If you’ve seen XO Kitty season 2 and you’ve watched To All the Boys then you’d know for sure that there are a lot of parallels to the movie, To All the Boys that made it into XO Kitty. But it just doesn’t work as well as it could, and there’s a reason for that. 

This article isn’t intended to draw criticism around parallels. In fact, in a lot of situations where they bring parallels in are good and received well. Such as the parallels in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise or the many parallels in Arcane. Even in cinemas where they reference other movies, such as La La Land, LoveHard, or The Summer I Turned Pretty. All of these examples had parallels, yet it felt natural, important, and had a reason. This is a part of why they didn’t work in XO Kitty.

In the first season of the show,  they didn’t have any parallels to its “sister” series. It was more of a story with the goal of making new “iconic” scenes that fans would be able to reference and gab over. And they were trying hard to make this happen. But one of the issues with the production goal was that the series was all over the place. With having plots switch from being about a mom to a secret family, then a love triangle, then enemies to lovers, leading to an unrequited love plot. Unlike To All the Boys, XO Kitty struggled with holding the foundation of what the main plot was going to be. 

This may be for a few reasons, such as they had too many plans and too little time, or, in general, just poor script and screenwriters. And because of the rough beginning, there wasn’t really anything that the audience could stick to. This leads up to a lot of things, but it’s most likely for the show’s poor execution of who the lead love protagonist is supposed to be. In To All the Boys, through the movies there is more than one love interest. There are Josh, John, and Peter, the main 3 love interests. And though there are romantic tension scenes with Lara Jean and John or Josh. The movies still sustain the fact that Peter is the main love interest. Because the movie keeps the main love interest knowing, that is what creates the most iconic scenes from the characters. Instead of having to worry about certain moments with every guy, stick. It keeps that really good writing for the main man. 

This is the complete opposite of XO Kitty; while most fans say Minho is the main love interest, it’s never really known. In a sense, the writers still play off her many relationships as maybe meant to be. It becomes a very, very crowded space to make romantic scenes in the show because Kitty is constantly going back and forth on her feelings. Unlike Lara Jean, Kitty has 4 love interests at the exact same time, while Lara Jean has only two max that are focused on in the first two movies. In the show it tries to give way too much. This is a lot more present in the first scene when every other episode had every other love interest having a forgettable interaction with Kitty. 

But season 2 took a completely different route in trying to give their fans “unforgettable romantic moments.” This was ensured by basically using the most iconic and dearly beloved scenes from To All the Boys and just switching the characters. And there were a lot of people who liked this, but it generally doesn’t work. This is because To All the Boys moments are scenes that someone can remember instantly; the hot tub scene, the track scene, and even the turf scene at the end of the movie are all scenes that are dearly beloved. And trying to brand those things as a different show makes it harder to distinguish the two sisters. Compared to season 1 or all the movies, Kitty and Lara Jean were both individual people with different needs and standards. So adding in the same scenes makes the characters start to blend into each other. 

 Another huge point on why this was a bad choice is that it can make the romantic scenes feel ingenuine. It’s like if your significant other said or did something really sweet and unforgettable. For you to only find out he got it from a movie or stole the line from his friend. It dulls it out, making the special moments or lines ingenuine perpetuating a gap between the characters. Not to mention it feels cheap, like a quick cash grab from the watchers. For the most part, the parallels felt that the story specifically made moments or scenes happen because they wanted to use them. 

Now it’s no secret that XO Kitty isn’t the best at writing complex characters. So taking a moment or a scene and making a character mold into it isn’t always the best decision. When there are characters that have specific personalities, it’s important for a writer to realize this. You have to think of the character you created and think, “Would they actually do this?” So when you add parallels between different characters, that’s when there is a little conflict. All of the media previously mentioned had parallels with the same characters at different time points. In To All the Boys, it made sense regarding Peter Kavinsky’s actions or Lara Jean’s actions. Like the hot tub scene, it made sense to Lara Jean’s character and the plot that she would go in the hot tub. For her it was a solidification of her relationship with Peter. Basically admitting that she liked him and taking that step in their relationship that she was so petrified of in the beginning.

But from an analytical standpoint or even just as a watcher, the pool scene and fainting scene didn’t really do anything for the characters. It never was something that could symbolize something because it was purely put in to be a parallel for the fans. For the most part, it just made Minho and Kitty’s relationship ingenuine. Where the only romantic moment that was made for them actually fit their characters. The rain scene was a perfect example of the potential scenes they could have had together. But putting in 2 parallels out of the 3 memorable romantic interactions is such a huge letdown. And overall makes the scenes they have together easily forgettable.

In general I understand the team behind the show’s intentions. But it just wasn’t the route to go if they weren’t going to have original scenes for characters in the show.