To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before: Breaking Down Lara Jean And Peter Kavinsky’s Entire Relationship – And How It Was Defined By Grief, Loss, and Parental Neglect

It was recently announced that ‘XO Kitty’, the Netflix original series starring Anna Cathcart, who also previously starred in the ‘Descendants’ franchise, also starring Dove Cameron, Booboo Stewart, Sofia Carson and the late Cameron Boyce, who passed away after suffering a fatal epileptic seizure in his sleep in 2019 at the young age of 20, will be coming back for its second season in January after a two year hiatus, which was most likely due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. In relevant series of Disney related stories, Boyce’s family and friends now bring awareness to epilepsy, as well as an end to gun violence, a cause that which Boyce was very passionate about through The Cameron Boyce Foundation, which was established soon after his untimely death.

But we’re not here to cover Disney-related content. We’ve done so in several previous blog entries here, particularly on Cameron Boyce, Dove Cameron (and her previous abusive relationship with Ryan McCartan), which is now viral, Sofia Carson, and even Sabrina Carpenter made the list. Who knows, maybe I’ll write about her too in the very near future. She recently broke up with her boyfriend of 1 year, Barry Keoghan, and has a new Netflix special, ‘A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter’. Carpenter has been part of the Netflix family herself, with her hit movie, Work It’s being released in 2020, which also starred Liza Koshy and Jordan Fisher.

Now back to our regular program: ‘XO Kitty’ is an original Netflix series. Fans of the show might recognize the character of Katherine ‘Kitty’ Covey as she was a supporting character in the ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ franchise, which starred Lana Condor and Noah Centineo, who will next star in season 2 of ‘The Recruit’, which will also be released on Netflix next month, in lead roles. The movie series was actually based on a book series written by best-selling author Jenny Han, who was also behind ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty.’ In the ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ movie series, which consisted of 3(!) movies, Condor and Centineo starred as Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky respectfully. Kitty Covey was Lara Jean’s younger sister.

I realize that the books and movies are somewhat different. For the sake of those blog entry, we’ll go by what we got to see in the movie franchise. Just as a fun fact, Rotten Tomatoes gave the first movie in the franchise a rating of 96%. In its 2018 Q3 earning report, Netflix noted that ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ was one of its most-viewed original films ever. And so, it goes.. We first meet Lara Jean when she’s getting ready to send off her older sister, Margot, played by Janel Parrish, who also starred in ‘Pretty Little Liars between 2010 and 2017 alongside Ashley Benson, Shay Mitchell, and Lucy Hale, as well as its spinoff series, ‘Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists’, which also starred Sofia Carson, off to college in Scotland.

Lara Jean is in love with Margot’s boyfriend, Josh. We learn that they’d gotten really close as Lara Jean was a consistent third-wheel throughout her sister’s relationship with him. Nevertheless, she never actually acts up on her feelings for him as she doesn’t want to hurt Margot. Even when Margot breaks off her relationship with Josh before she leaves for college, a move that breaks Josh’s heart as he planned to attend the same college just to be with her and build a future with her, Lara Jean still doesn’t act on her feelings for what could’ve been her potential brother-in-law. We learn that instead of telling people how she feels, but instead, she surpasses her feelings and writes letters addressed to the boys she likes and never sends them.

In total, Lara Jean has written 5 letters to 5 different boys. Three of them include Josh, Peter Kavinsky, and John Embrose McClaren. No one, and I mean no one, was ever meant to see the letters. One night, after hanging out with Lara Jean, Kitty sneaks into her room while she sleeps and finds the letters. The following Monday, Peter comes up to her at school and confronts her about the letter. Realizing the letter that wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone was sent to him. In a moment of horror, she faints. Then she sees Josh, who goes to the same high school as Lara Jean and Peter, coming up to her with a letter at hand. Lara Jean realizes that he got her letter too, and kisses Peter to avoid having to talk to Josh.

Lara Jean encounters another recipient of her letters, Lucas, who turns out to be gay. Kenny, another boy who presumably received Lara Jean’s letter was never seen. Peter finds Lara Jean at a diner and speak further about the matter. Lara Jean, in turn, tells Peter that the kiss was a default moment to avoid Josh. Peter and Josh had met before. Peter seems a little jealous that he wasn’t the only one who received a letter, which sparks a thought that Peter actually likes Lara Jean. Despite being a little jealous, Peter suggests to Lara Jean that they fake that they’re in a relationship and flaunt their ‘love’ in Josh’s face, as well as Gen’s, his recent ex-girlfriend and Lara Jean’s former best friend, who never misses a good opportunity to mock her. Lara Jean is hesitant at first, but eventually agrees. With their newfound fake relationship, Lara Jean and Peter make a contract of what their ‘union’ will entail, which includes watching the 1980’s flick, ‘Sixteen Candles’ and the 1990’s classic, ‘Fight Club’, Peter driving Laura Jean and Kitty to school every morning, and going together on a ski trip hosted by their high school.

As their relationship progresses and they even meet each other’s families, Lara Jean and Peter get to know each other more intimately. Lara Jeans tells Peter of her experience with grief and loss following her mom’s death, and Peter opens up to Lara Jeans about his non-existent relationship with his father, who divorced his mother and had an entirely new family with someone else and does everything with his new family that he should’ve done with him and his brother, Owen. Peter tries to deflect his sorrow of being a child of divorce, but Lara Jean assures him it’s not, as he says, ‘whatever’.

The ski trip is finally happening, and it’s finally been 3 months since Lara Jean and Peter first got into their ‘fake relationship’. It was there that they actually communicate with each other how they feel about one another, end their fake relationship and start anew. Their happiness is short-lived, however, as Gen sees them together kissing at the hot tub and posts it online. Following their bus ride home, where Lara Jean and Peter are showing PDA around their classmates and being more at ease and comfortable with each other, Gen goes up to Lara Jean and intentionally makes her intimidated. She tells Lara Jean that Peter went up to her room following their night spent at the hot tub, and then deliberately, without any context, shows Lara Jean that she has her favourite scrunchie that she previously told Peter not to lose. Lara Jean obviously assumes the worst. In actuality, however, Gen took the scrunchie from Peter and wouldn’t give it back. She knew that scrunchie meant a lot to Lara Jean and took ownership of it without giving Peter the time of day.

Lara Jean breaks up with Peter following Gen’s deceitful revelations about the previous night that missed half the story; on purpose, of course. Peter tried to explain himself, but Laura Jean wouldn’t let him get a word in. He then came over to her house on Christmas break, but again, she wouldn’t allow him to get a word in. Josh came over to the house too yet again to try hang out with Laura Jean, and it’s then that the whole truth comes out when Peter finally lets it out, confronts Lars Jean and tells her that it wasn’t ever about Gen at all to her, but rather than she’s still in love with Josh. Margot, home from Scotland for Christmas break, overhears him say the last portion of the confrontation, and is heartbroken to even think Lara Jean could betray her by dating her ex. But she didn’t, and she wouldn’t.

After she, once again, told Peter to go home and Peter, yet again, told her she wasn’t his second best, or as Lara Jean said, ‘fake best’, the two sisters made up, and it was then that Kitty fessed up that it was her that sent the letters. She finally has a heart-to-heart with Josh that she should’ve had a long time ago. She tells him that she thought she loved him, but spending time with Peter throughout their fake relationship made her realize that it wasn’t. Josh encourages her that she should tell Peter how she really feels instead of locking everything up in letters. She tells him the relationship was fake, and she’s scared to tell him because she doesn’t want to get hurt if he doesn’t feel the same about her. Kitty, being her meddling self, overhears the conversation, and gives Lara Jean their mother’s box filled with love notes that had written for her throughout their time together. Lara Jean threw them out without ever reading them a we when her and Peter broke up, but Kitty kept them. Lara Jean reads the letters out loud, and she realizes that those were real love letters that Peter wrote to her, making his feelings real. She gets the courage to drive (badly) to Peter’s lacrosse practice to tell him how she feels and read him a love letter. Peter then tells her (as she finally allows him to) that he went to Gen’s room after their hookup at the hot tub to tell her that it was over between them because he was in love with Lara Jean; only her. Like in a great 1980’s movie ending, they kiss in the field.

But…

…that wasn’t the end of the story. It was only the beginning. ‘To All The Boys: P.S I Still Love You’ starts where the first move left off. Lara Jean and Peter just started dating. Lara Jean feels pressure to live up to Peter’s expectations and be the ‘perfect girlfriend’ for him; better than Gen was to him when they were dating. She was already thinking of them breaking up on their very first real date because she was afraid of getting her heart broken. Peter promises not to break her heart, and she does the same. With that being said, she put a lot of pressure on herself, as well as on Peter, to make their relationship work.

One day, Lara Jean gets a letter in the mail. It’s from John Ambrose McClaren, her sixth grade crush and one of the 5 boys who received a love letter from her. Lara Jean is immediately smitten, and she becomes confused by her feelings. She writes him back, but as she writes, her words suddenly turn into love notes. Nevertheless, she tells Peter right away of the recent occurrence, and he doesn’t seem to mind or be jealous of it whatsoever.

For the high school volunteer program, Lara Jean decides to volunteer at the Belleview Retirement Home because she wanted to follow in the footsteps of her sister, Margot. She initially planned to volunteer there with Peter, but he chose to volunteer alongside his friend, Trevor, at a different place instead. Lara Jean has a positive reaction to the news. Peter asks if she’s okay with it, and she actually encourages it. When she gets to the retirement home on her first day of work, she finds that John Ambrose McClaren, played by Jordan Fisher, volunteers there too. Just on a side note…we’re just going to ignore the fact that John Ambrose McClaren was White in the first film adaptation, and suddenly became Black in the second. Oh, filmmakers…did they really think we wouldn’t notice?

John Ambrose, as everyone calls him, and Lara Jean spend more time together as they volunteer at the retirement home. He obviously likes her romantically, but she doesn’t tell him that she has a boyfriend. Even when Peter, who is acquainted with John Ambrose, comes up in a conversation, she still doesn’t tell him that he’s her boyfriend. It’s as though she liked John Ambrose flirting with her and allows it to happen. By the way that he looks at her when he’s with her, I’d say he’s even in love with her. And when Peter and John Ambrose hang out when Lara Jean invites him to their get-together at the tree house the entire friends group used to hang out at, he immediately takes notice that John Ambrose likes Lara Jean. As the friends are about to leave Peter tells him that Lara Jean is his girlfriend in frustration.

As they’re cleaning up the tree house following their get-together with their friends, which awkwardly included Gen, Lara Jean and Peter get into a fight because Peter is angry that she’d kept him a secret from John Ambrose and questioned her motives as it made it seem like she kept her options open. I was personally with Peter on this one. Lara Jean immediately fears the worst of their first fight and asks Peter if he wants to breaks up. Peter assures her that them fighting doesn’t mean that he wants to break up. They embrace and make up, and Lara Jean is relieved. Peter even comes to Lara Jean’s Thanksgiving dinner with her family.

Lara Jean’s relief following the fight with Peter is short lived, however, as just as she’s about to go cheer on him at his lacrosse game, Christine, Lara Jeans best friend and Gen’s cousin, shows Lara Jean a picture of Peter and Gen cozying up together. Lara Jean confronts Peter about the photo, and he tells her that Gen came to him for support because her parents were divorcing. Lara Jean’s insecurities are at its peak here as she tells him he always chooses Gen over her. Rightfully so, Peter tells her, ‘I choose you. When it was an actual choice, I chose you.’ That he did, my friends. Lara Jean then realizes that it was Gen that he was waiting for at the hot tub instead of her, and that he knew that she was the one who filmed them making out and posting the video online and lied to her by making it seem like he didn’t know.

I admit, it was a sh*tty thing to do of Peter. The motive is thoughtful, but the deed itself was sh*tty. It’s better to be honest and hurt them than lie to protect them because when the truth comes out, you hurt them regardless. And that Peter did. Lara Jean officially breaks up with Peter before his lacrosse game despite promising not to break his heart. Lara Jean took the break up really hard. She was so sad that she even cleaned her room as a coping mechanism. Her room was always messy. In hindsight, it was a metaphor to how messy her life was. On one of her sad days, Lara Jean texts someone to meet her at the tree house, though it’s not shown who the person she’s texting actually is. Hence, the audience assumes it’s either Peter or McClaren that she’s texting. But we later see that Gen was the one she texted. The two have a heart-to-heart and reveal that they both missed each other. Gen assures Lara Jean that she didn’t reach out to Peter to upset her; that she genuinely needed help following her parents’ separation, and he was the only person she could turn to. Gen then reveals that she put a friendship bracelet identical to Lara Jean’s in the capsule but was too embarrassed to show it. It was at that very moment that Lara Jean had an epiphany: it was her that Gen on her mind the entire time, and not Peter like she had claimed.

It’s not enough for Lara Jean to make up with Peter. It was at the retirees’ ball, when John Ambrose kisses her out in the snowy weather that she finally realizes that it was Peter that she wanted; not John Ambrose. She still hesitates to follow her heart and tell Peter how she feels. As she’s wandering inside the retirees’ ball, Stormy, played by Holland Taylor, a resident at the retirement home, asks her what’s wrong. Lara Jean tells her that John Ambrose kissed her, but that she wanted it to be someone else. Patient tells her to go after what she wants. She tearfully asks, ‘But what if he doesn’t want me?’ Stormy tells her that it will hurt like hell, but that it’s worth the risk. Lara Jean rushes out the door to get to Peter, but Peter is already there waiting for her. He’s there because he remembered her telling him that she didn’t like driving in the snow on their first date, which was months ago by then. She’s moved by his gesture, and almost can’t believe it. He tells her to break his heart, but she instead, without hesitation or missing a beat, tells him she loves him. And they make up (again).

But…

lol…you didn’t really this was the end of the story, did you? It isn’t, because it’s now senior year of high school. Lara Jean and Peter are happily in a relationship, and they plan to be together at Stanford University in the fall. Peter already got accepted through his lacrosse scholarship. Lara Jean didn’t get accepted. But before anything else, Lara Jean spends time with her dad, his girlfriend, Trina, and her two sisters in Korea for the three girls to stay connected to their mom. We see Lara Jean write love letters to Peter from there, pen and paper and all. While in Korea, Lare Jean and the girls reconnect a lock that her mother gave her father, who, is played by none other, John Corbett, Aiden from ‘Sex And The City’, which reads, ‘for the rest of my life.’

She and her family are back home, and Peter is there to surprise her with flowers and her living room decorated. Before she could do or say anything, Kitty runs up to him with an embrace. The two have a really loving relationship that goes beyond his and Lara Jean’s relationship. When he and Lara Jean were broken up, Peter still drove Kitty to school. It just showed what a great man he is. After Kitty is grossed out by their own loving mushiness, she leaves them alone. They spend time together, and Lara Jean gives Peter her presents for him that she got him from Korea, which includes her mother’s lock. During their date, she tells Peter she’s disappointed that they don’t have an anniversary, they don’t have a song, they don’t remember how they met, and they never had a meet-cute. But they do, according to Peter. He remembers exactly how they met, though he doesn’t tell her.

Lara Jean finds out that she was accepted to NYU and Berkeley, but not to Stanford how she planned. After a text mix up, Peter is led to believe that Lara Jean got into Stanford. Hence pampers her with a celebration and a proposal to prom, a very casual, Lara Jean-like. It’s there that he tells her he fell in love with her when they were at that same diner the year prior when she wore a blue dress and she called him out on his sh*t. That was in the first movie, and it explained why Peter became so dismissive towards her that time when she said she wasn’t scared of him because their relationship wasn’t real. She, of course, accepts his prom proposal , but also tells him that she wasn’t accepted to Stanford. Scared of what he might say, Lara Jean starts rambling, but Peter jumps in, asks her if she’s okay, and assures her they can still make it work and do long distance when she goes to Berkeley, which is only an hour away from Stanford.

Lara Jean is relieved by Peter’s understanding and calmness, and the two happily and sweetly continue on with their relationship. The two travel to New York with their friends, sans John Ambrose, on a school trip. It’s there that Lara Jean falls in love with New York, and decides, without ever discussing it with Peter that she wants to attend NYU. Instead of putting it off like she’d usually do because of her fear. Lara Jean immediately tells Peter of her plans. Though disappointed, Peter seems to support her in her decision, and they agree to do long distance with him at Stanford and her at NYU. At prom, Lara Jean feels sadness rushing in as it’s almost time to say goodbye to her life with Peter. Once the main event is over, Lara Jean invites Peter to her room and surprises him by him her mother’s box, a very big deal to her as in the first movie, she had a tough time even with mere idea of parting with it when she almost lost it. When Peter opens it, he sees that she kept everything he ever gave her throughout their relationship- fake and real – pictures, love notes; everything.

Lara Jean then starts initiating sex, which would be their first time as Lara Jean wasn’t ready, but Peter stops her. He finds it odd that she suddenly wants to do it now, on prom night, and sees it as her saying goodbye to him. As much she tries to prove to him that being with him is all she’s ever wanted, he wouldn’t take her word. Peter sees this particular motive as her leaving him, and says that she doesn’t love him enough, because if she did, she’d be attending Berkeley to be with him.

Lara Jean and Peter Forever…(?)

When I first got the idea for this blog entry, and when I was just starting to write about it, I was going to justify Peter’s distrust in Lara Jean, and I was going to write how they shouldn’t have been romanticized because his relationship with Lara Jean was toxic – and it was Lara Jean who made it that way. The public really loves to blame a man for a relationship being toxic, and I’ve seen many fans say that about Peter. There were also many fans that gave Peter the reputation of being the ‘perfect boyfriend.’ But he’s neither of those things. He’s just a guy trying to figure sh*t out. There were more instances than not where Lara Jean was the one who made their relationship toxic; like her not letting him put a word in when he tried to explain himself during a misunderstanding and instantly broke up with him for what could’ve just been a conversation, her thinking a fight means they will break up, her putting too much pressure on him when it came down to him courting her, her being obsessed with Gen, always comparing herself to Gen, constantly thinking she’s not good enough for him because of Gen, and punishing Peter for her insecurity.

In the real world, Peter and Lara Jean wouldn’t have worked, because no man ever wants to be villainized constantly in his relationship with the woman he loves. At some point in the relationship, even the most patient person will lose their patience. Peter was right to be mad at Lara Jean for deciding to go to New York without speaking to him. If you’re in a long-term relationship with someone, you make such big decisions TOGETHER. She made the decision to go to NYU instead of Berkeley before she even spoke to him. She made a decision that she knew would affect him and their relationship too without him. But it’s a movie that needs a happy ending, and Lara Jean and Peter are teenagers trying to figure their lives out individually and together. With that said, I realize I might’ve been ahead of myself and put too much pressure on the characters because I’m speaking of them as though they’re adults when they’re not.

While looking at all three movies more in depth rather than just a teen romance, I made the realization that the entire series was about both Lara Jean and Peter’s individual growth as people, as well as how not just Lara’s insecurities almost ended their relationship, but also their respective feelings of abandonment and neglect. Lara Jean’s mother passed away. Peter’s father completely left Peter and his brother to be following his divorce from Peter’s mother, and he had an entirely new family and was there for them, but not for him. As he told Lara Jean, ‘There’s nothing worse than the feeling of not being chosen.’ This alone explains why he broke up with Lara Jean when she initiated sex following prom. He didn’t feel chosen, and this goes back to my previous post on how a partner can feel so much pressure from the other person to feel like they belong when the other person had gone through trauma caused by their parents. Peter certainly makes mistakes throughout his relationship with Lara Jean, but he always redeems himself. Most notably, he redeems himself following prom night when he apologizes to Lara Jean and writes a new contract where he tells her how they met, which was in sixth grade. Their ‘meet-cute’ moment proved that Peter always loved her; he just didn’t know it. His romantic gesture and apology happened after he made amends with his estranged father, and it proved that the feeling of neglect was the cause for friction and the main cause for his wrongdoings in his relationship with Lara Jean.

Lara Jean’s behaviour could be explained by her ongoing grief and her inability to move forward with her life following her mother’s death. She was afraid of getting close to anyone and be in love because she was afraid of them leaving her in the end. She’s afraid to tell anyone how she feels because she’s afraid of her feelings not being reciprocated. When she tells Peter how she feels when they get together at the end of first movie, she tells him in a letter, and she asks him to turn around when she reads it. In the second movie, when he picks her up from the retirees’ ball, she looks him right in the eye and tells him she loves him, representing growth. And in the third, even though she’s terrified of hurting him and him breaking up with her, she communicates her feelings and plans calmly and gently. It represented growth in Lara Jean as a character.

The first season of ‘XO Kitty’ gives us an update on Lara Jean and Peter’s relationship- they’re still together. It’s rumoured that the second season will see the two get married. I was initially going to make this blog entry on why they SHOULDN’T get married or be together altogether. But I realize now that, in fact they should; they really, really should. If they could get through their respective traumas of grief, loss, and parental neglect in their relationship, they could get through anything – even long distance where it would be a 5 hour plane ride to see each other.