And just like that, the group psychosis that was The Summer I Turned Pretty has come to an end… or has it?
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
The hit YA drama’s series finale gave fans the Belly/Conrad romance they’ve been clamoring for, but a rushed send-off and a choice Easter egg from creator Jenny Han hint that there could be more to come. (Update: Apparently, there is. Cue the eye roll.)
Last week, long-suffering eldest brother Conrad (Christopher Briney) finally decided to quit his Jane Austen-level yearning and hop on a plane to Paris to surprise Belly (Lola Tung) for her birthday. After making the somewhat concerning choice to raw-dog a several-hour red eye—in the middle seat, no less—he arrives in the City of Love just in time to watch Belly hop off her gentleman friend Benito’s motorcycle sporting a chic new lob haircut. (Thankfully, her new bob style didn’t end up evoking memories of Claire from Fleabag’s infamously “French” haircut.)
Shippers will no doubt remember that in the Season 3 premiere, her ex-boyfriend (and Conrad’s brother) Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) pleaded with her to never cut her hair. A year into her new life in Paris, she’s done just that.
Belly’s charmed life living in a palatial apartment on a bartender’s salary and with no visa to speak of is worlds away from the previous summer, when her rushed wedding to Jeremiah blew up shortly after Conrad—again, his brother—admitted that he was still in love with her. It’s bittersweet watching Belly somehow manages to show Conrad all of Paris’ top tourist destinations over the course of a single afternoon. She’s miraculously come out on the other side of this teen soap s–t show, but are a few episodes of solo growth really enough set up for her ending up with the other brother?
Speaking of growth, The Summer I Turned Pretty has worked overtime over the past episode to transform Jeremiah from a cheating manchild into something vaguely resembling a tolerable human being. As delightfully sudsy as the average YA drama can be, Belly could only end up with Conrad barely a year after nearly marrying his brother and not come off like a total villain if said brother became so villainous that the general public were prepared to take up pitchforks against him.
Now that Belly and Jeremiah are no more, the show has hastily used its one-year time jump to put some life back into his empty, ventriloquist doll-like eyes, giving him a life’s purpose (being a chef) and a love interest (local girlboss Denise) with the same quickness that I invent my Sims’ backstories.
While most of our major characters convene for a glamorous dinner shindig at the show’s central beach house, Belly and Conrad are across the world with a lifetime of history, baggage, and, yes, chemistry, between them. After they share a poignant moment on a rooftop commiserating over how Belly has found herself while Conrad escaped into his studies at Stanford, Belly impulsively invites him to a birthday dinner her friends are throwing her later that evening.
Somehow, Belly has blossomed from a broke American girl forcing her aggressively French flatmates to try Thanksgiving stuffing to a girl beloved by all—even Benito, who she conveniently dumped six weeks before.
Belly’s friends greet Conrad with a level of vaguely horrified wonder befitting the sudden appearance of a key figure in your friend’s sordid love life. Afterward, the pair’s stroll by the Seine turns into a slow dance as they fondly reflect on their past relationship woes. And really, what else could that lead to but a steamy sex scene set to Taylor Swift’s somehow-underrated Reputation track “Dress?”
The singer’s constant presence in The Summer I Turned Pretty has spawned countless memes about Prime Video’s fathomless music budget, and I’ll admit that I was expecting a more predictable needle drop like “Invisible String” or “Daylight” to soundtrack Belly and Conrad’s big romantic reunion. Nevertheless, there’s a deeply horny, lovestruck undercurrent of desperation in “Dress” that somehow suits the moment perfectly.
In the afterglow of their hook-up, the final season’s pacing issues start to creep back in. All but three episodes of season three centered on the drawn-out horror of Belly’s doomed almost-wedding to Jeremiah. Many fans complained that these earlier episodes were padded out with dull subplots, from Belly’s best friend Taylor’s (Rain Spencer) tumultuous relationship with her immature mother to her brother Steven’s (Sean Kaufman) fleeting workplace situationship.
As superfluous as the stakes of those storylines sometimes seemed, they could’ve paid off if The Summer I Turned Pretty had a classic 20- to 22-episode network season to spare. Instead, the final episodes raced toward the show’s endpoint at breakneck speed.
Ideally, after Belly is struck with doubts about whether she’s reconnected with Conrad because she truly loves him or because his late mother creepily shipped them from the day she was born, they would have an episode or two to work through their angst and come back together. But The Summer I Turned Pretty is out of time, forcing its central couple to reconnect, suffer a third-act breakup, and come together once again within the span of 20 minutes.
There’s a fun running bit about Conrad calculating which train he could take to his work conference in Brussels that has shades of Before Sunset’s iconic “Baby, you’re gonna miss that plane” ending. And yes, Belly racing through the train station and buying a train ticket just to declare that she’ll find Conrad in every lifetime is textbook rom-com gold. But beneath the celebratory cheers of Team Conrad fans across the globe, it’s impossible not to wonder how much harder their big romantic moment could’ve hit if they were given proper time.
By all accounts, The Summer I Turned Pretty’s tale of three kids who were raised together and developed pseudo-incestuous fixations on each other should’ve led to intergenerational ruin, the gothic likes of which we haven’t seen since Wuthering Heights. But this is somehow a teen romance show, so it ends another year later, with Conrad and Belly returning to their coveted beach house as Phoebe Bridgers’ “Scott Street” plays wistfully. We cut to credits featuring a cute (if random) Christmas in Paris couples’ photoshoot, and a letter to fans from Han herself in which she hints that “maybe we’ll meet again one summer in Cousins.”
I liked the episode and the ending, but it did feel very rushed. We deserved more scenes of Belly and Conrad’s future together. #TheSummerITurnedPretty #TSITP pic.twitter.com/Hgx4UTeM5e
— karla (@karlamiyy) September 17, 2025
Thoughts on the last episode? I have mixed feelings 😩 #thesummeriturnedpretty #tsitp #teamconrad #conradfisher #conniebaby
Me want more movie #thesummeriturnedpretty
Naturally, this kicked off a fresh round of online speculation. Does this mean that a spin-off is in the works? An epilogue showing Belly and Conrad’s future together? A Christmas episode?
Given how indebted The Summer I Turned Pretty is to Swift’s discography, it’s fitting that Han and Prime Video took a page out of the queen of Easter Eggs and 2 am surprise releases’ book. I can’t say for certain that Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah will ever send the nation shrieking to TikTok again. But in a way, that final wink is classic Summer I Turned Pretty—maddening, very-online, and irresistible.
The post ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Ends in Typical Maddening Fashion appeared first on The Daily Beast.
