The three-season run of “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” Amazon Prime’s popular young adult drama that aired its finale on Wednesday, spawned many viral moments. It also hooked viewers who came of age before TikTok, outperforming similar content from the streamer among 35- to 44-year-olds, according to the data tracking service Luminate.
Based on the books by Jenny Han, the series follows Belly Conklin (Lola Tung) and the Fisher brothers, Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), who develop a love triangle as they come of age.
As showrunner, Han, 45, handpicked all the music, often choosing tracks from the 1990s and 2000s, when she was experiencing the same milestones as her characters, for its headiest plot points. “I just love a moment where you can bring back a song that maybe younger people don’t know about and then it gets to have like a sort of, like, resurgence or, like, new eyes, new ears on it,” she said.
Han discussed six millennial- and Gen X-coded needle drops that helped define the show.
Season 1, Episode 2
Belly’s Carefree Make-out Session
“Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus (2000)
Belly’s breakthrough summer begins with a short-lived flirtation with a non-Fisher — Cam Cameron. He takes her on her first date, gives her her first kiss, and exists as the first sign that Belly’s not a little girl anymore. This early-aughts punk-pop track about getting romantically ignored in high school plays as she and Cam make out on the beach, while her older brother smooches someone else and their mom reads a book given to her by a handsome author. Hormones!
“Teenage Dirtbag” was Han’s go-to karaoke song when she studied abroad in London and belted lyrics including, “Man, I feel like mold / It’s prom night and I am lonely.”
“I think it is surprisingly warmhearted and earnest and sincere for the kind of song it is,” she said. “Which is honestly the sort of feeling that I want the show to have.”
After the episode aired, the song developed a new life in a TikTok trend that had Christina Aguilera, Kevin Bacon, Alicia Silverstone, Madonna and many others showing off photos from their own teenage dirtbag days.
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Season 2 Episode 2
Back to When Things Were Good
“Steal My Girl” by One Direction (2014)
“I always love when a song hits for me on many levels — the lore about the song as well as what it’s doing in the scene,” Han said. “Steal My Girl” multitasks in a couple of ways during this flashback that interrupts a road trip when Belly and Jeremiah set out to find the missing Conrad.
Belly revisits an earlier drive with Conrad: Heading to their beach house in the winter, the couple shyly smile at each other and exude nervous energy discussing their happiness as the sunny track plays.
“It’s a ‘before’ kind of a song,” Han noted. It calls back to the era before the boys’ mother died of cancer, and before Belly and Conrad’s breakup in the wake of her death, hearkening back to when One Direction was still together and performing as a band.
The happy moment Conrad and Belly share is “juxtaposed to the sadness of knowing that it’s very fleeting and everything is changed,” Han said.
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Season 2 Episode 2
Belly and Conrad’s First Time
“I’m Kissing You” by Des’ree (1996)
In another flashback from the same episode, Conrad and Belly have sex for the first time in front of the fireplace at the beach house. The scene moves with the sweet anticipation of a Gen X classic of teen romance: Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” from 1996. Han used the same music from the film’s love-at-first-sight scene for their intimate moment, while close-up shots show the couple sharing dreamy looks and subtle gestures to their physical connection.
When the episode aired, TikTok, X and Reddit were ablaze with arguments over the use of “I’m Kissing You” instead of a more modern option. “People were like, ‘What is this?’ and, I think, flummoxed by the choice — to me there’s no other choice,” Han said. “It may be one of those times where the audience was like, ‘Oh, we wanted something new,’ but this is what I love.”
Han said she was “obsessed” with the movie when it came out and wanted to give a nod to “one of the best movie soundtracks.”
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Season 3, Episode 4
Belly Needs Her Mom
“Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac (1975)
Pushing ahead with plans to marry Jeremiah despite opposition from their parents, Belly recalls a stormy night when she was a kid and was too scared to sleep alone in her bedroom, so her mom joined her. As the episode jumps back to the present, Belly cries while lying in the same bed without her mom (which Conrad overhears from the hallway.)
Han initially toyed with whether to use the Chicks’ version of “Landslide,” but said she wanted “to offer it in its purest form.”
“It speaks really beautifully to what the whole show is about,” she said. “The beauty and the sadness of growing up and the loss of innocence. The independence, it’s beautiful, but it’s also very hard and heartbreaking.”
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Season 3, Episode 5
Belly, Viewed Through Conrad’s Eyes
“Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones (1971)
This scene, one of the most highly anticipated for fans of the book, features a steamy plot point. Because it’s told from Conrad’s point of view, Han’s musical choice reflected his tastes.
“I saw people were hoping for a Taylor [Swift] or Gracie [Abrams] song, but this is Conrad’s episode — from the books, he’s a character who likes listening to classic rock,” Han said.
The song plays as Conrad watches Belly enjoy a peach from a roadside stand: When some of its juice drips down her chin, he lifts up his shirt to wipe it away, their first moment of physical contact since their breakup.
The track was Han’s callback to another late-90s pop culture moment, when a cover of the song plays during Angel and Buffy’s prom dance in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
“It just felt right to include,” she said. “It’s really dreamy and it really feels like you’re in a bubble with them.”
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Season 3, Episode 8
Conrad’s Confession
“With or Without You” by U2 (1987)
Conrad’s big intervention — he tells Belly he’s still in love with her the night before she’s set to marry his brother — flops, but he doubles down the next morning, vowing to stop pretending he’s not in love with her. As “With or Without You” blares, Belly realizes she will never be able to let Conrad go … as he drives away.
Millennials could immediately recall the track’s use from “Friends,” when it plays as Rachel stares out her window at the rain falling after she and Ross break up.
“That song has many different, like, highs and lows,” Han said. “It should feel exhilarating, it should feel like yearning and passion and desperation.”
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Shivani Gonzalez is a news assistant at The Times who writes a weekly TV column and contributes to a variety of sections.
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