While Love Island was dominating this summer’s reality TV discourse, a scripted show sought to dominate the entirety of our dog days this year. That show? The Summer I Turned Pretty, Prime Video’s megapopular YA romance that follows a young woman named Belly (Lola Tung) as she navigates a love triangle between her childhood best friends, the brothers Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) Fisher. The numbers don’t lie: When the third and final season of the hit series premiered on July 16, it garnered 25 million viewers globally in its first week, triple the viewership of to its premiere season. The premiere ratings for Season 3 reportedly made it the most-watched season of television among women ages 18 to 34 and Prime Video’s fifth most-watched returning season of a series. The evidence that the show has continued to grow into a phenomenon since then is hard to miss. There have been megaviral memes, public watch parties in bars, op-eds dubbing this summer “Brother-Fucker Summer,” and even an emerging trend of professional sports social media pages asking their athletes whether they’re #TeamConrad or #TeamJeremiah. (Most of the time the answer is: “Who?”) The Summer I Turned Pretty has the masses in such a chokehold that the production team even felt it necessary to issue a statement cautioning viewers against engaging in hate speech and cyberbullying (suggesting that some fervent fans were engaging in these things). But just how did this third season of a saccharine YA romance captivate the world so readily that it has inspired anti-bullying PSAs and has become the talk du jour on NFL press accounts? The answer is simple, and one we’ve heard before.
The Summer I Turned Pretty, an adaptation of a novel series by To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before author Jenny Han, has followed its source material to a T up until now. Like the first installment of the books, the first season takes place during the titular summer during which the Fisher brothers start to see Belly as more than just the awkward kid they grew up with. Belly, who has always had a massive crush on Conrad, the eldest brother, finds herself in a push and pull between the Fishers, before a romance with Conrad eventually begins to blossom. Fans—adult ones at that—have been swept up by the nostalgic lens of this dramatic odyssey of Belly’s young love since the series premiered in 2022. The show was easy to become enamored with, as the year’s hottest season is imbued in every ounce of its creation, from the honeyed hues of the color grading to the signature voiceovers of characters’ inner monologues set over beach landscapes. The show had a dial on the feeling of nostalgia, crafting a picture of the type of young love that can only bloom in the summertime. Of course, this dial wouldn’t be complete without the uber-sentimental music of Taylor Swift, whose tunes have become a part of the show’s identity and a boon for the pop star, driving some of her songs back up the charts long after their initial release. This all set the groundwork for 2023’s Season 2 (based on the follow-up book It’s Not Summer Without You), which explores the devolvement of Belly and Conrad’s relationship after a devastating loss changes everyone’s lives, leading to the beginning of Belly’s subsequent coupling with Jeremiah.
Season 3 has boasted the same summery tint and commitment to Swift’s discography. (Some might say overcommitment—how many needle drops do we need?) But this season has somehow gotten even bigger, surpassing its predecessors to become a cultural property so ubiquitous that references to it are even popping up in places you’d least expect. Why, though? For all intents and purposes, it is the same show. It’s not like there’s been a drastic change or something to spur more fans during the show’s break.
What it comes down to is momentum. Han’s TV adaptation of her own novels, like the books themselves, has been building to a crest the way that all love-triangle plots eventually do. There’s one question that trumps all else in these narratives: Who will our main character end up with? This being the final season of the show portends a possible final answer to this question for Belly. And, as it happens with successful love-triangle plots, fans of The Summer I Turned Pretty have become increasingly invested in drawing their lines in the sand in favor of either Fisher brother as the story comes to a close. The two teams—#TeamJeremiah (or #Jelly) and #TeamConrad (or #Bonrad)—have rallied their troops and stepped onto the battlefield to face each other in the story’s final hour. This kind of phenomenon isn’t new, of course, and it owes its strength in part to the success of Twilight and #TeamEdward versus #TeamJacob. After so many years of seesawing between the two sides, of teasing one way or another, fans are foaming at the mouth to find out the final outcome. (Yes, even when both the dating options the lead character entertains suck.) Additional intrigue has only mounted in light of Han’s coy hints that the show ending could deviate from the source text.
And then, in addition to the culmination of everything the show has teased for years, there are the practical matters that go into creating a hit series. Han’s work was already popular enough to give her her own cinematic universe over at Netflix, where the popular adaptations of her other hit novel series, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, have led to Han’s own spinoff show XO, Kitty. In fact, Han has proven to be such a reliably successful creator that she’s been given damn near carte blanche to make whatever she wants. Additionally, it would be remiss of me not to mention the resources Prime Video has thrown toward promotion for this show which, by Season 3, has developed into a luxury brand deal with Coach, which collaborated with the series this season. Big marketing, plus big showrunner, plus having Swifties on lock are surefire boosters for a show like this.
As we approach the end of this saga on Wednesday, the date of the series’ grand finale, let’s take a moment to appreciate all that The Summer I Turned Pretty has given us in its final stretch: a tiny engagement ring to laugh at; a running gag about Conrad being deeply morose; Belly being canonically poor but still, somehow, wearing designer clothing in her massive Parisian apartment. But, I have to say, I’ll be thankful for something else, too, as we finally find out who gets the girl: Personally, I can’t wait for Brother-Fucker Summer to be over so we can move on to Collegiate Superhero-Fucker Fall.
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