The long-awaited return of “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” an Amazon Prime Video original series, captivated audiences starting in mid-July with episodes for the final season dropping on the streaming service every Wednesday until Sept. 17.

There was a two-year gap in the release of seasons two and three because the writer’s strike delayed the start of production. Despite the gap, the final season was still a hit for fans with 25 million global viewers in its first week, according to Amazon.  

Even though it is filled with cringey lines and subpar acting, the show draws in a large audience because of its dramatic plot and fun summer vibes. At this point, if you have not heard about this show, you have probably been living under a rock. It is all over social media and everybody is talking about it.

The story is based on a book trilogy of the same name by Jenny Han. Isabel “Belly” Conklin, her mother and brother, travel to the fictional Cousins Beach in Massachusetts every summer, along with her mother’s best friend, Suzannah Fisher, and her two sons. All of them stay in the Fisher’s luxurious vacation home. Conrad, played by Christopher Briney, and Jeremiah Fisher, played by Gavin Casalegno, fight for Belly’s love and attention the summer she turns pretty.

The third and final season starts off with a four-year time-jump from the end of season two. Jeremiah and Belly have been in a long-term, committed relationship throughout those four years. However, things change when it’s revealed that Jeremiah cheated on her in Cabo during spring break. 

To save their relationship, Jeremiah proposes and she says yes. This leads to Belly spending the summer in Cousins planning her wedding while her fiancé works in Boston. With Jeremiah not there for her, his older brother Conrad steps in to help. Conrad and Belly had a brief relationship, but he has not been able to move on and throughout the season we see him yearning for her.

At times during the wedding planning, Belly begins to question whether or not she is marrying the right brother. Spoiler alert, she was not. 

Although blood related, the brothers have very different personalities. 

Jeremiah is a goofball frat guy with very little maturity and responsibility. Throughout the series, he comes off as whiny, annoying and occasionally manipulative. He is only seen as reliable to Belly because he has not run from his feelings like Conrad has done in the past. 

On the other hand, Conrad is always putting others before himself. He constantly puts his own feelings for Belly aside because of his brother, at least until he finds out about Cabo. Once he knows Jeremiah has mistreated her, he tells her how he feels. 

In the scenes where Jeremiah and Belly are together, it feels like Belly is acting as his mother, filling a void in his life because his mom died. You can also see that Jeremiah brings Belly down to his level of maturity whereas Conrad does not drag her down, he lifts her up and lets her shine all on her own. 

Jeremiah simply cannot live without Belly and does not truly care about how she feels or what she wants. For example, Belly wanted to study abroad in Paris in the fall but told him she was rethinking it because of the wedding. Jeremiah’s response was “Good, because I don’t want you to go either.” 

Jeremiah also sees Belly as an object or a prize rather than as another person, and he only wanted her as a way to one-up his brother. 

Fortunately, Belly and Jeremiah call off the wedding, and she runs off to Paris to find herself again. 

When Conrad visits her in Paris, he again declares his love for her, reassuring her his feelings are real by saying, “Because I’ve changed everything about myself, and the one thing that never changes is that I love you.”

Finally, Belly chooses Conrad in the end and puts the infinity necklace she received from him in season one back on. 

Infinity acts as a symbol of their love, and unfortunately it also feels like how long this series has been going on. The story will continue in a movie depicting “another big milestone left in Belly’s journey,” according to Han. 

The milestone she is most likely referring to would be a wedding between Belly and Conrad, but making the movie feels like an unnecessary cash-grab. Although rushed, the series finale wrapped up each character’s storyline with a happy ending, and the future of Conrad and Belly’s relationship can be inferred. 

Other problems within the show are the music and the pacing. At times the music overpowers the rest of the scene that a song is in and little variety in the artists featured. Pacing is off as there were subplots this season that felt like they took away from the main storyline and then felt like they were incomplete when finally wrapped up. 

Despite these critiques, the show is an easy and enjoyable watch because of the cozy beach backdrop and the intriguing plot. 

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