Kissing Booth 3 Ending Time Jump Elle Hair

It’s Official: No One Can Handle The ‘Kissing Booth 3’ Time Jump And That Hair Cut

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Y’all we did it. The Kissing Booth franchise is officially over with Elle Evans finally making the simple decision she struggled with for three whole films: To be with her boyfriend, Noah Flynn, or focus on her friendship with bestie, Lee Flynn.

The second film, sadly titled Kissing Booth 2 when ‘2 Kissing 2 Booth’ was right there, followed Elle trying to navigate a long-distance relationship with Noah as he went away for his first year at Harvard. And because everything in this damn franchise is about babying her bestie Lee, Elle struggled with settling on a college knowing that one of her two favourite boys would be hurt by her decision.

That brings us to Kissing Booth 3, a movie that was basically just a compilation of random montages with a very, VERY loose plot still revolving around this idea of Berkeley with Lee vs. Harvard with Noah.

Now let’s be honest with ourselves. While everyone loves a cheesy, sappy teen rom-com, not much of this film made sense. Plus, it was basically just The Kissing Booth 2 2.0 — so while there are spoilers ahead for The Kissing Booth 3, it’s likely nothing you didn’t already see in the second film.

In the final instalment in the franchise, Elle was still struggling with the recycled plot of the whole “college decision” problem that plagued her during the second film. Marco somehow continued to drive a wedge between Elle and Noah despite the setting for the third movie happening at the Flynn family beach house away from where their affair started. Then, for reasons that make very little sense, Chloe also made a random appearance after arriving on her family yacht (??) and sharing the news that her parents were getting divorced (?????) which did nothing for the plot. At all.

Really, The Kissing Booth 3 was just a random compilation of clips tied together loosely by the idea of “the last summer before college”. There was a fancy dinner-turned-flashmob, a Mario Kart go-kart sequence set at a waterpark, and a beach house party full of people we’ve never seen before. A real no plot, just vibes type of energy.

Yet, the biggest shitshow of all wasn’t the lack of plot. It was actually the six-year time jump that aged the characters of The Kissing Booth by approximately 35 years.

We need to talk about the time jump and THAT hair cut:

Now let’s break it all down: Before the time jump, Elle had a moment of self-realisation and decided to not pick Lee or Noah. Rather, Elle chose herself by deciding to attend USC and pursue a career in gaming design. And, as we knew it, the Noah and Elle love story was done.

But at the end of The Kissing Booth 3, the story fast-tracked six years into the future where Elle, Lee, Rachel, and Noah had all graduated from their respective colleges and were now Very Serious Boss Babes™️ because they wore blazers and Elle had a horrendous Karen-style pixie cut. And I mean horrendous:

kissing booth 3 ending

I’m sorry, but the haircut. The earrings. The blazer. The lipstick. BURN IT ALL.

Despite the gang literally being in their early 20s, and still probably working entry-level jobs at random start-ups across LA and NYC, the six-year time jump basically aged the characters into their 40s.

Really, if Elle and Lee graduated high school six years prior, this means they were likely 17-18 during the majority of the final film. This would make the characters around 23-24 now, with Noah probably being about 25 or 26.

So will someone please explain why Lee and Rachel were suddenly engaged and could afford to start planning a wedding so young? Or why Noah was wearing a full suit at a high school fair instead of, I don’t know, getting changed at one of his parent’s multiple homes first?

But most importantly, I need some answers on why the producers made Elle — a 23-year-old USC graduate working at a cool gaming company in LA — look like a middle-aged mum picking her kids up from soccer practice on a Thursday afternoon?????

I’m aware that Elle’s new look was actually Joey King’s real hair growing back after she shaved her head to play Gypsy Rose Blanchard in The Act, but were wigs suddenly not available for the final scenes?!

Now I’m sure The Kissing Booth producers just desperately wanted to make the teen characters look very serious now that they had “grown-up” on their own before reuniting — you know, considering that the ending really does point to a Noah and Elle endgame — but surely there was a better way to do so without bad haircuts and Lowes suits.

How cute would time jump showing Noah and Elle’s kids playing with Lee and Rachel’s at the Flynn beach house be, with a voiceover explaining how they all reunited? I mean, anything would’ve been better than Noah leaving again and us having to witness Elle’s pivot to Ellen.

And it’s not just me — people around the world agree that what we were given as the final instalment in the franchise was disappointing, confusing, and just pure chaos.

With a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 17% and an even lower critic score of 13%, it’s clear that the Kissing Booth 3 was just an addition the franchise probably didn’t need.

But hey, look I guess we need to look on the bright side. At least we all got to see Marco one more time before it all ended, right?