‘XO, Kitty’ season 3 review: Senior year shenanigans

Senior year isn’t smooth sailing for the K.I.S.S. students. Season 3 of Netflix’s XO, Kitty captures the light-hearted fun that the series knows and loves.

Plenty of dating and teen drama pack the season from start to finish, bringing the class closer to the end of the semester. However, XO, Kitty’s third season, fails to chart a cohesive path.

Instead, dropping in story and character changes that rewrite the strong momentum it established before. Your level of enjoyment depends on how deep you want to go beneath the surface of this bright and easy teen drama.

Eye on the future.

“Charting your path” is a consistently strong thread throughout XO, Kitty Season 3. As the characters work through senior year, this plot point captures the relatable tone of figuring out life before graduation.

Season 3 does a great job of showcasing the feelings of high school nearing its end and the cast’s growth in making decisions about their lives. Even when the drama doesn’t feel completely high school, the cast still feels like a collective group of friends figuring things out.

College? Music? Fashion career? XO, Kitty. Season 3 gives each main character enough room to develop their path. Nothing feels rushed or comes as a throwaway line; each decision stems from an idea or the needed screentime. Thankfully, even supporting characters like Madison and Mihee get time to make their decisions. XO, Kitty wants our favorite characters to journey into their next adventure. No open-ended pages, just closed books and new chapters.

Navigating a situationship.

Beneath the surface of senior year, however, stems the mess of XO, Kitty Season 3. There is a clear priority of chaos over character, leading most stories to go in confusing directions. Anna Cathcart, who plays Kitty Song-Covey, once again does a great job portraying the heart at the center of all the stories. She brings back Kitty’s lighthearted compassion, but with a new, grounded sense of looking towards the future. If only that foundation extended to the actual narrative for Kitty Song-Covey.

Why is Kitty so messy and paranoid during XO, Kitty Season 3? Granted, her cheeky frenemy feud with Marius makes a lot of sense – he manipulates plenty of drama himself. (We’ll get to him soon enough.) However, most of her development with Min-ho can be described as “self-sabotage” or “needlessly complicated.” Their issues can be solved with communication and trust. She expresses her feelings, but then immediately assumes the worst of him.

XO, Kitty Season 3 portrays a narrative of Kitty wanting to change her meddling. The issue, however, is that it attributes this to the wrong situations rather than the right ones. The entirety of Kitty and Min-ho’s relationship, while exploding with chemistry, didn’t need a manufactured separation. It’s a tad unbelievable for Kitty to theorize and accuse without speaking with him first.

Former idol.

Speaking of Min-ho, he deserves lots of kudos for trying to grow. As Eunice’s manager, he’s mature about the job and puts in his all to ensure she’s successful. Even while working with Gigi and Kitty during the music video, his eyes are on the goal. Plus, he still prioritizes Kitty’s feelings, too, making sure she’s comfortable in his world. XO, Kitty Season 3 is a better representation of where Min-ho wants to go.

It’s a shame that his father can’t see it. His blinded ego for fame and fortune is the worst! And unfortunately, his connection to the Eunice storyline seems like a one-and-done.

I wish she had stuck it out in the K-pop world. A hit song is hard to come by, and she and Min-ho are a great team together. Throw in Dae and Kitty by their sides, and you have a great group of supporters helping them through all the troubles.

Dance, puppets, dance!

Elsewhere at K.I.S.S., the inconsistent character development is more noticeable. For example, why would Q send a naughty photo to Marius out of the blue? It’s so out of character for him to consider cheating on Jin. He really likes Jin! We spent much of XO, Kitty Season 2 building up their relationship – a summer vacation wouldn’t be that separating. This plot point feels like an easy way to cause drama in Q’s relationship, especially with a cartoonish villain like Marius.

And does Marius truly expect everything to work out for him? If he steals Q, why would he feel happy knowing he ruined people’s lives? Marius comes across more like a primetime soap-opera villain than a high school senior. His love for meddling in people’s lives and tearing up relationships isn’t something that would endear us to him. We’re rooting for Q/Jin and Kitty/Min-ho to work out; it’s hard to connect with his character as an all-out villain.

At least with Marius, there’s something to debate over. Juliana and Praveena’s relationship, however, feels completely irrelevant and ignored. They had such good growth during XO, Kitty Season 2; for them to break up without any fanfare feels pointless to everything that came before. Plus, Juliana/Yuri had strong closure to move on from their past relationship; it doesn’t make sense they’d come back together now. Yuri’s storyline of losing her money and becoming an aspiring fashion designer is so much stronger without the Juliana/Praveena breakup in the way.

Overall.

XO, Kitty Season 3 is a confusing third entry in a light, breezy TV show. On one hand, we have the typical teen drama of romance and the hardships of boarding school life. Like, the ups and downs of heading towards graduation.

On the other hand, Season 3 takes several confusing pivots for the sake of spicing up the storyline and manufacturing issues. The characters bounce back and forth into these pockets of storyline plots that don’t connect strongly.

Sure, the chaos is quite juicy and a guilty pleasure; you’ll have a good time seeing what mess comes up at K.I.S.S. Though, if you’re a diehard fan, the surprising confusion is very valid.

XO, Kitty Season 3 is available to stream now on Netflix.

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Images courtesy of Netflix.