Netflix’s “XO, Kitty” suffers from excessive pauses and incomplete conversations – filling the narrative with misunderstandings – where otherwise proper conflict could unfold.
XO, Kitty Netflix Original Series | Park Young-Sol/Netflix
The spin-off series To all of the boys I’ve loved before Netflix XO, Kitty follows Katherine Song-Covey to Seoul, Korea – where she attends the identical elite highschool her late mother attended a long time earlier. She also gets a likelihood to be together with her long distance boyfriend, Dae (apparently he’s the primary reason she chooses to travel all over the world).
Unfortunately, Kitty’s dreamy aspirations for the proper love story don’t come true. When he arrives on campus, he discovers that Dae is dating Yuri, a social media influencer who comes from a quite powerful family. However, he uses his association skills to deduce that not every part is because it seems.
Spoiler alert for XO, Kitty
Kitty knows what true love looks like. Let’s not forget that she paired her sister and father with perfect matches in the unique series. So, when she witnesses Dae pull her hand away from Yuri during a press conference and mock her display of affection, Kitty’s senses begin to tingle.
Could or not it’s that the connection is fake? While that seems to be the case, an extended road of confusion keeps the narrative hanging by a thread – substituting any actual conflict for “missed opportunities”.
Trouble Clearing Up Misunderstandings in “XO, Kitty”
A Misunderstanding Trail describes characters interacting but not providing information that might likely resolve any misunderstandings. In the case of Kitty and Dae within the early episodes, the 2 start a conversation which is interrupted by a phone call, Yuri (who fears her secret might get out) or various other supporting characters used as pawns on this game of communication failure.
Eventually, when Dae has repeated opportunities to disclose the reality to Kitty (a few fake relationship with Yuri in exchange for the cash he needs to remain in class), her barely justified annoyance and festering disappointment grow to be a fork within the road. She cuts him off mid-sentence, walks away when she’s obviously about to spill her tea, and so forth.
Viewers just need to scream on the screen, “Let him talk!” It’s not a tantalizing narrative with a well-constructed plot that unfolds in each episode (build up to a surprising but inevitable climax, like all dramatic tale). Rather, the plot itself is a misunderstanding.
How a trope of confusion is ruining ‘XO, Kitty’
There isn’t any story here without no telling. Take away the secrets and breaks, and what’s left? This isn’t a further plot element, the truth is the one element that holds the 10-episode series together. How persistently can writers delay the inevitable with petty distractions? Viewers get annoyed waiting for the reality to come back out, to the purpose where it’s unattainable to withstand the temptation to hit the fast-forward button.
The trope of disagreement is a very lazy road here since it exists where real conflict can develop. There can have been real relationship issues between Dae and Kitty.
Imagine what happens when reality cannot compete with fantasy. Imagine what happens when two people – from completely different worlds – discover that they’ve conflicting values. Instead, almost every problem in the whole series may very well be solved if the primary characters had one meaningful conversation. When the reality finally comes out, viewers are already halfway through the series.
The writers throw in Yuri’s sexual revelation to complicate the story a bit. However, its uninspired simplicity feels more like a ploy so as to add charming subplots than to further characterize the primary players. Other colorless conflicts come into play, and extra love interests enter the fight, however the element that catalyzes the story and its course stays a misunderstanding, revolving XO, Kitty right into a pale, monotonous extension of its predecessor.
