XO, Kitty follows the story of Kitty Song Covey who moves to South Korea to be closer to her boyfriend and learn more about her mother’s past. The series is streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Katherine Song Covey (“Kitty” to her friends) wants to learn more about her mother’s heritage so she applies for a scholarship at the Korean Independent School of Seoul (K.I.S.S.), the same one that her mother went to in 1993.
She has ulterior motives though, as her long-distance boyfriend, Dae-heon Kim also studies at that school. Her parents agree to let her go abroad for the year but not without their worries.
As soon as Kitty arrives in Seoul, she is overwhelmed by the place but luckily she runs into Yuri Han, a fellow student at her new school. Kitty tells Yuri that she moved across the country to surprise her boyfriend, while Yuri says that she was hanging out with someone over the summer but it’s not fated to be.
Yuri’s parents are Principal Jina Lim and the Han Hotel Group CEO, Sung-jin Han. Due to the pressures of being part of such a public family, Yuri isn’t really allowed to be herself often.
Her mother asks her about her meetings with a friend named Juliana lately and hints that Yuri might have had a relationship with her but Yuri denies it.
Meanwhile, Dae is struggling to pay his fees for the semester and the school gives him till the end of the day to come up with the amount. He goes around looking for any way to earn some quick cash.
Kitty’s plan is to surprise Dae at the welcome party but she’s surprised herself when Yuri reveals that Dae is the one she was seeing all summer. Kitty also gets to meet Dae’s best friends, Q and Min ho, but is too angry with Dae to think about anything else.
The truth is that Dae agreed to be Yuir’s boyfriend in exchange for some money and Yuri actually pays off his entire year. Dae wants to tell Kitty the truth but doesn’t get the chance to.
She ends up in the same dorm as the boys, however, when her name is mistaken for a boy’s name. Kitty is too distraught and books a ticket back home for the next day.
Yuri and Dae are forced to carry on the charade for much longer when Mr. Han has to use their relationship to smooth over one of his mistakes that was exposed to the public.
Kitty chooses not to leave after convincing herself that she still has a lot to learn about her mother. She gets a lot of help from Q as she tries to navigate the new school and language and even finds a friendly face in Mr. Alex Finnerty, a new teacher who moved from Australia.
Another new student at the school is Madison Miller, the daughter of the owners of Miller Group, a conservative hotel chain that Mr. Han is hoping to merge with.
Kitty puts her matchmaking skills to effect by setting Q up with Florian, the boy he had a crush on. She also has to endure Yuri and Dae’s fake relationship as Yuri maintains the facade that she is straight to please her parents.
Kitty also learns that her mother had a child in Korea when she was at the school and through further investigation, is led to believe that Alex is that child, her step-brother. Alex moved to K.I.S.S to find his birth father, Professor Lee, another faculty at the school.
A lot changes over the course of the semester as Kitty eventually becomes friends with Yuri, who eventually breaks up with Dae publicly so that he can be with Kitty.
Florian and Q’s relationship hits a rocky spot after Dae and Min Ho accuse Florian of cheating on Q. Kitty and Alex discover that it was actually Principal Jina who is his mother and she took Kitty’s mother’s name at the hospital.
The more time Kitty spends with Yuri, the more she realizes that she’s developing feelings for her. At the same time, Min Ho falls in love with Kitty even though he absolutely despised her when she first came.
Yuri learns that it was her mother that sent Juliana away, and later even finds out about Alex. Kitty wants to tell Yuri how she feels but is interrupted by Jina who reveals that Alex is Yuri’s half-brother and that Kitty knew about it.
XO, Kitty ending explained in detail:
What happens between Florian and Q?
Florian has been going through a difficult time because his parents are going through a divorce and he’s stuck in the middle of the mess. They both want him to stay with them and leave K.I.S.S but Florian doesn’t want to.
When Q asks Florian if he’s cheating on him, Florian says that he did cheat, just not in the way he thinks. He contacted a former student and bought tests from him to ace his finals and stay in school.
He ends up topping the class but Q isn’t happy with the cheating aspect. As an added wrinkle, Dae says that unless he tops the class, he loses his room and boarding scholarship.
Does Alex get to know his family?
Mr. Han tells Jina to pay Alex off and send him away or else it will cause problems for their public image. Alex plans to leave the country because Professor Lee doesn’t know about him and Jina ignores him after he revealed that he was her son.
She overhears this and finally has a change of heart at the end of the talent show when she sees Alex and Yuri together. She pulls them aside and calls Professor Lee as well to tell him the truth.
She then invites Alex over for the holidays so that they can spend time together as a family. Alex finally gets to know his birth father as well.
What happens between Dae and Kitty?
Once Yuri breaks up with Dae, he and Kitty finally get together and things appear good but Dae doesn’t tell her the truth about why he was with Yuri. Yuri does let Kitty know and Dae does something grand to regain her trust.
Unfortunately, this is the same time that Kitty develops feelings for Yuri and try as she might, they don’t dissipate. When she tells Dae that she has fallen for someone else, he assumes it is Min Ho and confronts him, but Kitty stops him and tells him it’s actually Yuri.
She eventually breaks up with him but it is an amicable one as they deeply care for each other.
Does Kitty stay on at K.I.S.S.?
When the results for the final exams are posted in the dorms, Kitty rushes to see if she passed them. She’s elated to find that she did but the secret that she was staying in the boys dorm is revealed and she is expelled.
She isn’t able to convince Jina to change her mind but does leave on a good note with her. When Dae learns that she was expelled, he rushes to the airport to tell her that he loves her but that’s when she breaks up with him.
She turns around to see Yuri there and wants to share her feelings, but Yuri is there to welcome Juliana who was invited back to study at the school by Jina.
Kitty sits on the plane as Yuri calls her mother to convince her to rescind the expulsion. Kitty sees Min Ho sitting next to her as he’s going to L.A. to meet his mother. He then tells her that he’s fallen in love with her as she contemplates how complicated her love life has become.
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