On Wednesday, September 17th, the long awaited finale of the hit show The Summer I Turned Pretty aired. Since the summer of 2022, fans have been following along on the TV adaptation of Jenny Han’s book trilogy. Both season one and two were released back to back summers, starting summer 2022. The final season was scheduled to be released summer 2024, but got pushed back due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
The show’s protagonist, Isabel (“Belly”) Conklin has spent every summer of her life at a family beach house in the fictional town of Cousins Beach. Belly’s mother, Laurel, and her best friend, Susannah, have been close since college. They raised their kids together at “the summer house,” as it is known in the show. Belly and her brother Steven, as well as Susannah’s sons, Conrad, and Jeremiah, spent every summer of their childhood together. Throughout her childhood, Belly had a crush on Conrad, with his complex and brooding nature. Belly and Conrad always understood each other on a deeper level than anyone else, and she could always rely on him to look out for her. During the course of the show, however, Belly discovers new feelings, most notably for the other Fisher brother, Jeremiah. The entirety of the show follows her relationships with each brother, as well as her friendships and teenage experiences. Season 2 focuses on her relationship with Conrad, whereas season 3 focuses more on her relationship and engagement with Jeremiah (which was initially his way of making up for cheating on her). However, towards the end of season 3, Belly is struggling with her relationship with Jeremiah and lingering feelings for Conrad. She ends up calling off the wedding and flying to Paris, hoping for a fresh start. We leave off on the second to last episode with her finding a new identity and maturity after a hard beginning in Paris. She begins to make life for herself away from the almost too familiar setting of Cousins Beach. When Conrad discovers that the wedding was called off, he realizes he may still have a chance with Belly. After writing letters to her for months, he decides to visit her in her new home.
The finale starts off with Conrad traveling to Paris to visit Belly on her birthday. He spends the day with her, seeing how much she has changed and realizing how different her life is now. The episode ended with Belly and Conrad choosing each other and eventually traveling back to Cousins. The final episode had a strong ending, but many fans were disappointed to not have certain scenes, such as Belly and Conrad’s wedding, which is featured in the books.
Freshman Mia Wallace was happy with the ending, saying, “I am really happy with the ending and the fact that she ended up with Conrad.
It felt like I had been waiting for them to get their happy ending for the past two seasons and Jenny Han made such a perfect story for it to finally happen.” The day of the episode release, though, it was announced that a movie is being made that will hopefully have a cleaner ending than the show did. It is unknown when the movie will be released, but until then there are three great seasons to watch whenever you get the itch for summer.
