Is Lana Candor’s Lara Jean in XO, Kitty?

Image Credit: Katie Yu / Netflix

Netflix’s ‘XO, Kitty’ follows the story of Kitty Song Covey, who moves to Korea after getting admission into the school that her mother attended. This is Kitty’s chance to learn more about her mother while finally getting to be with Dae, with whom she’s been in a long-distance relationship for the past four years. After playing matchmaker to her sister and father, Kitty gets to be on the other side of the playing field and discovers the complications and nuances in romance and relationships, which change her perspective on life and love.

Considering how important Kitty’s family, especially her sisters, are to her and Kitty’s role in Lara Jean’s love story, you might want to know if Lara Jean and the family play the same role in Kitty’s love life. Does Lana Candor reprise her role as Kitty’s elder sister in ‘XO, Kitty’? Let’s find out.

Is Lara Jean in XO, Kitty?

Image Credit: Juhan Noh / Netflix

No, Lana Candor’s Lara Jean does not appear in ‘XO, Kitty.’ Lara Jean’s story ends in ‘To All the Boys: Always and Forever.’ She and Peter come at odds when Peter gets into Stanford, and Lara Jean falls in love with New York and decides to go to NYU. They worry that the long distance between them will destroy their relationship, and Peter breaks up with her. However, by the end of the film, he realizes that they have to give it a chance and try to make it work, no matter how it ends up in the longer run. So, Peter goes to Stanford, and Lara Jean moves to New York.

The events of ‘XO, Kitty’ take place a couple of years after that. When Jenny Han, whose novels serve as the inspiration for the movies and who serves as the co-showrunner of ‘XO, Kitty,’ thought about exploring Kitty’s story, she knew that it was necessary to keep her in a setting where her character could be explored outside of her sister’s influence. “We all fell so deeply in love with Lara Jean and her story. So it felt like the greatest gift to give to Kitty was to let her as a character kind of set off on her own two feet and not put her in the shadow of either of her sisters,” she said.

Calling it a passing of the baton from Lara Jean, Han explained the importance of moving the story to Korea. “If you see the Covey house that we all know and love and their high school in Portland, you’d probably just be thinking, ‘Oh, what’s Lara Jean up to?’” she said. In ‘To All the Boys,’ we follow Lara Jean’s perspective and get to know what’s inside her head, while Kitty remains a secondary character whose thought process is not explored as deeply.

In ‘XO, Kitty,’ the creators wanted to give Kitty “ the chance to really explore her inner self and to offer that peek into what she’s thinking.” While her sisters Margot and Lara Jean remain an essential part of her life, it was best to have Kitty explore this new side of her life on her own, out of their shadows. We might see Margot and Lara Jean in the following seasons, but their presence will be limited to a cameo while the focus remains entirely on Kitty.

Read More: Is XO, Kitty Based on a True Story?

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