{"id":2030201,"date":"2025-09-18T00:34:49","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T00:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2030201"},"modified":"2025-09-18T00:34:49","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T00:34:49","slug":"my-favorite-love-story-was-missing-from-the-summer-i-turned-pretty-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/my-favorite-love-story-was-missing-from-the-summer-i-turned-pretty-finale\/","title":{"rendered":"My Favorite Love Story Was Missing From \u2019The Summer I Turned Pretty\u2019 Finale"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s rare for me to feel totally pleased with a series finale. (I\u2019m a victim of the 2019 Game Of Thrones <\/em>finale letdown, which is to say I\u2019m traumatized.) But as a vocal member of Team Conrad, and a staunch supporter of the \u201cfriends-to-lovers\u201d and \u201csecond-chance\u201c romance tropes, The Summer I Turned Pretty<\/a><\/em>\u2019s conclusion landed pretty well for me. We finally got Belly and Conrad together. And the finale also happened to include the romance movie clich\u00e9s that appear in all of my favorites. There was an unbelievably well-choreographed sex scene<\/a>, passionate declarations of love (I need Conrad\u2019s speech tattooed), and even a slight reinterpretation of the classic rom-com airport chase\u2014though the TSITP<\/em> Gods opted to have Belly sprint through a train station instead. In fact, the finale followed the traditional romance structure so closely that it even featured one of my least favorite tropes: a best friend character who’s shifted out of the main character\u2019s focus.<\/p>\n

At the risk of activating any TSITP<\/em> purists, I should clarify: I would never reduce Taylor Jewel to the traditional one-dimensional sidekick role that we\u2019ve seen time and time again. They\u2019re the ones who exist solely as comic relief or as a sounding board for the protagonist\u2019s grievances (for reference, see: Kathryn Hahn in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days<\/em>, or Carrie Fisher in When Harry Met Sally<\/em>. I have to name the actors instead of the characters because there is a 2% chance you\u2019d recognize the characters\u2019 names.) No\u2014unlike those rom-com BFFs, Taylor has always been a fully fleshed-out character in her own right. That wasn\u2019t the case in the original The Summer I Turned Pretty<\/em> book trilogy, where, from my read, her character was so self-involved it was a mystery why Belly stayed friends with her.<\/p>\n

In the TV adaptation, Taylor has become a layered, key player. This season brought us into her and her mother\u2019s unconventional, Gilmore Girls<\/em>-esque dynamic, and her will-they-won\u2019t-they romance with Steven has basically powered the show\u2019s B-plot for years. And her friendship with Belly? Honestly, it\u2019s its own love story. Their bond has evolved as they\u2019ve grown. She and this show\u2019s heroine hold each other accountable\u2014they’ve fought, made up, and shown up for one another through grief and breakups. This is the friend who reminded Belly about her Parisian dreams when it seemed like she\u2019d forgotten them! Which is why the finale\u2019s lack of a conclusive Taylor and Belly scene vexed me.<\/p>\n

Yes, they were across the globe from one another. And yes, the finale had bigger fish to fry\u2014namely, the resolution of its central love triangle. And I realize <\/em>that the recently announced movie spin-off<\/a> will likely feature plenty of Taylor and Belly scenes. But the series finale is valuable property. And for a show that\u2019s done such a great job representing this healthy, communicative female friendship up to this point, it felt off-brand for their relationship not to have a moment to shine during the closer. Not even a phone call!<\/p>\n

To really cement my satisfaction with this series\u2019s closer, it would\u2019ve been nice to get a moment that closed the book on Belly and Taylor\u2014a scene that tied up their friendship the same way their romantic storylines were sealed. It\u2019s what their onscreen bond absolutely earned. The closest we got were some (admittedly adorable) scenes in Paris during the penultimate episode. But had I known that was the last time we\u2019d see these friends on screen together, I probably would’ve appreciated them more. Who knew that would be the show\u2019s official punctuation on their relationship?<\/p>\n

To be fair, Belly didn’t have final moments with any of her friends or family back home. In fact, her last scene with Steven was a tense back-and-forth on her wedding day, a couple of episodes back. This finale was the Belly and Conrad Show, save for some Jeremiah and Staylor updates on the side. That Bonrad focus wouldn’t have bugged me, had it not happened at the expense of other conclusive moments. This would’ve been the perfect episode for Taylor and Belly to bond over how they’ve both been afraid of committing to their respective partners throughout this series. It’s when they could’ve discussed the relationship insecurities they’ve dealt with, and how together, they’ve realized that trusting your gut in love can be scary.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s to hoping that The Summer I Turned Pretty <\/em>movie dedicates some significant time to Belly and Taylor. Yes, I would\u2019ve hoped that the finale would feature an exchange in which these young women could reflect on all the relationships and coming-of-age chaos they\u2019ve undergone together. But maybe the movie will supplement the finale\u2019s lack and offer a proper conclusion for this genuinely solid portrayal of platonic love. Because, as this show seemed to understand, female friendship is just as valuable as romantic relationships, for Belly and women everywhere, they\u2019re a critical source of companionship and love.<\/p>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s rare for me to feel totally pleased with a series finale. (I\u2019m a victim of the 2019 Game Of Thrones finale letdown, which is to say I\u2019m traumatized.) But as a vocal member of Team Conrad, and a staunch supporter of the \u201cfriends-to-lovers\u201d and \u201csecond-chance\u201c romance tropes, The Summer I Turned Pretty\u2019s conclusion landed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2030202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[320644,344306,374365,374363,345577,29633,353741,374364],"class_list":["post-2030201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-belly","tag-belly-and-conrad","tag-carrie-fisher","tag-game-of-thrones-finale","tag-series-finale","tag-taylor","tag-team-conrad","tag-tsitp"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/My-Favorite-Love-Story-Was-Missing-From-The-Summer-I.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2030201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2030202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2030201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2030201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2030201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}