Dear Gossips,

I’m only three episodes into XO, Kitty and yes, of course, Anna Cathcart was always going to be amazing on the show, and we knew this from To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, so the revelation for me is Gia Kim, who plays Yuri.

XO, Kitty is a “mashup of genres, including rom-coms, Korean dramas, and coming-of-age tales”. It’s Gossip Girl and The OC and Beverly Hills 90210 and Pen15 set in Seoul with a K-pop soundtrack and it’s fresh but also familiar because, yes, there are tropes. Which means that Gia’s character, Yuri, is the Serena Van Der Woodsen…except not, because there’s so much more to Yuri than Serena which makes her the Blair, because Blair Waldorf was always the best Gossip Girl character, if Blair was gay. This is not a spoiler, we basically find out in the first episode.

Yuri is selfish and sympathetic, she can be bitchy and kind, she’s a schemer but she’s also generous and thoughtful – for me, so far, she’s the most interesting to watch on XO, Kitty because she has so much dimension. I am obsessed with her. So that means I’m obsessed with Gia Kim. Because like Yuri, IRL Gia picked a path for herself that was not what her family had envisioned.

She was educated in Korea and China, her parents did not approve of acting, but she insisted, moved to LA, and started studying acting while waiting tables. XO, Kitty is her first credited acting role and it just happens to be her breakout. Let this be just the beginning.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Gia Kim Gossip

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