Kitty Song Covey (Anna Cathcart) began Season 3 of XO, Kitty asking her crush Min Ho (Sang Heon Lee) if she could “join him” on tour for the summer. But by the end of Episode 8, he’s the one joining her on a flight back home to Portland for the holiday break. “Multiple times this season, I was like, ‘Imagine the edits! The fans are going to freak,’ ” Cathcart tells Tudum of swooning right along with the audience. “And with the season finale I was like, ‘This is it!’ ”
After a season of false starts and misunderstandings, Min Ho finally lets down his guard and realizes what he really wants is Kitty. In a true demonstration of love (which, as Kitty says, beats a declaration any day), he runs to the subway station to patch things up before her flight. As every true rom-com acolyte knows, running through a public transportation station against a ticking clock is the ultimate grand gesture.
When we find Kitty about to board her train in a romantic red sweater (that Cathcart and the costume team handpicked soa she’d stand out in the crowd), she receives a surprising text from Min Ho. It’s an original song he wrote for her called “By My Side” (which you can listen to now), to let her know how he truly feels. “That is love right there,” Lee opines. “Sometimes there are things that you can’t describe properly, but he did that in a song.”
While Cathcart couldn’t actually listen to the song during the filming of the scene, she and Lee did listen to it before filming the epic reunion. The song — which includes romantic lyrics like “the sun doesn’t rise without you” — was an intentional throughline for showrunner Valentina Garza. “The lyrics hearken back to Kitty’s Senior Sunset list and all the things she wanted to do for herself this season,” she says. “Min Ho tried to make that a reality for her, but he’s realizing that without her there’s none of that excitement. All the light and warmth she brings to his life is something that he really wants and needs.”
When Kitty and Min Ho finally reach each other, they say “I love you” and kiss like no one else is watching — despite the fact that the actors were filming at a real subway station during one of their last days of shooting. “It was such a crazy day, and it just all felt so right,” says Cathcart.
Below, Garza, Cathcart, and Lee answer all your burning questions about the #MoonCovey ship fully setting sail at the end of Season 3 … across the Atlantic and all the way to Portland — flannels optional. And keep reading for a complete check-in with your other favorite couples at KISS.
Yes! After three seasons of peak will they, won’t they yearning, the fan-favorite couple finally kiss and define the relationship.
The two started off the series as somewhat enemies (or, shall we say, frenemies), who were forced to be in close proximity — and share a living space — at KISS. “At the time, Kitty was just always so bothered and annoyed by his sassiness,” says Lee. But as the relationship evolved, their snarky banter morphed into the ever-coveted flirty banter, which Cathcart calls “one of the best trajectories. Banter is so important in a relationship, and Kitty thrives off that.”
Min Ho was first to say he had feelings out loud for Kitty at the end of Season 1, which she didn’t reciprocate at the time. But they mended their relationship and became true friends in Season 2. Kitty and Min Ho even showed up for each other in times of crisis for their families, to a point where their friendship laid the foundation for feelings that were simply undeniable. “Min Ho is his sweetest, most thoughtful version of himself when he’s with Kitty and caring for her,” says Cathcart. Lee ventures to think that people have rooted for them all this time because “the audience seems to catch onto Min Ho’s energy toward Kitty really well.”
Cathcart also thinks Kitty loves the version of herself she becomes with Min Ho, which is crucial to the success of any (relation)ship. “She has so much fun with Min Ho,” says the actor. “Everything feels better when he has his hand in hers. Fans who have known Kitty for a long time can see that and just have so much joy seeing them together.”
Garza boils their appeal down to how these enemies-turned-slowburn-lovers “challenge each other in ways nobody else does,” she says. “That’s something that people really admire about that relationship dynamic, and, of course, it’s just that classic will they, won’t they tension.”
Cathcart noticed a spark in Season 1, Episode 5, when Min Ho calls Kitty “Covey” for the first time. As To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before fans know, someone has caught feelings when they call a Covey sister by her last name.
“I was totally locked into that,” says the actor. “When we were shooting that episode, I was like, ‘I can see what’s happening here. This is huge.’” And let Lee remind us all, “No one told Min Ho to call her Covey, but he sort of lays it on her.” Even the original To All the Boys dream beau, Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo), felt the romance afoot after spending just a few minutes with Kitty and Min Ho. In Season 2, Peter — longtime love interest of middle Song Covey sister Lara Jean (Lana Condor) — visits Kitty in Seoul. Peter almost immediately tells Kitty that Min Ho likes her more than she might think.
In Season 3, Min Ho tells Kitty that he considers Chuseok (often called “Korean Thanksgiving”) to be an anniversary for them, because it’s when he first discovered he was developing feelings for her. Like his character, Lee found Kitty and Min Ho’s relationship growing on him. “It’s just really cute how Min Ho and Kitty slowly realized, ‘Oh, wait a minute. I have feelings for this person. This is so weird!’ ” he says.
“Unfortunately, sometimes we have to experience setbacks in order to really realize what’s important for us and to look inward,” says Garza. For Kitty and Min Ho, that push comes in the form of a misunderstanding in Episode 6. Kitty assumes Min Ho lied to her about getting their friend Eunice (Han Bi Ryu) pregnant. In reality, Eunice and Min Ho never even hooked up. But Min Ho, who is so guarded around everyone else, is devastated that Kitty didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt.
“It’s hard for me to even think about them going through a breakup. But I can definitely understand where Min Ho was coming from,” says Lee. “He really tried to gain that trust from her and broke through his barriers to get to Kitty and understand what his true feelings were for her.”
The breakup scene was naturally one of the most intense scenes for the pair to shoot. “When we wrapped, we both had the longest hug, being like, ‘We did it. I’m so proud of you,’ ” remembers Cathcart of the emotional day. “To be this hurt and this deeply impacted was something that was new to explore for Kitty and Min Ho.”
Garza agrees, explaining, “When Kitty and Min Ho have this breakup, it really causes Kitty to look inside herself and figure out what’s important to her and have personal growth.”
To confirm, no. Eunice was never pregnant. She did have a pregnancy scare, though, after she hooked up with Dae (Minyeong Choi) in Paris. At the end of Episode 4, she confides in her friend and manager Min Ho about her fears regarding a potential pregnancy. He promises to protect her privacy, and, in turn, Kitty rightly suspects Min Ho is hiding something. But Kitty is wrong about what, exactly, Min Ho isn’t telling her.
In Episode 5, Kitty finds a positive pregnancy test in the bathroom of Dae’s family’s restaurant during Chuseok. She thinks it might be Eunice’s after she noticed Min Ho being extra protective of his friend and client. But it turns out the test actually belonged to Kitty’s cousin Jiwon (Hojo Shin), and Eunice wasn’t pregnant after all. Eunice’s period finally returns after months of stress from her pop-star lifestyle.
In their time away from each other, they both learned how to love themselves better and reflected on what they really want for themselves. “The breakup changes how they see their relationship and each other,” says Cathcart. “But, as we see at the end, it’s for the better.”
Kitty and Min Ho’s relationship might not be simple, easy, or convenient anymore. But Cathcart says that “only shows how much more they want [their relationship] to work. It’s something that takes effort, intention, and choice, and they’re still going to choose each other at the end of the day. That’s what they’ve been waiting for. It was good for them to have that time of reflection and really get to show each other how much they mean to one another.”
Garza adds that Min Ho had to open himself up too. “He’s really having a hard time getting over their breakup and what he thinks were Kitty’s assumptions about him,” she says. But in the process of writing his song for Kitty, he realizes what he wants. “So the moment that that is unlocked for him, he has no choice but to run to Kitty and share his feelings with her. That’s really an emotional breakthrough for him in understanding himself a little bit better.”
Lee thinks Min Ho needed all the time he took to learn how to avoid seeking validation from others, like his dad. He realizes, “My feelings toward Kitty are still true and still lovable, so why am I being this way? This is immature of me. I need to step up again,” says the actor. “I’m glad he did.”
Lara Jean starts off Season 3 going through a rough patch with Peter, and Kitty comes to stay with her in New York for the summer to support her big sister. So, it’s a fitting bookend that LJ flies to Seoul to help her little sis get her sparkle back — and apply early decision to NYU.
“Love is important, but at the end of the day, we have to look inside ourselves and figure out what it is just to take care of ourselves as a whole person,” says Garza. “And there’s no one better to really help her with that than Lara Jean, who’s been on her own growth journey, even though we haven’t been able to see it all.
As Lara Jean and Peter are navigating their long-distance relationship, LJ is able to give Kitty the advice she needs “because she’s done that work of self-reflection and growth herself.” Cathcart appreciates that we get to see the little sister side of Kitty again this season, and that she and the audience get to hear from Lara Jean herself that love is complicated. “Even if you are meant for someone, that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to have hiccups,” says the actor.
“Her whole life, Kitty had just believed that Lara Jean and Peter were perfect. She was too young to realize some of their mishaps and messes growing up. Hearing those reminders from her sister directly is so meaningful and makes such an impact on Kitty’s journey with Min Ho.”
Learn more about Lara Jean’s return in XO, Kitty Season 3 here and watch this behind-the-scenes featurette of Condor and Cathcart on the Covey sisters’ long-awaited reunion.
Yes! And we can thank Cathcart for her encyclopedic brain. When Min Ho first tells Kitty “I love you,” Kitty says, “You what?” That’s a very specific To All the Boys callback that Cathcart thought of and pitched to the writers.
After a table read for the episode, she said, “Can we please have Kitty say the same thing Lara Jean did? I just know that fans are going to notice.” Cathcart is grateful the writers were on board. “By the next draft, which we were shooting literally a few days later, it was in there.” That’s undoubtedly one of Cathcart’s “favorite parts of the season.”
Additionally, the “About Love” by Marina needle drop in Episode 8 is “definitely a callback” Garza hopes fans will “rock out to at the end of the season.” The song was featured in the second To All the Boys movie, P.S. I Still Love You.
Also, the pen Kitty picks up in LJ’s apartment to write her Senior Sunset list is the one Peter brought back from Korea for LJ in Season 2. “Anyone who’s paying attention is going to all see those little freeze-framing moments and be able to get excited about the little things that we’ve laid in,” says Garza.
Definitely. In the Season 1 finale, Min Ho sits in coach with Kitty to keep her company while she’s heartbroken. He also confesses that he has feelings for her, which probably wasn’t the best time. Now in Season 3, they’re in business class together, gleefully holding hands. “We just thought it would be a really fun bookend for the season, to see them finally on the same page together and embracing whatever unknown the future holds for them. It really symbolized [how] they’re at the beginning of a journey,” says Garza.
Cathcart loves the parallel and that they’re “holding hands this time,” she says. “They have such a different dynamic than they did when we saw them on a plane before. I think it’s a perfect split screen and shows their growth automatically.” Since the scene was so important, Cathcart asked if Kitty could kiss Min Ho on the hand to show their deep affection. “I’m really happy they kept that in, and I think it is a very, very cute button to this part of their journey, when another chapter is beginning on the other side of this plane ride.”
Notably in the scene, the always put-together Min Ho has brought nothing with him except his heart on his sleeve, meaning he will need to procure some flannels once they reach the Pacific Northwest. “There’s another character development,” says Lee. “He’s sort of a planner, but he’s winging it — and not even just for Kitty, but for them to be together.” It was Lee’s idea to have a final moment of banter for the couple, when Min Ho reminds Kitty that they’re technically in business class, not first. “Don’t get too posh on me, Covey,” he tells her. “That final moment of cute banter is a whole full-circle moment,” says the actor.
They sure are. Min Ho is on his way to the city — and the people — that made Kitty Song Covey. “He’s probably shitting himself a little bit, like ‘Wow, OK, I’ve just managed to handle Kitty Song Covey. Now, meet her whole family,’ ” jokes Lee. “But all the same, I think he’s very excited for it.”
Cathcart thinks this trip is further proof of Kitty and Min Ho’s relationship deepening and maturing. “Showing someone your hometown and bringing them home to meet your family is so special and intimate,” she says. “Kitty knows Min Ho’s world, but he doesn’t really know her original orbit of what built her. That would be very pivotal and significant for their relationship.” Lee agrees that now it’s Min Ho’s turn to see Kitty’s sphere, since she’s seen the Moon family’s music world. To that end, he also hopes Min Ho continues letting go of his dad’s expectations of him. “He’s trying to learn the whole concept of even if it doesn’t happen the way it should, that’s OK.”
Similarly, Kitty has spent all season learning to surrender control. She checked everything off her Senior Sunset list, but not in any way she might have expected. “She enters her senior year with a lot of very specific expectations, but they really get inverted along the way,” says Garza. “You have to be open to the unexpected in life — that’s really what she’s learning this season.”
With that in mind, Cathcart hopes Kitty learns to take a deep breath and slow things down as she looks toward her bright future, including going to NYU. She wants Kitty to savor all her big moments coming up, like graduation. “She moves a million miles a minute and is someone who has so much passion and love and so many dreams and is go, go, go all the time,” says Cathcart. “I relate to that because I am very much like that as Anna. But I think it’s very helpful and productive to actually reflect and think things through.”
The Season 3 finale sees nearly every couple at KISS patch things up with an exciting future ahead to look forward to:
We learn that Dae and Eunice actually spent time together in Paris when she was on her worldwide tour. And, while Eunice isn’t pregnant, she doesn’t want to be a pop star anymore by the end of the season either. Dae is there for her, and they kiss at the photo booth at Kitty’s surprise 18th birthday party. Their PDA is a full-circle moment, referring back to their photo booth experience at the school dance in Season 2. Back then, Dae hurt Eunice’s feelings by not calling her his girlfriend. Now, he wants to show off their relationship.
In a twist of fate, Dae ends Season 3 actually wanting to pursue music himself, since he didn’t get into his dream college for engineering.
Yuri (Gia Kim) ends the season ready to launch her “Riches to Rags” fashion line. She stitches herself back up — literally — with the support of her friends after her family loses everything. Juliana (Regan Aliyah) helps her along the way with her designs and realizes she still has feelings for Yuri. Well, actually, her (now former) girlfriend Praveena (Sasha Bhasin) is the one who first points it out to Juliana. She and Praveena remain friendly, and Juliana asks Yuri to dance at Kitty’s party, signaling there’s hope for the exes to reunite.
Throughout Season 3, Marius (Sule Thelwell) tries to reignite his relationship with Q (Anthony Keyvan). But Marius’s pursuit only makes Q realize it’s Jin (Joshua Lee) he really loves. So, Q attempts to prove as much to him. While Jin is nervous to trust their connection again and ordinarily would make Q grovel, he wants to make the most of the time they have before Q goes off to USC for college.
Turns out, Kitty’s matchmaking instincts were right. Jiwon and Alex (Peter Thurnwald) had a secret relationship all semester and end the season about to become new parents. Jiwon even breaks the news to her halmeoni (Jung Hye-Sun), who vows to show up for her granddaughter and soon-to-arrive great-grandchild. Principal Lee (Michael K. Lee) is also excited to be there for his grandchild’s firsts, since he wasn’t able to be there for Alex’s childhood.
Relive all the will they, won’t they romance of XO, Kitty Season 3 now, only on Netflix.
