If you haven’t seen Netflix’s newest romantic comedy, “Set It Up,” then you better add it to your watch list. Less than a month after the film’s release, rumors are already swirling about the possibility of a sequel starring Lucy Liu’s character. Whether or not the rumors are true, the film is a rare triumph for romantic comedies, which it achieved by staying within many of the genre’s conventional tropes while still poking fun at itself.
On Wednesday, Bustle reported the possibility of a sequel, saying that the idea “isn’t just a fan pipe dream.” And honestly, why shouldn’t it be? If Netflix has their act together, they’ll know that the people want more.
But what is there to continue in a story that has already concluded, with (spoiler alert) the two main leads realizing that they should be together? What other story is there to tell, other than the story people know all too well: the tale of the executives that pushed their success too far and wrote a terrible sequel?
Well, maybe there will be more than that to this sequel. The choice to focus on Lucy Liu’s character, Kirsten, would be an excellent one. She has the most killer wardrobe in the whole show, hands down, and her clothes marched to the beat of her character development. The badass sports editor started in sharp, dark-colored pieces at the beginning of the film, and by the end she was rocking a gorgeous pink dress that was probably the envy of most viewers.
Kirsten goes from a workaholic boss who doesn’t want to see her friends to a … well, still a workaholic boss, but this time a workaholic boss who knows she deserves love, friendship and success.
In fact, viewers could argue that her character’s plot line went unfinished at the end of the movie. Although she abandons Rick, who is violent and also kind of the worst, viewers don’t get to see her go out into the dating world or confront her friends about their attitudes toward her lack of a husband or wife.
A sequel that features an Asian-American woman as a protagonist is also a great option for representation, and Lucy Liu has already proven that she has the chops to be a lead within the universe of “Set It Up.”
Her representation is double-sided; Liu is an actress over 40, a demographic of women often completely ignored in films and television in favor of younger actresses. In a world where roles for women older than 40 is mostly limited to side characters and mothers of the real heroes, seeing Liu running the show would be a breath of fresh air.
So, to Netflix: Make the kind of movie that breaks boundaries while staying within the genre type. Every type of person deserves to see stories about how they fall in love, how they work and how they live.
And side note: It’s more interesting to make a sequel that actually adds to the story, rather than a good old rehash for cash.
