You can watch The Kissing Booth 2 on Netflix now, but I must warn you that if you do you will almost certainly have questions. I did. Seven gazillion of them, to be precise, about the second installment in the franchise that revolves around the idea that high-school students would be psyched to pay to make out with their classmates, blindfolded, in the age of the cell-phone camera and Instagram. Seven gazillion questions about this teenage rom-com that both brought me momentary joy, but mostly deep, deep existential despair. Those questions are listed below, in chronological order, if you care to read along during your screening.
Where are these teenagers’ parents? And why didn’t my parents let me have full reign of their (nonexistent) gazillion dollar beach house so I could have sex on the beach with my (nonexistent) boyfriend?
Can one actually sit in front of the Hollywood sign? (I’m ignoring the fact that they had sex in front of it in the first movie because that’s just insane.) Is that a thing people do? At night? And if you can, what are the odds of it being completely deserted save for your angsty teenage ass?
Why do all the iPhones in this movie only show the single text a sender is typing and not an entire history between the recipient and the sender?
Look, I’m all for teenage girls being able to wear truly whatever they want, finger-tipped-length shorts and two-finger-width tank-top straps be damned … But wasn’t there a whole thing in the last movie about how short her skirt was? Because the skirt Elle is currently wearing is the same size.
Am I supposed to believe that Rachel, Lee, and Elle spent all summer hanging out together and never figured out the configuration for who sits where in the car?
Hmmm, weird, is it possible that there is a better way to get your girlfriend to call you back that involves openly communicating that you’d like to have a conversation, instead of calling her during school and pretending to be her father?
Excuse me, but what first-year dorm has a functional wood-burning fireplace?
Oh, come on … is that an Eames chair? Somebody call up Amy Sherman-Palladino and tell her she’s been dethroned as the titleholder for creator of “most unrealistic Ivy League dorm room.” Please tell me he at least has a twin XL bed.
I’m sorry, but Elle and Lee in their neurotic, list-making, rules-oriented ways did not discuss jointly applying to backup schools? Or backup schools at all?
Why is this much time being devoted to a mascot carrying a cake?
Who is filming shirtless teenagers at the gym?
How big is this fancy high school? Is that what you pay extra for? Longer hallways for your klutzy best friend to have to traverse while trying to stop you from humiliating yourself?
Where are this high school’s bullies? The OMGs do not count.
Is Joey King wearing a wig?
How do these homecoming nominations work? One nomination puts your name on the ballot?
Okay, what person applies to Harvard, Boston University, Tufts, and Boston College? Those are four distinctly different schools, Elle!
The kid who transferred into school like a week ago has already formed a band?
When do these kids do any homework? Does their school test them exclusively on DDR moves?
$50,000 is a lot of money. Who is going to tell her that it’s not “cover the cost of college in Boston money?”
Where is her college counselor? Or high-school english teacher? Or truly anybody to tell her that restating the application question in the answer is a waste of valuable application characters.
Does Lee’s girlfriend, Rachel, not care that he’s literally dating Elle?
Why do they keep referring to it as Boston? It’s Cambridge, and Noah, a first year at Harvard, would want you to know this!
Did Jacob Elordi and Joey King break up before they started filming this? Or during it? Was that extremely awkward?
Ah, yes, just two kids from Los Angeles who love the Red Sox?
Doesn’t Noah play on the football team? Doesn’t he have practice? Games? An NCAA-enforced dry period leading up to those games?
Again, does anybody in this movie ever have to do homework?
Did the bartender just check Elle’s ID vertically? If it’s a California fake, it should be horizontal.
What is this extremely Social Network–ass group of dudes in a restaurant?
I’m sorry but this Chloe chick speaks Italian? Is a model? Has no female friends? Not to invoke the Sherman-Palladino name again, but this is in fact also a Gilmore Girls scene, namely the one where Rory meets “Bobbie,” Logan’s gorgeous and also British female colleague who has everyone in the restaurant completely charmed.
What college first year has a queen-size bed and apparently no roommates?
Oh, now the iPhones start showing text history?
Does Paul Mescal know that Jacob Elordi stole his chain and wore it in this movie?
Why is Noah’s Instagram account not verified the first time we see it but it suddenly is the next time? Noah is extremely rich, so I am going to assume he purchased the verification for himself on the black market.
Is firewood included in Harvard’s room-and-board rate? What was the firewood budget for this movie?
When Did Elle and Lee find time to make custom DDR T-shirts to practice in? Perhaps in the time not spent doing their homework?
Again, I repeat, where are the bullies in this school? Why does nobody bully Lee mercilessly for this intercom declaration of love?
Did they just swap out one of the OMG actresses for somebody completely different and think we wouldn’t notice?
Oh, wait, Noah does have a roommate? Where was this mysterious roommate? Does he also have his own fireplace?
Did they ever discuss splitting the $50,000 prize, or is Marco just doing this out of the goodness of his heart and the apparent fact that he has no homework to do?
What teenager goes to a concert and leaves their phone at home? With the ringer on?
Are Elle and Marco going to make out on this Ferris wheel?
Are Elle and Marco going to make out on this beach?
Is Marco about to bust out his guitar and play “Wonderwall”?
Lee invited his girlfriend over to carve pumpkins and then just did it without her? Why are we not discussing how Lee sucks?
Why are we shoehorning a gay B-plot into this movie? It’s fine, you made a movie entirely about straight people. Own that!
Lee decided to change the group Halloween costume idea and then just didn’t tell Rachel? Why are we not discussing how Lee sucks???
What is the social committee’s per-dance budget at a Los Angeles County day school. My God!
How did nobody in the age of 2020 not snap a video or photo of Elle and Marco dancing and send it immediately to Noah?
Why is Lee not stepping in to tell Rachel that it’s not Elle’s fault he never talked to Elle about being less of a third wheel? BRB, getting “Lee Flynn sucks” tattooed on my bicep.
How many hours a week do they spend at this arcade? How many dollars in quarters does this cost weekly? Does nobody else in this town ever want to use the DDR machine?
How has Elle spent weeks palling around town with the hot new guy and not even remotely mentioned it to Noah?
In what world would Lee not come watch Elle compete? That’s got to be a rule.
Why is this movie over two hours long?
They practiced for months only to … wing it during the competition? This gives me hives.
What was the pyrotechnic budget for this DDR competition?
Why has Lee still not explained things to Rachel? LEE! SUCKS!
Lee’s mad Elle applied to other schools? Does this mean he, in fact, did not apply to other schools?
Chloe was able to fly from Boston to Los Angeles on a day’s notice? On Thanksgiving, a notoriously horrendous travel day?
Rachel heard Lee say he’d dump her if Elle asked? And then still decided to date him? Rachel, girl, therapy!
Whose parents would let them fully derail Thanksgiving dinner and then storm off in a dramatic huff?
Chloe is a secret pool shark who is “immune to the charms of Noah Flynn.” Okay, why is this not the shoehorned queer B-plot?
Is Molly Ringwald actually a villain in this? Is that just the lighting here? Is it weird that she’s a gazillionaire who has been mothering her dead best friend’s daughter for years and isn’t coughing up the cash for a college fund?
Who voted for Lee for homecoming king? Lee sucks, have they not heard?
How is this movie not over? Where is the kissing booth?
Do we ever actually see Marco working the kissing booth? Was that not a large point of this movie?
Why is the entire student body so wholesomely invested in Rachel and Lee’s relationship?
Where are the nonwhite students at this school?
Why are these kids all so excited to kiss their blindfolded classmates, as though that would not be the world’s most horrifying experience for all parties for any normal high schooler?
I know I sound like a broken record, but truly, where are this school’s bullies? I love the two dudes making out, but like … the entire crowd cheers? Where is this liberal high-school utopia? Is this what Los Angeles is like?
How is Elle able to [checks notes] ride her motorcycle to LAX so quickly? I know truly four things about California and four of them are that the traffic is obscene at all times.
Why is the airport and the DRR convention … the same building?
Is there just no airport security at LAX in this world? You can run right up to where passengers are waiting for the gate? This lounge looks fancy, is this the special, secret rich-people lounge where the shoe bomber and 9/11 never happened?
Are Elle and Noah finally going to perform a rendition of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” in this gazebo?
Isn’t Noah needed back in Cambridge? For football practice? Or class?
It’s you, Noah? It’s always been you? Haven’t you two been dating for like six months?
What is this college essay? This is the college-essay version of Cady Heron breaking up her Spring Fling queen crown and tossing pieces out into the crowd.
Also when did she submit this college essay? After Thanksgiving break?
She’s getting college acceptance letters the week of graduation? That’s fully not how that timeline works.
She got accepted to Harvard and Berkeley, and they both sent tiny envelopes? That is not how that works either! Convenient that both of these letters are on plain white printer paper in the same font, no?
Sorry, wait, why are the woman-kissing-woman scenes relegated to the credits?
Have I fully dissociated from my body at this point?
There’s going to be a The Kissing Booth 3? And it’s already been shot? And it’s coming out next year?
