XO, Kitty’s second season is a chaotic yet realistic portrayal of growing up: Embracing vulnerability, navigating sexualities, and finding love
The second season of XO, Kitty took Gen Z by the chokehold with its relatability. The coming-of-age series explores all the difficult aspects of growing up: falling in love, maintaining friendships, and exploring oneself. MEGA was able to talk to the cast of XO, Kitty Anna Cathcart, Anthony Keyvan, Sang Heon Lee, Choi Min-young, Gia Kim, and Regan Aliyah to discuss the details of their characters in the second season.
RELATED: Why XO, Kitty is Our Newest Comfort Show About Growing Up
Vulnerability and Chaos
Kitty Covey is as chaotic as we remember. From sending her sister’s love letters for the plot to the several events happening in her college life, chaos seems to follow the character wherever she goes—much like her own life. Seven to eight years ago, actress Anna Cathcart admitted that she never expected to have her own show, much less a second season. “I just feel very honored to have gotten the chance to step into a lead character and to step into Kitty’s life in this stage of her being a teenager and her kind of being at the center of figuring out love, life, and loss,” the leading lady explained.
This second season, both Cathcart and Anthony Keyvan, who plays Quincy, agreed that there’s a lot of newness to expect, including Quincy’s Filipino heritage. “I’m really grateful that I got the opportunity this season to kind of bring more representation rather than just kind of like saying, ‘I’m Filipino,’ we got to really see him be Filipino a little bit this season,” Keyvan said earnestly.
As for the bubbly Kitty, Cathcart explained how her character was able to be more emotional and vulnerable this season compared to the first, where we first saw her as a confident and assertive woman. Another aspect of XO, Kitty is the main character’s navigation through bisexuality. “During season one she was really overwhelmed by it, naturally,” Cathcart honestly stated. “We get to see her really step into that part of herself and embrace it with so much love and excitement, and all the stress that surrounds it. All the chaos is just romantic chaos and romantic stress, not about the fact that this is with a girl instead of a guy or whatever, that these things are new.”
“She embraces it with open arms, and I just think the way that Kitty treats love is such a beautiful thing and I love getting to see that on screen, especially with young people.”
– Anna Cathcart on Kitty’s bisexuality
The Leading Men’s Individualities
Kitty started her series with a long-distance relationship with the warmhearted Dae Heon Kim, played by Minyeong Choi, which was shown to be complicated in the first season. While not over her, he still intends to keep Kitty close to him. In the second season, Minyeong explained how his character is set on getting to know himself. “Dae is still discovering a lot about himself,” the actor explained thoroughly. “Such as what kind of love he wants to be in and what kind of dreams he has, especially the singing and the performing part. Throughout this season, he discovers and faces that he has passion about that and that’s a big discovery about himself.”
Min Ho Lee, played by Sang Heon Lee, started out as Kitty’s enemy in the first season, which came to everyone’s surprise when he revealed to have deep feelings for his supposed nemesis. This season, we also got to see more of Min Ho and his family relationship. “I feel like the growth is pretty obvious where he’s trying to build a better relationship with his dad,” Sang Heon pondered. “Hopefully he’ll face better and brighter futures with his family.”
Honest and Natural Queer Representation
XO, Kitty‘s second season dives deep into Yuri Han and Juliana Porter’s relationship as lovers, and with actresses Gia Kim and Regan Aliyah feeling comfortable with one another, their dynamic feels natural. Aliyah explained how she didn’t feel like she had to do a lot since working with Kim felt smooth. “There’s a lot of sweet moments that they have which is really cool. It adds so much layering to who they already were,” Regan Aliyah said happily about their characters, which Gia Kim agreed, even sharing how she and her co-actress would often talk with the production team, explaining how they interpreted particular scenes, especially as they are representing a sapphic couple.
“Sapphic relationships… there’s so much that goes on and it’s so connection-based that women really understand each other. I really wanted it to seem like there are moments of real connection between them and I think that we both did like a good job in making sure that balance was there.”
– Regan Aliyah on her dynamic with co-actress Gia Kim
Queer representation has come a long way, and XO, Kitty embraces these identities gracefully—and chaotically, of course, thanks to Kitty’s revelation. It’s beautiful to see the main character fully embrace her bisexuality, no matter how confusing it could be. Gia Kim expresses how important it is to normalize queer identities on large platforms such as Netflix. “There’s so much room for improvement in every part of the world for it to become more normalized and celebrated, so I feel like it’s definitely doing that. It’s pushing the needle in the right direction,” Kim said thoughtfully.
“These stories change lives,” Aliyah agreed. “These stories have people seeing themselves for the first time, and that’s a big responsibility that I think we’re all so blessed to have fallen into our laps.” Many films and shows today normalize and include queer identities, emphasizing the importance of feeling seen and represented by a diverse set of cast, similar to how diverse the people of the real world are.
Featured Image and Photos: NETFLIX
