Dear Gossips, 

Have you seen The Kissing Booth and The Kissing Booth 2? Chances are at least some of you have. Most of you? According to Netflix the first one was one of the most watched titles on the platform when it came out and one of the most re-watched titles of 2018. When the second one came out a few weeks ago, it was trending all over social media and brought in big numbers again despite dismal reviews. No, they’re not good. Despite the quality though, the franchise is so popular, a third installment has already been shot and will be released next year. 

 

What’s interesting is that The Kissing Booth made Jacob Elordi a star – for sure he went on to do much better work in Euphoria but The Kissing Booth put his name out there – and he’s obviously appreciative of the opportunity but is probably ready to move past it? At least that’s what the Photo and Video Assumption is telling people. This is our game of baseless conclusions. And yet…

This comparison cracked me up:

Jacob is featured in Variety’s Power of Young Hollywood issue and in the interview, he talked about Euphoria and his upcoming projects and then was asked about The Kissing Booth 2. Check out his response: 

“Be honest.”

Like he was giving the reporter permission to say his movie sucks! 

 

“That’s kind of you” – like he knows that she found a way around saying that it sucks by saying it didn’t suck as much as the first one? 

I wonder how he’ll look back on this in ten years, because if we’re going by the Robert Pattinson example, the way he speaks about Twilight now is with a lot of affection and gratitude. 

That wasn’t the best part of the interview though. The best part of the interview is that Ana de Armas Updates, the best Twitter discovery during this f-cking pandemic, was name-checked!

Jacob was asked because he has a role in Deep Water, the film Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas were working on when they fell in love. 

 

To be honest though, all of this was really just an excuse to say that if you’re looking for something to watch on Netflix this weekend, you could always NOT re-watch The Kissing Booth for the fourth time and start on my current favourite series It’s Okay To Not Be Okay. I will definitely NOT be Okay on Sunday after the final episode. The last two are dropping this weekend. My whole sh-t is this show right now and going by some of your emails, for some of you, it’s become your whole sh-t right now too. I got an email the other day from a reader called Shaina who as twisted up as I am about the way the two main characters are “unraveling” each other Jane Austen-styles. It’s an excellent observation. And then, after a series of questions trying to figure out what will happen with the story – What is going on in the hospital? How did the murder happen? Who is the villain? Etc etc etc – Shaina ended simply with this:

Why are they so beautiful?

I don’t know!

I don’t know how it’s possible!

I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when this is over! I would attach a clip here but I don’t want to spoil anything because to really get the sense of the tension and the sweetness that builds and builds over 16 episodes, you really should just ride in cold to this show. And get ready to not be okay at all. 

Yours in gossip,

Lainey