So, in the end, it’s just been about Belly getting that beach house all along, right?
I kid, partially. After seasons of beachy fun, ship wars, and the hottest real estate in Cousins making us enviable, The Summer I Turned Pretty finally concludes (sort of).
And it’s about as unfulfilling as I imagined, assuming you’ve been following my criticisms of this season.
TSITP Bulldozes Through the Finale
It’s beating a dead horse, but this season was incredibly rushed.
Ironically, despite having more episodes, it didn’t make the best use of them, and spent more time relying on time jumps or flashbacks to do most of the heavy lifting for the story.
And that truly came to a head in the finale. However, it turns out the joke may have been on us, as we’re now getting a “gotcha” movie in the works. Truthfully, that only gets under my skin regarding the storytelling even more.
I went into the season curious about how they’d set up the big Bonrad reunion — genuinely wanting to see how this romance could come to fruition in a strong way that wouldn’t disrupt everything.
I know this series is a romance, and I’ve never been opposed to any of the relationships on this show, as I’ve always wanted to enjoy the journey.
But there was no journey for Belly and Conrad. They spent more time using other characters and dialogue to tell us why this pairing is an endgame than showing us.
Because Infinity … That’s It
As the credits rolled, and we saw pictures of the happy couple spending Christmas together in Paris, I was still no closer to understanding why they had to be together at this stage of their lives than I was at the beginning of the season.
If anything, I felt less for them by the end than I did going into this. Contrary to popular belief, I do love Conrad, and I don’t begrudge Bonrad shippers of their endgame.
The allure of the pairing in the first season was strong enough, but it faded, and I’m still waiting for a real understanding of why Belly loves Conrad beyond the crush she had as a child, because we’ve seen her say the same things about Jeremiah.
And there’s nothing that can convince me that Belly, what? Suffered some form of transference? That requires us to invalidate their long-term relationship and connection they teased before Susannah’s death.
After practically six years of pining and some unspoken vow of celibacy, Conrad is immersed in Belly’s world, finally getting to see her as something other than she was as a teenager, which did culminate with their HOTTEST sex scene yet.
But beyond the chemistry in those moments, we still never actually learn why Conrad has loved her so much that he hasn’t been able to let go or attempt to move on.
It’s such an unusual choice to ultimately conflate addiction, obsession, and nostalgia with the concept of “infinite love.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty Never Actually Allows Conrad to Grow
This final episode should’ve done a lot of heavy lifting in regards to selling their love story in a way that feels earned and healthy, and it didn’t.
It’s been a rough season for Conrad, but that’s largely because by the end of the series, the powers that be are so confident in Conrad’s status as the ideal romantic leading man that they had little interest in elevating him.
He doesn’t have to evolve, just exist. And, no, him claiming he changed everything about himself (is the change in the room with us, or?) isn’t sufficient.
Conrad starts the series on a pedestal and ends it on one. It’s not a great character journey. And the proof is in how they frame all of the things he may have to work on.
His only canon flaws are his inability to communicate effectively and his tendency to be avoidant. But all of his supposed “growth” in these areas happens offscreen in the final season.
And the only application of it relates exclusively to Belly, which does not make it easy to acknowledge if she’s his only driving force for doing anything.
She can be a force, but not the only one. His relationships with other characters who aren’t Belly still suffer, and he hasn’t improved when it comes to them, so is it truly growth?
Conrad improving in these areas should be for CONRAD, not for the sole purpose of “earning” Belly, and that’s where a fairly compelling character at the beginning of the series stalls.
The execution of this doesn’t do the best job of selling his evolution, which is why it feels like an illusion rather than a reality. However, much of the series falls into this dichotomy: fantasy versus reality.
Bonrad’s Reunion Was Giving Awkward AF
So, Conrad’s sudden appearance in Belly’s life was jarring and uncomfortable. Much of that is because his behavior evoked Lifetime thriller more than Hallmark romance.
But we’re to perceive Conrad’s consistent issue of not respecting boundaries and doing things on his terms (sending letters and going to Paris) as him finally showing her consistency and showing up for her.
We’re to read Belly’s discomfort as her guarding her heart and being unable to let down her walls because she’s still insecure about Conrad. We know this is the intention because that’s what we’re told, but, again, it doesn’t necessarily evoke that onscreen.
By the time they got to her apartment, it felt like she was trying to get him out of her system, and that was fine. The sex scene was hot, but then TSITP treats this argument/conversation (and the one of them talking about prom) to handwave through all of their issues.
And now, through the magic of television and Laurel sending Belly a baby picture ( I still assumed she was waiting on a text from Jeremiah), Belly’s epiphany is that the old version of her — the person she was evolving from — is just dandy, and so is reverting back to this relationship.
If the most significant criticism is that Conrad and Belly’s dynamic has been so deeply rooted in the past, doubling down on that further to the point of undermining Belly’s Paris arc and evolution misses the mark.
Every single conversation and interaction they had was nostalgic. Every. Single. One.
They don’t even know who they are anymore as adults, and Conrad spending a day in Belly’s Parisian life doesn’t fix that when he spent the whole season obsessed with her despite only seeing her roughly once in four years.
Everything is Trying to Tell the Story, But the Writing
If there was any avenue in which the series explored who this pairing is without Junior Mint and infinity, it could make their romance so much more satisfying.
Watching them come together, I didn’t want to feel like Conrad had worn Belly down, and in the absence of choice, she submitted to Conrad.
Yet, that’s what it feels like (her asserting that she chooses him of her own free will when we’ve seen her “choose” his brother repeatedly isn’t the vote of confidence that they think).
Instead, it feels like they try to get ahead of criticisms (Conrad telling Belly that his love for her isn’t due to grief for Susannah — but … still Susannah’s prophesy and fantasy, right?) rather than building on their own foundation.
When it comes to Belly and Conrad’s love story, TSITP relies too heavily on time jumps, flashbacks, throwaway lines, and its expensive music catalogue to tell the story that it won’t show us. All of these should be narrative tools to enhance, not substitutions.
That type of narrative shortcutting and execution is genuinely frustrating if you want to follow an actual story, rather than just get to the endgame.
Proof of that is how unsatisfying Belly and Conrad’s ending would have been had we not learned about a movie. Right?
The Finale Attempts to Address Anticipatory Arguments Rather Than Deliver on Its Narrative Content
Now, we’re expecting a two-hour movie to do even more work because they devoted more time to making Belly and Jeremiah a more convincing love story, simply because we got to actually see more of how it unfolded than we did why it unraveled.
In reality, a tacked-on film still won’t build on Belly and Conrad’s development at all, it’ll ust get us to the perfect ending.
The idea is that Belly finally realizes that she can be both Belly and Isabel, that she can stop running from who she was, and that old Belly was good enough, too. Apparently, it’s about her overcoming her insecurities and embracing herself.
Truthfully, that sounds pretty, but it doesn’t feel validated by such a rush job in her journey this season. It also still makes me sad about her own identity issues.
Why? Because, to the very end, it still feels like Belly isn’t her own person; she’s just this extension of the things Susannah projected onto her.
Susannah Still Haunts the Narrative and Hijacks Belly’s Identity
It always feels like Belly is the girl who was shaped and groomed in Susannah’s image. Susannah’s wish fulfillment. And … the finale doesn’t actually dispute that.
She was marrying one of the Fisher brothers. And she went off on an adventure and had fun with a boy, just as Susannah had told her to.
Now, she’s back at the magical place of Cousins, the Parisian version of herself a wistful memory she checked off a list, and this Susannah-like version of her is there, and she’s with Conrad, whom she pledged to always look after, on the cusp of marrying the preferred Fisher brother.
Even Belly’s attempt at finding herself plays right into her walking the path that Susannah wanted for her, and subscribing to a similar fantasy that Susannah upheld.
And while, presumably, we’re to believe that Belly finally returning to Cousins and to that house she covets and promised to keep alive with Conrad beside her is just representative of them arriving for a summer together ahead of everyone else, it was still striking to me.
If it’s just them, it only highlights how they can’t seem to function unless they’re consumed with each other, and it tends to be at the expense of all their other dynamics.
Isolation, Consumption, Nostalgia, Bonrad Lose Themselves in Each Other
There is no universe, and nearly enough time jumps in existence to fix their dynamic with the rest of their family and friends in a realistic way. They don’t even fit in with the core friend group anymore.
It also affirms that the summer house is THEIRS now. Similar to how it became Susannah’s with her family, but not Julia’s, despite her equal ownership.
Surely, they knew about this film as they were putting this finale together, but it still doesn’t justify the unsatisfying nature of this.
In some ways, they squandered a super-sized season and a finale just because a movie was coming, and that’s wasteful.
Belly and Conrad were so alone in their arc (their “forcefield” is an isolating bubble that leeps everyone else out), and none of their other dynamics seemed to matter.
But their entire arc has them clinging to the past, romanticizing nostalgia. Whereas everyone else got to move on and forward. The contrast in the messaging is jarring.
Bonrad Movie? Meh.
Taylor and Steven’s bickering was contrived, but it at least shows how much they’ve evolved as a couple, with their personal achievements providing balance to their love story.
As a side note, it still frustrates me that we never got to see Conrad thriving professionally, nor learn much about Belly’s professional life, beyond the all-consuming nature of their romance.
Ironically, if that was the primary issue with her dynamic with Jeremiah, it isn’t rectified here either. It still defines Belly most by who she is with — defines them both by who they’re with — because anything outside of moving them like chess pieces toward one another wasn’t worthy of screentime.
Staylor & Jerenise Dramedy? Sign Me Up
Miraculously, even Jeremiah and Denise evolved effectively in two episodes.
It still feels like the series felt compelled to give him someone as a consolation prize, to perhaps make his “moving on” an easier transition for the main couple, when it’s entirely unrealistic.
And they also undermine him a bit when Jeremiah notes how he’s never been alone, and has a genuine fear about that, only for them to initiate his next romance that will likely take him to California with the others.
But whatever, their chemistry is great, so it works.
Meanwhile, Jeremiah, despite some weirdness with his characterization, still emerged in this final season as the only character who had a full-fledged, cohesive arc of evolution and development from beginning to end.
The irony of this Bonrad Movie is that, by now, I’m actually more interested in the Gen Z version of the Friends dynamic, featuring Steven, Taylor, Denise, and Jeremiah in California, who are taking the gaming, PR, and culinary worlds by storm.
Steven and Taylor bickering in the kitchen while Jeremiah was literally trying to cook? Comedic greatness.
And if they have a dash of Adam and Laurel secretly hooking up, thrown in for good measure, because the Conklin women love revisiting the past, I’m here for the entertainment.
Whether you enjoyed my TSITP thoughts or loathed them (I’ve seen it all), it was still a pleasure talking all things The Summer I Turned Pretty with you all. 💙
Let’s keep the conversation going — it’s the only way the good stuff survives.
Say something in the comments, share if you’re moved to, and keep reading. Independent voices need readers like you.
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