Did The Summer I Turned Pretty Stick Its Landing? Here Are Our Finale Feels
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Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah? Nah, it was Team Feelings FTW. Swetha Ramakrishnan revisits the swoons, subplots, shortcomings and Steven-sightings of The Summer I Turned Pretty’s ending.
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SPOILERS FOR TSITP AHEAD. A FRIEND AND I were discussing the craze around The Summer I Turned Pretty the other day. Naturally, I had to ask her which team she’s on. As someone attempting to view this globally celebrated series from a critical lens, reducing the show to a binary — #TeamConrad vs #TeamJeremiah — seems a bit reductive. But curiosity got the better of me. When she said she’s Team “JereBear”, I scoffed. I had a visceral body reaction and started texting in all caps. This conversation lasted the whole day. We psychoanalysed our choices and came to the conclusion that I’m drawn to emotionally stunted men like Conrad (but they’re actually softies who have lots of feelings) and my friend likes the safety of partners like Jeremiah (who are always around the corner whenever you need them, but may also cheat on you). Get your pop culture fix with OTTplay's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. Grab this limited time offer now! |
I’ve been #TeamConrad since the pilot episode of TSITP and yet had a sinking feeling about the finale. Not because I was anxious about Belly’s choices (the show has been leading up to Conrad and Belly being endgame since the very beginning) but because I was apprehensive of a complacent ending. And a complacent ending is what we got. It breaks my heart to say this: The finale of The Summer I Turned Pretty was rushed and underwhelming; no amount of Taylor Swift songs could save it. On paper, the much-anticipated finale episode gives us what we want, but it seems like lip service. It’s almost as if a team of people sat in a conference room, sifting through data collected over three seasons to understand what their audiences want. Then they wrote the most predictable but chaotic and stuffed finale. A ‘Let’s Just Get This Over With’ Episode. Before we break down that finale, let’s recap the cultural zeitgeist that is The Summer I Turned Pretty. At its core, the series has a very basic premise: a love triangle where the protagonist, Belly, must choose between the brooding and unpredictable love-of-her-life Conrad, or the boy-next-door/best friend Jeremiah. |
For millennials, love triangles are a familiar space. We grew up watching them (from Student Of The Year to Twilight) and the addition of nostalgic themes — the beach-town setting, endless summer vibes, timelessly attractive cast, and dreamy visuals — made the series a pop-culture phenomenon. Aspirational escapism meets aesthetic idealisation. It’s interesting that while the series is aimed at Gen-Z, the books were written in the early 2000s, so the feel of the world of The Summer I Turned Pretty is old-school and wistful, automatically drawing the viewer into its ethos. That summer when everything seemed wonderful. That summer when I wasn’t stressed about EMIs. That summer when the biggest problem was who Belly was going to choose. Although the show might seem basic and old-school, there are a few refreshing changes that elevate The Summer I Turned Pretty from just another romance story. Firstly, it subverts the Archie-Veronica-Betty trope to give it a female gaze; Belly had agency to choose the partner best suited for her. And this choice has agonised audiences for weeks since the final season dropped on Amazon Prime Video. Multiple Reddit threads, TikToks and online reactions flooded the internet. Prime Video chose weekly drops for their episodes and it is reported that the press did not receive early screeners for the finale so that the choice isn’t spoiled for audiences. |
To see a global audience pause, opine about and root for a female protagonist’s choice in a life partner is heart-warming. To see two young men being written, defined and polished by a woman is promising. Conrad and Jeremiah are so dreamy because we see them through Belly’s POV. What solidifies the female gaze is that author, screenwriter and executive producer to the Summer series, Jenny Han, chose a three-episode ending arc, giving Belly’s character proper room to grow, mature and fully realise her desires as a 22-year-old who has now seen the world outside of Cousins Beach. It makes the ending sweeter. Han said she took inspiration from Roman Holiday for the finale: “Audrey Hepburn in Paris, coming into her own and becoming a young woman there, is so iconic I thought it would be so lovely if Belly could have that too.” Unfortunately, despite our collective soft corner for the show, The Summer I Turned Pretty joins the list of globally hyped season finale episodes that disappoint (Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother among many others). Too much time was spent on moving back and forth between Jeremiah’s brunch at Cousins Beach and Conrad-Belly’s Paris soiree, but ultimately, Jeremiah, Steven and Taylor’s arcs were abandoned to serve the larger conclusion. A shoddy kiss between Jeremiah and Denise, a final break-up-patch-up dance between Steven and Taylor, an inconsequential scene with the parents and finally, the main couple’s reunion — all of it was rushed and force-fit. |
It felt like waiting all summer for a fireworks show, only to be handed a solitary sparkler. The show’s ambition was clear, but its execution collapsed under the weight of fan expectation and a formulaic closure. My friend texted after watching the finale with a lot of opinions and I found myself sending her paragraph after paragraph as I paced back and forth in my living room. And maybe that’s the point. The Summer I Turned Pretty has given us all a reason to argue, to project, to fall in love with fictional men as if we were 16 again (we all agree fictional men are way better than real men, yes?). Maybe that’s why The Summer I Turned Pretty endures despite its flaws. It isn’t really about whether Belly chooses Conrad or Jeremiah. It’s about the way a simple love story — set against endless summers, Taylor Swift songs, and teenage longing — can still bring millions of people together to argue, swoon, and remember what it felt like to be young and on the cusp of everything. For all its predictability, the series proves that sometimes, the most basic stories are also the most timeless. |
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