It’s after work on a Wednesday night, and I’m at a sports bar in downtown Manhattan. It looks exactly like what you’d expect of a bar in the Financial District. Men in button-up shirts stand around a tall table with folded arms, ranting about the current season as multiple baseball games are playing on TV screens all around the bar.
I feel out of place as I wait for a friend, but I know it’s only a matter of time until things change. A stream of women slowly trickles in, group by group. The mood abruptly changes when the TV screens flicker on to a clip of sparkling water. The bar cranks up the volume, a wistful three notes plays over the speaker, the brief theme song of what has become a show so popular that sports bars in Manhattan are throwing watch parties for women who, like me, are years older than the show’s protagonist.
I have a confession: when I first watched The Summer I Turned Pretty upon the series’s release on Amazon in 2022, I only got through two episodes. I quickly deemed the show too cringe-inducing to handle. I believed I had grown out of love triangles driven by hormones and a lack of a fully developed prefrontal cortex. Growing up had taught me there were much, much more important choices to make in life than who you take to debutante ball. Also, the lead character’s name is “Belly”, and no one’s questioning that?
But when I gave the show another chance this summer, after the encouragement of a friend, I realized just how wrong I was. Once I dropped my defenses and settled into life in Cousins, the fictional beach town where the show is set, I was hooked. And when my social media feeds adjusted to my new obsession, I realized just how many people were as well. Video after video showed the heavy investment adults have in this teen drama, from screaming at TVs to full-on tears from the show. Prime reported 25 million worldwide viewers tuned into the third season’s premiere the week of its release, a 40% increase from the second season’s release in 2023.
It’s been a strange summer for American pop culture. After Charli xcx’s Brat painted last summer green, there’s been a curious absence of the standard “song of the summer”. The closest contender, some argue, is the “nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” ad that’s been featured in clip after clip online. The movie theaters were filled with reboots and sequels for Superman and Jurassic Park. And the most popular TV show in the US appeared to be Love Island, which had near-daily episodes of eye-rolling drama for six weeks until mid-July.
Instead of a clubby pop song, this summer’s rhythms have been dictated by constant updates to the rapidly changing world we’re living in. Americans seem to be feeling more uncertain about their futures than ever. News notifications can feel like a never-ending barrage for anyone trying to keep up.
In other words, the timing was ripe for a show that provides an escape. As temperatures started to peak, the third and final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty premiered in mid-July and has cemented itself, for many, as the show that saved summer.
The series centers Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Lola Tung), whose family spends every summer at the Fishers’ giant beach house at Cousins, a town resembling the neighborhoods of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The series starts the summer that Belly turns, you guessed it, pretty and begins to attract the attention of boys, including the two Fisher brothers, Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno).
In the backdrop of this coming-of-age summer is the cancer diagnosis of Susannah (Rachel Blanchard), the Fisher matriarch who is the college best friend of Belly’s mom. Susannah’s diagnosis is a secret to most, allowing many of the characters to have their carefree teenage summer without worry. Belly’s biggest concern appears to be whether Conrad, the brooding older brother and her longtime crush, has any feelings for her – or whether she should be with Jeremiah, her “best friend” who is drawn to her.
In its third season, the series has wholeheartedly embraced this Austenian love triangle, framing it against complex emotions around grief. Susannah’s death less than a year after that first summer has only heightened Belly’s emotional hold over both brothers. Their late mother, on her deathbed, called Belly “my special girl” and often referred to her as the daughter she never had.
But by the start of the season, Belly, who was 15 in the show’s first season, is now about to turn 21 and has made her choice. After an intense but failed relationship with Conrad, Belly has chosen Jeremiah. The two have been together in college for three years while Conrad was on the West Coast. But while the three characters pretend things are good and settled, they are clearly far from it.
As a grown adult, I’m fully aware of how absurd this plot is. A love triangle with two brothers is only a huge red flag right next to an arrow pointed toward a therapist’s office. But at some point, I accepted The Summer I Turned Pretty as a fantasy world that is a pastel-tinged version of our own and learned to bask in its endless, wonderful melodrama.
The Summer I Turned Pretty is the second success for author Jenny Han, co-runner of the series and author of the trilogy that inspired the show. Her other book trilogy, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was adapted for Netflix and became one of its most-watched original movies when it was released in 2018.
The series feels like a surprise hit for Amazon, which has found more success with shows targeted to male audiences like The Boys, Jack Ryan and Reacher. Netflix has been the traditional home for originals geared toward young women and teens like Never Have I Ever, Heartstopper and XO, Kitty, the spin-off show from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.
Han seems to have mastered teen romance, making it all feel refreshingly tender and sweet, taking seriously what is often dismissed as frivolous. Her stories ask readers and viewers to step into worlds where the choices these teenage girls make feel undeniably consequential.
It’s a kind of unapologetic sincerity that evokes the teen dramas of the early 2000s. In The Summer I Turned Pretty, declarations of love are delivered with full gusto, the sound of waves crashing in the background. And the show never fails to lean on its seemingly unlimited soundtrack budget. So far, the series has played no less than 20 Taylor Swift songs that punctuate its emotional high points. Many have pointed out that the show shares a filming location – Wilmington, North Carolina – with One Tree Hill, which premiered over two decades ago.
And unlike the first and second seasons, which were released in batches, the 12 episodes of this final season are released every Wednesday. To those of us who grew up with cable, it’s reminiscent of the feeling of rushing home to catch the newest episode of a TV show. The wait encourages anticipation, what feels rare in an era of endless, bingeable content online. It’s also proof that old-fashioned scripted TV shows, under a traditional weekly release schedule, can still have pull over younger audiences who are increasingly drawn to platforms like YouTube.
As much as the show brings me back to the days of Gilmore Girls and The OC, its huge online presence makes it feel distinctly modern. The endless stream of content has culminated into a sort of communal viewing experience. With clips on TikTok, fans can relive the show’s moments over and over again with plenty of commentary and mockery.
Of course, the show indulges in the drama surrounding its love triangle. As with any teen love triangle, people have divided themselves into “teams”. Who you root for suddenly becomes a barometer of your core values. The passion over the characters have become so intense that Prime Video and members of the show have had to remind viewers to conduct themselves respectfully online. Han, in an Instagram story, told fans that “the cast shouldn’t have to endure harassment because of the roles they play”. Amazon reminded fans that “the show isn’t real but the people playing the characters are”.
Some elements in the third season seem so excessive and ridiculous as to be made for virality. (Some spoilers ahead.) In a scene in the season’s sixth episode, Conrad and Belly make a pit-stop at a roadside peach stand. As Belly eats a peach, a heavy stream of juice runs down her mouth. Conrad untucks his plain white T-shirt – clearly a part of his coastal-dad drip – to gingerly wipe the juice from her mouth. Videos on TikTok quickly turned the scene into an inside joke among fans. Even Nobel prize laureate and assassination-attempt survivor Malala Yousafzai posted a picture of herself on Instagram holding up a peach, with the caption “counting the minutes until Wednesday”.
For me, the absurdity of it all is a reminder that the show is very much fiction, a world to step into like a book splayed open on a poolside lounge chair. I can’t help but root for Belly. We all know what it’s like to be young, naive and feel like the weight of the world rests on each choice we have to make for ourselves. Tuning in every week feels like a quick escape back to that time – far away from the usual cadences of life, as evocative as summer itself.
