’s big insult was that his pores were too big. Q and Jin were really cute together; I love them so much.

All in all, as I said earlier, I loved XO, Kitty Season 2. Barring the one major aspect where they absolutely could have been better, I was really entertained. I can only hope they treat their ladies better in season 3, but regardless, I’ll be tuning in to see what happens.

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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