The Summer I Turned Pretty is officially taking its fandom into uncharted territory.
The Jenny Han-created coming-of-age series, which is based on the trilogy of books she also penned, dropped Episode 8 of Season 3 on Wednesday. By the end of the episode, fans were confronted with a reality both exhilarating and nerve-racking: The show has finally caught up with and moved past its source material. We are, to put it simply, officially off-book.
The final moments of Wednesday’s episode were proof of this fact. Soundtracked to Taylor Swift’s folklore-era track, “cardigan,” Han debuted a mic-drop-worthy scene that didn’t actually play out in the books: While waiting to board her flight to Paris, Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Lola Tung), who had just called off her wedding to Jeremiah Fisher (Gavin Casalegno), sees her first love, Conrad Fisher (Chris Briney), at the airport.
Han, who is also the showrunner, has faithfully honored much of her source material when crafting storylines over the past two seasons. But with just three episodes left of the series, The Summer I Turned Pretty fandom, recognized for its intensity, has flooded social media with theories on how the show will wrap up.
Below, we’ve rounded up a few of the most compelling fan theories, what Han herself has said, and any additional clues members of the fandom have unearthed as we head into the final three episodes of The Summer I Turned Pretty.
What have fans theorized about the ending?
All right, there are a few theories to unpack here.
On who Jeremiah ends up with:
Now that he and Belly aren’t getting married, some fans believe that Jeremiah may end up with one of two people: Redbird (Tanner Zagarino), his fraternity brother, or Denise (Isabella Briggs), a senior associate who works at his dad’s company with him. Because neither character is canon, fans speculate that either one of them could give Jeremiah a forever kind of love. Redbird seems to be the clear favorite between the two, however.
“Y’all seem to be forgetting that Jeremiah is literally bi,” one fan wrote on TikTok. “he kissed some guy named luke in season one. jenny han is so calculated, that didn’t happen by accident & was a major plotline that we breezed past. Im almost 100% sure that redbird and jeremiah are going to end up together & nobody can change my mind.”
On whether Belly ends up with Conrad:
Based on the final moments of Wednesday’s episode, other fans have speculated that Belly and Conrad do, in fact, get back together. On TikTok, one user pointed out that Belly spotting Conrad at the airport, of all places, confirms that they’re endgame.
“Airports are liminal spaces, they’re in-between,” one fan explained. “It’s literally the universe showing us that no matter where Belly runs, she always runs straight back into him. … Also notice before the episode ends we see Belly moving towards his direction! That’s a physical manifestation of her heart making a choice before the show even confirms it verbally.”
On if Belly chooses herself:
Perhaps the least desirable ending for many fans is that Belly ends up alone. While a young woman choosing herself over any guy, in theory, is something to celebrate, a large portion of the fandom believes having Belly end up with anyone other than Conrad is a cop out.
Wait. What’s going on in Paris?
Chronically online fans knew that Belly, at some point, would find herself in the City of Love, after fan-recorded footage of the cast in Paris made the rounds on social media last October.
Briney and fellow castmate Sean Kauffman were seen out and about in the city, while Tung and Casalegno were spotted filming a scene in which their characters seem to unexpectedly reunite. Whether or not they’ll stay broken up after Wednesday’s episode, and how Conrad factors into this whole thing, is still to be determined.
Has Jenny Han said anything?
Han hasn’t spoken specifically about the series finale, though she has made her willingness to diverge from the books clear. Ahead of the Season 3 premiere in July, the Virginia-born author told fans that she made a few unexpected departures from her beloved book series.
“I am somebody who is always changing things up,” Han told Elite Daily. “People will be like, ‘Why are you changing that? That was working well!’ But to me, it could always be better. That’s how I approach everything, so naturally I was going into this story feeling like I wanted to make it even better and try new things.”
One such departure, for instance, occurred in Wednesday’s episode. At this point in the books, Belly calls off her wedding to Jeremiah and eventually reunites with — and marries — Conrad years later. In the show, however, Belly runs into Conrad much sooner than fans anticipated — at the airport, immediately after breaking things off with Jeremiah.
“I always knew how I wanted to end the books,” she also told the outlet. “But with the show, I went into it with an open mind. I wanted to approach it with fresh eyes and just see what sort of magic happened on screen.”
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