People, The Last Season of The Summer I Turned Pretty Is Actually Kinda Good

Disclaimer: Spoilers for all three seasons ahead!

Is the final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty highbrow entertainment? 

Well, no. But even the most cynical viewer has to admit—it’s compelling.

The third and final season of Amazon’s coming-of-age romantic drama, adapted from Jenny Han’s  book trilogy of the same title, premiered on July 16, releasing weekly episodes through September 17. The show follows protagonist Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Lola Tung) through her summers at the fictional Cousins Beach as she navigates growing up and, most importantly, the developing love triangle between her childhood friends, brothers Conrad (Chris Briney) and Jeremiah Fisher (Gavin Casalegno). If you haven’t seen the show before, you might be rolling your eyes at that description. Sure, the love triangle frequently veers into Twilight levels of cheesy. But underneath the typical teen show trappings lies a surprisingly captivating depiction of grief and a young woman’s journey to find herself.

One of the most important characters in The Summer I Turned Pretty is only in the show for the first season. Susannah Fisher (Rachel Blanchard), the mother of Conrad and Jeremiah, best friend of Belly’s mother Laurel (Jackie Chung), and a second mother to Belly, dies of cancer between the first and second seasons. Susannah is practically as much of a character postmortem as she was in the first season. She is frequently invoked, explicitly or otherwise, and is never far from the characters’ minds. While the characters’ actions over the next two seasons often seem melodramatic and even nonsensical (it is still a teen drama, after all), an undercurrent of grief hums beneath the surface, lending them a little more emotional resonance. 

Much of the last season, for example, follows Belly and Jeremiah, two college students, as they prepare for their wedding. Many viewers found this premise beyond suspension of disbelief. But when viewed within the context of two young adults struggling to cope with their first taste of serious grief, it makes a little more sense. Is a collegiate wedding a “jumping the shark” moment or an examination of how two people barely out of their teenage years attempt to keep their loved one’s memory alive through a codependent relationship? In The Summer I Turned Pretty’s hands, it becomes a bit of both: over-the-top yet achingly human.

After the wedding hubbub dies down (spoiler alert: Belly and Jeremiah call it off after an eleventh-hour love confession from Conrad), The Summer I Turned Pretty becomes a different kind of love story—between a young woman and herself. Realizing that she needs to rediscover who she is and grieve for  Susannah outside of her relationship with the Fisher brothers, Belly decides to study abroad in Paris for a semester after initially rejecting the offer. Upon her arrival, she faces challenges—from learning the abroad program is overenrolled to having her backpack stolen—that force her to grow up quickly.

Sure, the visual metaphor of Belly wistfully gazing at the under construction Notre-Dame Cathedral while her voice-over narrates that “rebuilding is always possible” is a little on-the-nose, it thematically rings true. While Belly lives in a crummy apartment with even crummier roommates, balances finishing her degree online with two minimum-wage jobs, she still manages to construct a beautifully independent new life for herself. She joins a tight-knit friend group, and has a short-lived dalliance with a boy whose last name is not Fisher. The ultimate sign of character development? Belly cuts her hair into a very Parisienne bob (no matter how cliché the chop may be, it’s cute!). 

By the time Belly and Conrad reunite in the finale, Belly has really come into her own. The Belly that reconnects with Conrad feels like a completely different young woman than the one who originally passed on taking a sojourn to Paris to marry a guy who is, quite frankly, a bit of a manchild. So when she and Conrad finally end up together, her choice to be with him feels less like a teenager’s whims and more like a mature adult’s decision; she is choosing herself as much as she is choosing him. Belly’s story is not just about the boys—it’s about her. Before finding her happily ever after, she first has to find herself. In 2025, these are the lessons our rom-coms should be teaching young women (and all viewers!). Having a romantic partner is nice, but adolescence and young adulthood are about becoming who you were meant to be: the fullest, best, and most vibrant version of yourself. As Carrie Bradshaw says to conclude Sex and the City, the most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself.

Rating: INDY

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Grace Copps is a senior in the College majoring in Government and minoring in Journalism and Justice and Peace Studies. She is Co-Executive Editor of the INDY.