By Ayah Rizk and Aanya Jain, 2027
The Summer I Turned Pretty Critical Review
By Ayah Rizk and Aanya Jain, 2027
*Caution: There are spoilers of the show below*
About the show
The Summer I Turned Pretty was originally a book that was readapted into a TV show, airing on Prime Video. The series is about Isabel Conklin, who goes by Belly, at Cousins beach with her own family and the family of her mother’s best friend, the Fishers. The series is about Belly’s relationship with the Fisher boys, Conrad and Jeramiah, as well as the family drama that befalls upon the families as a result of Belly’s changing relationships.
Summary of Season 3
Season 3 was released not too long ago, with the series finale released in the middle of September. Overall, the acting and the production were pretty good, with the setting changing to be filmed in Paris for the last few episodes of the show. Despite this, some episodes towards the end of the season were slow, and it felt as though the producers were trying to drag out the show. Season 3 started off with Belly finding out that her boyfriend of several years, Jeremiah Fisher, had cheated on her. In finding this out, Belly goes through a downward spiral and pushes away her friends. She then deals with a traumatic experience, and makes the rash decision to marry Jeremiah in order to “save their relationship”. Despite her family’s protests, Belly sacrifices everything to marry Jeremiah, and even pushes her mom away at a high cost to her own well-being. Conrad Fisher realizes that he still loves Belly, and protects her in several ways beyond her knowledge. On the wedding day, Jeremiah flees the scene and essentially ends his relationship with Belly. On her road to heal from this experience, Belly runs away from her problems with the Fisher boys and moves to Paris. She only returns when she is finally able to reconcile and forgive the Fisher boys for the events of the past.
Character Development
Many major characters throughout the show undergo significant character developments. A few, but not all, of these characters include Belly, Conrad, Jeremiah, and Taylor.
From seasons 1 and 2, it can be seen that Belly is trying to find herself and who she is as she journeys through adolescence and growing up, especially while starting to experience a lot of newfound attention from the Fisher boys. As she journeys through adulthood in season 3, we can see how the experiences of seasons 1 and 2 still guide and change her character. Belly has loved Conrad since they were young kids, and her feelings for him are explored throughout all the seasons. However, her overpowering emotions cause her to begin to make morally wrong decisions. In season 3, Belly continues to let her feelings dictate her decisions. Her lingering feelings for Conrad heavily affect her current relationship with Jeremiah.
Belly chooses to be with Jeremiah to fill the void that Conrad left in her after rejecting her. She likes the attention that Jeremiah gives her, and develops stuck up characteristics towards Conrad rejecting her, while his reasons were completely valid. Additionally, the idea of not wanting to be alone that developed due to Conrad causes Belly to stay in her toxic relationship with Jeremiah. Jeremiah cheats on Belly, however Belly continues to be in a relationship with him because she doesn’t want her ego to be busted and end up alone, which her season 1 and 2 self would never do. She also gives up a lot of her dreams for Jeremiah, showing her newly developed insecurities from wanting someone to love her the way Conrad never could.
Belly is also always switching between the two boys because she likes the idea of having choices, and she also begins to take advantage of her loved ones like her mom and Taylor. We can really see Belly’s developing and ongoing immaturity, indecisiveness, and selfishness; her incapabilities to properly deal with the emotional toll of her conflicting feelings for the boys causes her to become a very controversial person.
Conrad has the biggest character development in the show. In seasons 1 and 2, Conrad becomes very detached from all the characters. However, this is because of his mother having cancer, who later passes away at the end of season 2. Conrad also has to deal with his grief all alone, as nobody knew that he knew of his mother’s condition. He wanted to cherish his final moments with his mother, causing him to carry his burden by himself. However, this causes him to bury his emotions and push his loved ones away, including his best friend Steven, his brother Jeremiah, and his love interest Belly.
In seasons 1 and 2, even though Conrad’s actions came from not wanting to become a burden on Belly and hurt her due to him grieving his mother, he toys with Belly’s emotions a bit, and he still makes these decisions to do this, displaying his immaturity. In general, Conrad avoided many of his present situations and commitments instead of trying to communicate his feelings with people who would have supported him, causing him to sabotage many important aspects of his life.
However, in season 3, we can really see Conrad begin to mature and take responsibility for his actions. He is self-aware about the distance he created between his loved ones which has hindered their relationships, however he does not let this stop him from caring about them. He starts to show a lot more effort in re-building his bonds with his loved ones after finally starting to accept and move on from grieving over his mother, and starts to de-isolate himself. He also still loves Belly, and consistently demonstrates in each episode of season 3 his prioritization of her happiness even if it brings him pain. Conrad learns to express his emotions more and face his current situations to better support himself and his loved ones.
Jeremiah’s character development in season 3 significantly illustrates the kind of person he always was. Throughout the show, Jeremiah consistently tried to sabotage Belly and Conrad’s relationship, however, in seasons 1 and 2, he was still let off the hook because of the way Belly caused him pain. However, we can really see his insecurities escalate in season 3, and his true character completely unfolds. His jealousy over his brother Conrad causes Jeremiah to emotionally manipulate and gaslight Belly due to his insecurity of Belly’s potential for still having feelings for Conrad. Throughout the season, it can be seen how Conrad and Jeremiah are portrayed as stark contrasts in the ways that they treat Belly. He also takes advantage of Conrad’s love for him and instead constantly hurts him, physically and emotionally. Jeremiah also becomes an extremely irresponsible person, prioritizing impracticality over his academic and financial situations. Overall, Jeremiah shapes into a jealous, immature, insecure, and irresponsible character within the show.
Taylor, Belly’s best friend, develops into a sophisticated young woman, shown through her positive character development. In seasons 1 and 2, Taylor was like a typical teenager who loved hanging out with friends and going to parties. She was always the bestest friend to Belly, but she did exhibit some jealousy towards her. Taylor also had trouble in expressing her feelings and committing to relationships. However, in season 3, we can see a clear shift in Taylor’s mindset. She learns how to put Belly’s needs first, always standing by her side, supporting her, and offering her advice even if Belly is not willing to accept it. She also learns the importance of communicating her feelings after a near death experience of her love interest, Steven, Belly’s brother. She is able to combat her insecurities, and develop a strong, committed relationship with Steven. Additionally, a stark contrast is shown between Taylor and Belly. Taylor becomes way more emotionally mature, moving from her high school mindset into the mindset of a resourceful woman in the adult world. She helps her mother with all of the financial burden she is in and even gives up the money she had been saving up for her dream internship to support her mom with their financial problems. She also prioritizes finding her way in life and figuring herself out before focusing on love and relationships. Taylor inevitably shapes into a mature, confident, and admirable character by the end of season 3.
Our Dislike for Jeremiah and Belly
Jeremiah is arguably the most infuriating character in the entirety of season 3. He acts in the most immature and childish ways, taking everything good he has in his life for granted. First off, Jeremiah’s insecurities regarding Belly cause him to pick petty fights with her. He is never the one to apologize either and always guilt trips Belly, and Belly always has to be the bigger person. He also lies to Belly and cheats on her twice right after, clearly showing how he does not love her like he says he does, and he is incredibly immature and has the values of a teenage boy, despite being an adult. After cheating on Belly, he makes the rash and impulsive decision to propose to her, the literal night after her brother gets into a fatal car accident, taking advantage of her vulnerability at the time. Jeremiah doesn’t want Belly to leave him despite how he actively went behind her back twice and betrayed her, however his ego is too big to want to lose her too. On top of this, as Belly and Jeremiah are planning the wedding, Jeremiah doesn’t even help with the planning and gets mad when the planning isn’t going his way, even though he isn’t even contributing to it. He even throws a whole fit about wanting a “two-tier dark chocolate cake, with raspberry coulis filling and a mirror glaze on top”, and makes passive-aggressive comments to Belly in the process. This cake was $750, which was way out of their budget. Belly tried to offer Jeremiah alternatives, but he whined on about how he wanted this specific cake. It was almost like a mom mothering her child, and it establishes the idea that the basis of Belly and Jeremiah’s relationship is Belly basically mothering Jeremiah 24/7. What is even more incredibly hypocritical is that Jeremiah shows his passion and skill for becoming a chef at the end of the season; he could’ve baked his own cake and saved everyone his tantrums. Jeremiah is even more torturous to Conrad. His jealousy of his brother’s success causes him resentment, and he is not willing to accept the fact that maybe Conrad actually is a much better and well-rounded person than Jermiah ever was. He hates Conrad and treats him like he is nobody. He is also constantly blaming Conrad for getting in the way of him and Belly’s relationship when he isn’t even doing anything. He even beat up Conrad twice within the season because of his jealousy, and treated Conrad like he was some sort of criminal after Jeremiah and Belly’s wedding was called off. All Conrad did to Jeremiah throughout the entirety of the season was show him love and stand by his side, and Jeremiah’s selfishness prevented him from appreciating his older brother.
Belly is absolutely no less than Jeremiah. She has no respect for herself and constantly defends Jeremiah despite his obvious mistreatment of her, puncturing her better, more loving relationships with her friends and family. Belly is a selfish girl who makes things about her all the time. She only cares about her own struggles and doesn’t acknowledge the fact that other people are going through challenges too. For example, she hates Conrad because he left her heartbroken and rejected, but he was literally grieving his dead mother and she didn’t even support him enough. Additionally, she is always venting to Taylor about her boy problems but had no idea about the financial struggles her and her mother were in, and never cared to know about anything that was going on in her best friend’s life. Belly also doesn’t listen to people’s advice and cannot take constructive criticism well. She always thinks that she is right and her decisions are correct, and she is not self aware of her actions at all. When people try to tell her that maybe the things that she is doing are not the best for her, she gets incredibly defensive and in turn sabotages herself. Belly also takes her loved ones completely for granted. She completely disregards her mom because her mom does not want her getting married at the ripe age of 21. Belly is not even willing to hear her mom out because of how stubborn she is, and she continues to throw a whole pity party about how her mom won’t support her own daughter. She also takes her best friend Taylor for granted. Taylor was by Belly’s side for the whole process of Belly’s wedding planning when Belly was completely alone. Additionally, she puts up with Belly’s constant tantrums about her conflicting feelings between Conrad and Jeremiah. On Belly’s wedding day, Taylor tells Belly to not get married to Jeremiah because Taylor can clearly see that Belly is in love with Conrad, but Belly blows up on Taylor and even personally attacks her with something that was not even related to the current situation, which further displays how toxic of a person she is. Last but not least, Belly is incredibly cruel to Conrad. Throughout the entirety of the season, she insults him and blames him for rejecting her every time Conrad tries to be cordial with her, and she is completely unappreciative of all the support he gives her throughout the whole entire season. Additionally, at the end of the season when her and Jeremiah were broken up, she kept confusing Conrad and toying with his emotions before deciding to permanently be with him, showing the brattiness within her.
Conclusion and Final Rating:
I would give season 3 of TSITP a 6.5/10. While the beginning of season started off well in my opinion, I became annoyed by Jeremiah and Belly’s behavior which made the middle/end of the season slow and difficult to watch. I felt like Belly was extremely immature, and felt like I could not relate to any of her decisions – Ayah
I would also give season 3 of TSITP a 6.5/10 because the decisions that many of the characters were making really triggered me. The start of the season was ok, but with Jeremiah cheating on Belly, Belly staying with Jeremiah, Jeremiah proposing to Belly, Belly giving up her life for Jeremiah, Belly treating her mother and best friend horribly, and Belly torturing Conrad, really made it hard for me to want to deal with witnessing all of that. On top of this, Jeremiah completely turned into a horrible person who did things that really made me want to throw something at my TV multiple times. The ending of the season was also very infuriating, because Belly decided to get back with Conrad, then reject him, then get back with him, showing how much of an emotional wreck she is and how she does not deserve someone like him. She has no respect for anyone yet still gets whatever she wants, which really displeases me. – Aanya
