The Summer I Turned Pretty Gets Wild in Season 3: “Shit Will Hit the Fan”

Spoilers ahead for The Summer I Turned Pretty season three.

New York City’s Bryant Park is never a serene place. But anyone walking by on July 16 probably heard even more noise than usual, thanks to hundreds of devoted fans who flocked to the lawn for a screening of The Summer I Turned Pretty’s third and final season. The two-episode premiere elicited shrieks and cheers, groans and gasps—a rapture familiar to Jenny Han, author of the best-selling YA trilogy on which the series is based. Twenty-five years ago, Han herself was hooked on the soapy love triangle at the center of another coming-of-age drama, Felicity. In one memorable episode, Scott Speedman’s Ben stands up Keri Russell’s Felicity when they’re supposed to meet in Bryant Park. The moment imprinted on Han; it’s partly why she wanted to hold her show’s premiere there.

Han has grown accustomed to the fervor her series induces, especially when it’s airing novel episodes. “Well, I went to the dentist and everyone was very excited,” she says with a laugh. “They’re like, ‘How does it end?!’ A lot of buzz at the dentist’s office.”

The Prime Video hit resumes after a four-year time jump to find Belly Conklin (played by Lola Tung) in her junior year attending the fictional Finch College with her boyfriend, Jeremiah Fisher (Gavin Casalegno). Jeremiah’s older brother and Belly’s ex, Conrad (Christopher Briney), is studying to be a doctor at Stanford University.

The question of who Belly should end up with stokes opinions so fierce that the official Summer I Turned Pretty social media account issued an anti-bullying statement prior to the premiere of season three. “Cousins is our safe place,” the post reads, referring to the fictional shore town at the center of the show. “Everything good, everything magical. Let’s keep the conversation kind this summer.”

Briney has gotten used to the impassioned fan response. “We just try to live our lives as if nothing’s different,” he says. “I’m happy people are watching, but I’ve also gotta do my own thing—get back into the grind, find [another] job, you know.” The same can be said of Conrad, who has to miss his delayed mother Susannah’s (Rachel Blanchard) memorial in order to take a job at a Stanford clinic. Briney says that the emotional ramifications of his decision will be “quite severe.”

But Han has high hopes for a more grown-up version of Conrad, who has also been going to therapy since the events of the show’s second season. “I was excited for him to go to the West Coast and in some ways start fresh. It’s a lot harder to try out new things when you’re around the same people,” she says. “In a new place, there’s no preconceived notions or expectations on who you are and how you would behave in a situation. So being away from everyone, he’s been able to really explore who he could be…. He’s doing things that he used to love and then cut himself off from because he was in a not great place before. In the interim, I think he’s done a lot of healing.”

Jeremiah could stand to follow his brother’s example. He cheated on Belly during a spring break getaway to Cabo, following a pre-trip fight. Jeremiah believed they were broken up; Belly did not. “It’s pretty absurd that an argument that was so short and quick would cause Jeremiah to think that they were broken up,” says Tung, who plays Belly. “I appreciate how passionate everyone is about picking their sides.” For the record: She doesn’t think they were actually on a break.

Casalegno, who plays Jeremiah, is naturally more understanding. “I can see why both characters feel the way they do, and they are both very valid,” the actor, who is working internationally at the moment, tells Vanity Fair via email. “There are deeper things in both of their thought processes that have led them to this point in their relationship. What he did was wrong, yes, but it’s not always black and white.”

The ordeal has inspired intense online debate akin to Ross and Rachel’s break-related fiasco on Friends. “I think that Jeremiah genuinely thought that they were broken up. I don’t think Belly felt the same way…. It feels like a huge betrayal,” says Han. At the same time, “it wouldn’t feel great for anybody—even if both parties thought they were broken up—to open up Instagram and see your ex-partner with someone else so soon.” Does Han think that the Belly-Jeremiah break discourse will endure as long as Ross and Rachel’s has? “I mean, it would be an honor,” she says. “The fact that it’s even a debate just shows that it’s not really cut-and-dry.”