The wait is almost over. Netflix’s brightest, most addictive teen romance spin-off is charging toward its most electric chapter yet. XO, Kitty Season 3 is locked in for 2026, and everything leaking out right now suggests this will be the boldest, steamiest, most emotionally bruising season the series has ever delivered.

Kitty Song Covey first stole hearts in 2023 when she left Portland behind and landed in the dazzling pressure cooker of Seoul’s Korea International School of Seoul. What started as a hopeful attempt to rekindle things with long-distance boyfriend Dae quickly unraveled into fake-dating scandals, cultural collisions, secret family histories, bisexual awakenings, and one of the most feverishly debated slow-burn triangles streaming television has seen in years.

Season 2 ended on pure adrenaline. After endless charged glances, jealous outbursts, protective gestures and almost-confessions, Kitty finally let herself admit the truth she had been dodging for months: her heart had quietly, irreversibly moved from Yuri to Min Ho. The once-snarky tension between them had melted into something tender, real, impossible to ignore.

Then the finale dropped the hammer.

Min Ho gets pulled into the spotlight, joining his pop-star older brother Joon Ho on a massive Asia-wide concert tour. Kitty, standing on an airport tarmac with her suitcase and every ounce of courage she has left, looks up at him and says the four words that broke the internet: “Can I join you?”

His stunned, soft smile. Her wide, terrified, hopeful eyes. Black screen.

The fandom collectively screamed.

Showrunner Valentina Garza has since called the upcoming stretch “a summer of love before senior year crashes in like a storm.” That single promise alone has fans refreshing their feeds every hour.

Production wrapped in July 2025 across Seoul and several other Asian cities. Netflix announced the renewal back on Valentine’s Day 2025 with a cheeky clip of Anna Cathcart ripping open a script marked “Season 3.” Since then the cast has been merciless with their teasing. Sang Heon Lee posted a moody black-and-white set photo captioned simply “soon ♡”. Anthony Keyvan promised the scripts feel “grown-up but still gloriously chaotic.” Anna Cathcart told a late-2025 interviewer that this time Kitty isn’t just stumbling into love—she’s choosing it, even when it stings.

No exact premiere date has dropped yet, but the pattern points firmly toward January to March 2026. Most bets are on late January or early February, giving the show prime post-holiday binge real estate.

The whole main cast is back and hungrier than ever. Anna Cathcart returns as Kitty, now sharper, braver, and far more dangerous when she’s in love. Sang Heon Lee’s Min Ho is stepping out of the cocky-playboy shadow into something deeper and more vulnerable. Minyeong Choi’s Dae still circles the story, carrying the heavy baggage of his family’s lawsuit against Yuri’s powerful father. Gia Kim’s Yuri is facing the collapse of her gilded world—bankruptcy threats, scholarship dorm life, and the sudden loss of the safety net she always took for granted. Anthony Keyvan’s Q finally gets the emotional spotlight he deserves. Regan Aliyah, Peter Thurnwald, Jocelyn Shelfo and Hojo Shin (now bumped to series regular) round out the returning crew.

Fresh faces are arriving to flip everything upside down. Christine Hwang plays Gigi, a magnetic K-pop trainee who joins Joon Ho’s tour and immediately becomes the human equivalent of a jealousy grenade for Kitty. Soy Kim is Yisoo, a blunt, brilliant transfer student at KISS whose ruthless approach to matchmaking crashes head-on into Kitty’s more emotional style. Sule Thelwell brings Marius, a worldly exchange student whose arrival sends Q’s romantic arc spinning in unexpected directions—and may secretly connect to the larger corporate-family mess swirling around Yuri and Dae.

The plot teases dropping so far feel deliberately cruel in the best way.

Kitty actually goes on tour with Min Ho. Picture late-night hotel corridors, stolen kisses behind speaker stacks, screaming crowds pressing in from every side, and the constant threat of Gigi sliding too close to Min Ho during soundchecks. One viral rumor claims a private video—maybe real, maybe edited by someone with a grudge—leaks online and threatens to torch their fragile new relationship before it can even stand up straight.

Meanwhile Yuri’s empire crumbles fast enough that she’s forced into the dorms on financial aid. Guess who her roommate ends up being? Set photos have surfaced showing the two of them sharing headphones on bunk beds, trading loaded looks across the room, arguing in ways that feel way too intimate for exes-turned-friends. The question everyone is asking: is the Min Ho endgame about to face the one opponent it never saw coming—Yuri’s lingering pull?

There’s darker smoke circling too. A growing theory insists Kitty will uncover a buried connection between her late mother and the Moon family (Min Ho’s stepmother’s side)—something financial, romantic, or both. If that thread pulls tight, the romance that finally feels safe could turn forbidden overnight.

Dae’s storyline is heading toward collision. His father’s lawsuit against Yuri’s conglomerate father is reaching verdict territory. Win or lose, the fallout drags everyone back into class warfare, privilege guilt, and old wounds that never really healed. Kitty inevitably ends up caught in the middle, trying to fix what might be unfixable.

Q and Marius look set to deliver the season’s most tender—and possibly most heartbreaking—new arc. Instant chemistry, yes, but also long-distance anxiety, cultural gaps, and hints that Marius might be hiding ties to the Han family scandal. It could be Q’s first real shot at something lasting… or the softest bruise he’s ever taken.

Senior year itself arrives loaded. Prom turns into a battlefield. College applications force brutal choices. A talent showcase brings Joon Ho back to KISS as a guest and accidentally ignites every ego and every heart in the building. There’s talk of a disastrous group trip, leaked secrets, betrayed trusts, and—of course—the showrunner’s own words: “more kissing than ever before.”

This season isn’t playing it safe anymore. It’s letting the characters grow into messier, more adult versions of themselves. Bisexual longing gets to be complicated and real instead of cute and tidy. Cross-cultural relationships show the friction instead of glossing over it. Family legacies carry real weight. Love hurts because at seventeen and eighteen it often does.

Visually the show is leveling up too—bigger concert sequences, neon-drenched Seoul nights, sweeping travel shots, a soundtrack rumored to feature fresh K-pop collabs. It still feels like the warm, funny, swoony comfort watch we fell for, but now it’s willing to break a few hearts to earn them back properly.

As of mid-January 2026 the first official teaser trailer could drop any day. The fandom is already on high alert, dissecting every blurry set photo and cryptic Instagram story.

Kitty Song Covey is coming back—older, bolder, deeper in love, and far more willing to burn everything down if that’s what it takes to build something real.

Get ready. The chaos isn’t ending. It’s just getting started.