There’s a moment, deep into the finale of “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” when Belly is asked to dance by Conrad. Somewhere in Paris on the banks of the Seine, under the light of the full moon, she grasps his hand and the two come together.
Look closely and you’ll see Belly is leading the way. This, accident or not, is potent symbolism, as she has been leading Conrad on a merry dance for quite some time. But I don’t really have the context, because this is the first and only episode I’ve watched.
I confess, I know nothing about “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” But on the day of the finale’s release, I was strongarmed into watching by colleagues, who told me I was uniquely positioned to unpack this pop culture phenomenon. The same colleagues were yet to watch the finale, and for fear of being spoiled, refused to help with my research. So I jumped on this train right as it was pulling into the station, blind, naked and afraid.
Mea culpa.
First, I needed to watch the show, adapted from Jenny Han’s young adult novels; bestsellers in their own right that have found a far broader audience on TV. Thanks to Prime’s helpful recap, I can say with confidence it’s about a love triangle involving Belly (pretty), Conrad (handsome, winsome, pale of lip) and his brother Jeremiah (a man of Old Testament name and New Kids on the Block locks). Beyond that, I’m hopelessly out of my depth. A smattering of flashbacks and callbacks to the rescue: I can report there’s been an aborted wedding, a dead mother and a deadbeat dad. But vital context is for people who aren’t on deadlines.
Belly has been in Paris for quite some time, proudly flouting her visa (an undocumented immigrant leading a popular US TV show? Sacre bleu!). Why Bell-y is in Par-ee is not the first question to cross my mind. That would be why is she called Belly? Is it a cruel jibe from the days before she turned pretty? Her penchant for navel-revealing tops? Oh, her real name is Isabel. Figures.
Other early questions: Why is Jeremiah cooking for so many people? What is Denise receiving seed money for? In what part of the US do all these other characters live? All is unclear.
Anyway, these are all mere diversions. It’s clear what the show wants us to focus on, and that’s Conrad arriving in Paris to surprise Belly, presumably to profess his undying love.
His yearning is leeching out of the screen. Is this the secret sauce, the narrative catnip, that has held viewers in its grip for so long? I suspect so. Conrad can’t help but look at Belly with an intensity that somehow bisects “I want to marry you” and “I want to eat you,” but not in a creepy way. He’s down bad, and we’re right in the trenches with him.
If you’ve read this far, you probably need absolutely no more episode recap from me. You’re already a fan. And yet, I can’t help it. There’s too much good stuff here.
At one point, Conrad uses the term “Sisyphean Task,” to which Belly jokes he sounds like the “10-year-old you.” Only he hopelessly misuses the term. Belly’s response is meant to come off sweet, but instead is both withering and accurate, because no 10-year-old should be that familiar with the myth of Sisyphus or the curse of endless toil.
At another, Conrad describes Belly as a “feral alley cat” and insists it’s a compliment. Maybe words aren’t his strong suit. Nevertheless, I’m still backing you, young man.
Ok, I’ll stop for real this time.
I watched all 79 – feature film length – minutes, right to its satisfyingly predictable conclusion. I didn’t hate the show. More than that, I respected it for the job it was doing.
The Prime Video series, which ran for three seasons, has made stars of its central trio, Lola Tung, Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno, and sparked, then successfully stoked, heated debate.
Were you #TeamConrad or #TeamJeremiah? This was not a question to be taken lightly – or constrained to what I’m sure was Amazon’s expected audience demo when this all began in 2022.
Instagram and TikTok were awash with answers to that question, and they were coming from everywhere. McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Delta Airlines and the Empire State Building nailed their colors to the mast. Malala Yousafzai weighed in, and Leonardo DiCaprio – whom, ironically, Briney has been compared to – was Team Conrad, according to his co-star. Even NFL players gave it a shot. (The Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce feigned a bemused “What?” but I see through you – your fiancé’s songs featured twice in the finale, there’s no way you weren’t watching.)
For the record, #TeamConrad prevailed with a reported 13.5 billion views on TikTok ahead of the series finale.
This must have been what it was like to pick Joey or Pacey in “Dawson’s Creek,” or between Big and Adian in “Sex and the City,” when they were first airing in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Only “Sex and the City’s” love triangle never quite reached this crescendo, and in the early aughts corporate America had fewer tools to ingratiate itself into our everyday lives. (By the time the “Sex and the City” sequel “And Just Like That” came along, it was a different story.)
However, beyond the brand pile-in, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” was, first and foremost, a word-of-mouth hit. Nothing has born testament to that more than the viewing parties that sprang up across continents – from Sydney to London to New York by its finale.
Viewing parties are nothing new – “The Sopranos” comes to mind – but 2025 is a different media landscape. Prime was smart to drip feed episodes weekly, making it appointment viewing – one more example of the reversal of streamers’ “dump and binge-watch” playbook. Viewers were yearning for the yearning, week after tremulous week.
They were also yearning for the world it projected. Even with my scant exposure to “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” its uncanny, weightless atmosphere contained an obvious appeal. This was a safe space: staunchly apolitical, relatively low stakes, high in melodrama, totally unplugged from the issues of today. One suspects if a character picked up a newspaper, it’d be populated with lorem ipsum.
“Emily in Paris” is another example of this tone and low-stakes worldbuilding, as well as a prime example of what’s been called “ambient TV” – shows easy to consume without one’s full attention. Both are comfort watches, following in the footsteps of the likes of “Gilmore Girls” and “One Tree Hill” (themselves experiencing a revival among nostalgic millennials). Moreover, the popularity of this relatively chaste type of storytelling offers a counterpoint to the edginess of teen shows like “Euphoria” and “Sex Education” out there.
Aiding “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and “Emily in Paris’s” illusion is the privilege of its characters, echoing the likes of “90210” and “The O.C” in generations past. Wealth is an amazing insulator against reality, and yet, in an increasingly unequal world, viewers of all demographics have flocked to shows told from that point of view.
This isn’t isolated to youth-centric shows. Stories from the perspective of privilege are everywhere: “Succession” and “The White Lotus;” “Big Little Lies,” “Expats,” “The Perfect Couple,” and other shows that don’t star Nicole Kidman. Some, like “The White Lotus,” dabble in upstairs-downstairs class commentary, leaving some grit in the proverbial oyster. Many do not. Complicating characters – and shows – with self-awareness would break the spell. For viewers, letting reality creep into the frame would take away from the escapism.
And escapism is what so many are craving. Of course everyone got their happily-ever-afters in “The Summer I Turned Pretty” (or at least, I think they did). In the afterglow of the finale, outlets hit publish on SEO-bait around who did what, and clumsy think pieces like this one followed. Given time, a loyal fanbase might have slowly drifted toward new shows and obsessions. Except, at the Paris finale premiere, while I was deep in the world of Cousins Beach writing this article, Amazon announced it has greenlit a movie sequel.
I thought I was out, but they pulled me back in.
No release date has been set, and I have no idea what dramatic tension is left to be wrung out of this show, but we should probably all prepare for further yearning. More importantly, I have some time to catch up.
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