Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Summer I Turned Pretty

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

The TV series The Summer I Turned Pretty features a messy love triangle, plenty of drama, and a LOT of Taylor Swift songs. The show has become a word-of-mouth sensation, with fans obsessing over whether they’re Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah. Now in its final season, the Prime Video series is based on a series of books by Jenny Han (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, XO Kitty).To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The TV series The Summer I Turned Pretty has become a word-of-mouth sensation, with fans obsessing over the show's central love triangle. As the show approaches the end of its third and final season, it's time to break down some of its messy dramas and explore how one TV show can afford all that Taylor Swift music. I'm Stephen Thompson. Today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we are gearing up for the finale of the summer I Turned Pretty

and determining whether we're team-com. Ronrad or Team Jeremiah. Joining us today is NPR Music reporter Isabella Gomez Sarmiento. Hey, Isabella. Hello, Stephen. How many people call you Belly? No one. Thankfully, no one.

Oh, my God. And I would correct them if they did. I'm happy for you. If that's what you want, that's what I want. Also with us is co-host of Slate's I see YMI podcast and former pop culture happy hour producer, Candace Lim. Hey, Candice. Hello.

It is a pleasure to have you both here. So the summer I Turned Pretty is based on a best-selling trilogy of books by Jenny Han. Both the books and the TV show tell the story of a young woman named Belly, who's coming of age alongside two brothers named Conrad and Jeremiah. Their families are deeply intertwined by lifelong friendship, but as the kids get older, their romantic entanglements grow increasingly complicated, forming a love triangle that threatens to shatter lifelong bonds. Lola Tung plays Belly.

As season three begins, she's in college and happily dating Jeremiah, who's played by Gavin Castellano. Conrad is played by Christopher Briney. He's moved across the country to pursue his dreams of becoming a doctor. But old feelings aren't so easily buried, especially once Belly and Jeremiah announced their plans to get married. The Summer I Turned Pretty is streaming now on Prime Video, and we should mention that Amazon supports NPR and pays to distribute some of our content. Isabella, I'm going to start with you. What do you think of the summer I turned pretty? Unfortunately, I am upset. with this show. I am obsessed. That's right. Speak on it. I think about it all the time.

I wake up possessed on Wednesday mornings to watch the new episode. And then I'm watching Team Connie Baby edits for the rest of my week. So safe to say, I love this show. And to be fair, I'm not going out of my way to watch this. The algorithm has gotten so powerful that it knows I love a male character written by a woman whose entire purpose is to yearn. Conrad does a lot of yearning this season. My TikTok algorithm, it's just clips of Conrad with like role model songs over it. And I quite enjoy it. He has definitely perfected sulking while sneering.

Totally. It is truly a gift. Okay. So you are pro, this show and fully obsessed. And we'll get to this, but you are Team Conrad. I am Team Connie Baby. Confirmed, yes. All right.

I'm here as a journalist gathering information. As you should. Candice Lim, what do you think of the show? First off. Team Connie Baby, don't get me started. I'm Team Connie Baby, clerk it. And so my situation is that I actually really resisted this show for the first two seasons. I knew it was happening.

I actually read the books like when I was 12, but I didn't really love them because they were just like so much going on all the time. But look, I am in the Jenny Han universe, right? Exo Kitty to all the boys I loved before. I'm familiar with her work. I clocked into season three not only because I had nothing better to do, but also because I feel like there was just so much steam coming off season two, this built-up anticipation that I was seeing on social media on all of my timelines that I was like, honestly,

I could use some community right now. I could use something to get excited about, something to get feral about, something to, like, talk to strangers about at bars, which is something that has happened to me all summer. And so I bench-watched the first two seasons, have been watching season three, and I officially wake up every Wednesday going,

it's rage bait Wednesday, guys. And what I do, first thing in the morning, 6 a.m. I watch it. I watch the whole thing, right? Text my friend. I have been going to watch parties every single Wednesday at this bar in L.A. Fun fact, the music supervisor for the show actually went to one. It was very cute. Went to one last night. We will get to the music of this show. Yeah, I have a lot of questions. That music supervisor has a lot to answer for, such as where did you get all that money? Go ahead. I know. And I have been going to these watch parties to rewatch it again with more people because the reactions, the way people really watch this like sport in a way. way that is somewhere between like a political debate and literally like the Super Bowl has been so fun. And I think that is actually one of the things about the show. This is a show where I actually

love the audience and community even more than the show. I got to be honest, show sometimes bad. And that's okay. We move on. We're obsessed. And I think it's because the show is not candy. It is ice cream. It is smooth. You really have to be in the mood for it. One bite is enough to keep you interested. And you keep it in the freezer for a reason. Because mommy's going back. Okay. And there are some people, like with ice cream, who need to take pills in order to consume it. Hell yeah. Correct, Jeremiah. Just kidding.

All right. I'm late to this show. I'm also, some might say, outside of this show's target demographic, though I am as a music guy and as a person who covers the billboard charts as part of his gig, fascinated by this show's deployment of music, which is very, very aggressive and extremely. dreamly well-funded. It's one of the first things that really jumps out about this show is that, like, there's Taylor Swift in almost every episode, but there are also huge hits by Olivia Rodriguez and Harry Stiles. It definitely feels like the height of the Billboard charts, circa 2022 or 2023, which is to be expected. There's always kind of a long runway in the making of any TV show. And I definitely found, as I tuned into this show, I was able to kind of immediately lie.

in to the mix of high drama and low stakes. And, you know, any love triangle, the writer is going to have to kind of have machinations in order to level the playing field. And so it might seem like one brother is zooming way out ahead of the other brother. Well, we're going to have to kneecap the brother that's in the lead and make that person much less likable. And so, you know, they're kind of constantly toggling back and forth between the two. And I did find myself engrossed by it.

I will say, and I want to get your thoughts on this, the first season of this show is seven episodes long. And that was from 2022. The second season from 2023, eight episodes. Yeah. This season, this third and final season, is 11 episodes, and they are long. Very. The penultimate episode of the series is 71 minutes long.

Yes. Does this show feel bloated to you? Absolutely. Yeah. I will say like, because I also like Candace read the books when I was younger, I kind of have some recollection of what happens, but not entirely because I was like 13. Yeah. There is so much going on that feels so unnecessary and it almost always feels like they're saving

the stuff that you actually care about until the very end, which I understand because they're trying to keep you hooked. They want to keep you guessing for what's happening next week. But there are so many characters and storylines I frankly could like walk away from and return and would just not care about anything that I missed at all. It feels very, very bloated. Yeah, Cam Cameron, shout out to him. What about Taylor's mom's hair salon? Oh, my God, not the Lucinda. Not the Lucinda. I do not speak of Lucinda. Um, no, I think you're right, Stephen, when I talk to my friends about this show, a lot of times we'll go like, that was a filler episode,

that was a filler character. I think what I have been feeling personally is that if I were to rank the seasons in terms of how much I love him, season three for me is number one. I've been loving it. I think everything is doing something to move the plot forward. I love it. Season one is my second choice. Season two, I hate. Season two, I hate because, hate, H, because season one and season three are really about summer. We're living in it. Day one, we land at cousins. We're in the beach house. We're having a time. We're going to the pool. Conrad. And it happens very linearly. Season two, there's a few things that happens. First off, spoiler, Susanna, who is the mother of Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher. she does succumb to cancer and she passes away. But we don't watch her die. We watch people talk about her after the fact. And season two, this is really weird thing where all of the biggest moments, this is, I'm just going to say it, Belly and Conrad having their first time, this is Susanna dying, this is everything that happened in a problem that led to Belly and Conrad's breakup.

All of these big moments happen in flashbacks. And so it almost feels like we're catching up on a friend who clearly has done so much and not told us. and we feel really left out. In a way, the show became a game again where a season two felt like a recap, you know? Season two is also bogged down in, like, the fate of the house. Real estate law. That's all they talked about.

Kira Sedgwick, like, thank you so much for appearing. Take your check and go home. Evan. It's interesting. I realized, you know, we've talked about the show this long enough. I never actually answered the question of whether I am Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah. Oh, oh, I'm so scared right now. I'm so scared.

So I am on team you've got your whole life ahead of you. Okay, Val and say that. So I'm on team Laurel, who is Bully's mom, played by Jackie Chung. Laurel, definitely the character I found myself relating to the most, which, you know, is to be expected. I'm coming into this show, you know, from a different generational perspective. But I eventually just found both of these boys to be total drips. Probably Jeremiah more than Conrad. Jeremiah is, I mean, he is the younger brother.

but he is the one who seems far less ready to be married. Yes. And it's kind of a bigger baby. Well, no, that's not true. They both are. He's a louder baby. Right. He's a screaming baby and Conrad is a sulking baby.

Correct. I will say, like, one of the funest things about, like, watching this show as a community, both online and, like, going into watch parties, is, look, let's talk about the last episode we all watched, which was when Belly is fully in Paris. She is emerged. She's French. The part of the episode, which I really actually. thought was my favorite episode of the season. The part of the episode that the entire house just

cheered like crazy ding dong ding dong is when Belly chooses neither Jeremiah or Conrad and she makes out with this very intriguing man named Benito and she really in that moment kind of chooses herself. And I think that is actually very emblematic of what the discourse is really around and what the show is actually really about, which is team Jeremiah and team Conrad as a conflict. I think think it is a distraction from what the show really is trying to do and say, which is this show is not about them. This show is about belly. And the frustration that we feel both as viewers and critics is that we are watching

someone for three seasons not only take a long time to finally turn pretty, but we're also watching someone constantly choose not themselves or choose the option that us as older people would not want ourselves to choose. And I think in that way, there is something so fiery about this season, which is that I think they're landing the plane. I think I like her going to Paris. I like what's happening. I'm hearing that there are some diversions right now between, like, the book and what happens there and what happens here. And I think that's exciting and kind of interesting because when Jenny first wrote the book way back then, a different time.

Apparently they were all white. That's a whole other thing. But now we're kind of in different territory. And I like that. I like that energy. I agree completely. I feel like for a protagonist of a show, Belly has had the least character development of almost anyone in these series.

And I feel like we know very little about her to have watched this many hours of her life. And it's been so frustrating to watch her entire personality revolve around these two boys. I mean, also the fact that their brothers were not even going to get into that. But that is quite crazy. And the fact that they've all known each other since early childhood, which how would they not seem like cousins or stepbrothers to you? But anyway, go ahead. I agree. In my mind, they're all related and this whole thing is weird. However, I've been waiting for Belly to, A, develop a personality and B, think about anything other than these two men for all three seasons, which is why I've also, I love the Paris episode. I loved when she told her new hot fling that he needed to leave because she wanted to sleep in her bed and her apartment alone for the first time. That was actually, like, so moving. And I do think something I loved about the Paris episode, I think there's been a lot of, criticism throughout the show of how they dress belly. I think there's been a lot of like

comments on her fashion, the fact that it feels like she's just dressing to trends. Sometimes the clothes fit her a little bit strange. Like something has been a little bit off about the way that she's dressed for most of the show. And this episode, she has like face framing layers. She's wearing lipstick. Her clothes are significantly more grown up. Like you see that she's finding herself reflected in all of these different ways, not just in her decisions, but like how she's presenting herself to the world. And also, I really appreciate that she's not just like having a blast and everything's easy and perfect for her in Paris. She's, like, struggling a little bit.

And that growth is so important to this character that, like, we haven't seen that for her at all. I think you've both touched on something that's really, really important about this story. And why I agree with you so wholeheartedly that it's so important to get her to Paris and dating somebody other than one of these two jokers is what these two boys, and I'm going to keep calling them boys, even though they're played by, like, 27-year-olds. whatever, that Conrad and Jeremiah represent idealized visions from her childhood. They represent a subconscious and maybe even conscious decision to cling to what you have always known.

And you cannot, maybe you can, but it is a long, long road. It's very, very hard to live like a fully realized life when everything stays rooted in your childhood. there are just going to be parts of you that don't grow and develop. And so the fact that for so much of this series, she views the world as a binary choice between these two guys who are so similar, they share DNA. And like, you need to get out and meet other people and find out what you want. Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. And in that way, I mean, this show always reminds me of another Love Triangle teen drama, also filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is, One Tree Hill. And I think so much of what propelled that show forward was also when all these characters finally leave, even if we don't see them far away and, like, they eventually do return to this place, which I'm sure we'll maybe see a return to Cousins' Rebelly at some point. But yeah, I think the like going out, seeing the world, meeting other people, becoming your

own person, has been really missing for so much of the show. And it's so refreshing that we finally are getting to see that. This show has needed a rum springer for a while. There is something very incestuous about the way that. that Susanna to me was very like, I made my boys for you, Belly. I have presented you the best option and then she dies and then she's like,

you figure it out. But, yeah, I think actually now that I think about it, the show is also not even about Belly. It's really about what Belly could become, which in our perfect world, the person we root for. The version of her we want her to be is the Laurel of her life,

is the Susanna of her life. And once again, Conrad and Jeremiah, it's not about them. But we love to talk about them. I do think the biggest, love story in this entire show is Laurel and Zuzana. And I'm sometimes sad we don't get to see more of Laurel's grief. Because I saw TikTok that was like they soul-made it so hard.

They passed it down to their kids. And I was like, yeah, that is really accurate. Like it was always them. And like the fallout of that, I wish we saw more of, but not the point of the show, I guess. I guess. One last question that I wanted to ask is just in general about the music because the music is, in a way, a character on the show. I mean, it's almost like Taylor Swift as a character on this show. There are so many Taylor Swift songs.

Where do you two come down on the way this show deploys music? Because in its own way, as colossal as its music budget is, the music can be as on the nose as the music in Love is Blind. Yeah. We're like, oh, he slept with a character named Lacey. Now we're going to hear Olivia Rodriguez song Lacey about how she's jealous of a woman named Lacey. It's too much. Do you ever find maybe

this show has too big a music budget? Absolutely. I mostly hate the music on the show. I often find myself groaning at the needle drops because they're too on the nose. And I think like, I don't know. I really believe in music and film being a way to discover music.

And sometimes to me it feels a little bit lazy that it's just like Jeremiah and belly kissing for the first time. And are we still friends by Tyler? The creator starts playing. It's just a little too obvious. And I feel like the music has to actually do something for itself other than reinforce what we're already seeing and hearing the characters say to each other.

And to me, historically, the show has failed to do that a lot. And I find the music to be mostly annoying. But I will say there have been moments, especially in season three, that I've appreciated the needle drops. I mean, the false god with Conrad and Belly. Oh, my God. That was great. The wild horses during the peach scene.

That episode in particular, I feel like it did something really interesting, bringing in the Rolling Stones and all of this older music to the Belly Conrad's storyline and trying to frame their love is like timeless almost rather than present and like youthful as it does with the music with Jeremiah and Belly. So like there are interesting decisions

but overall I find the music to be completely overwhelming. And also it moves too fast. I feel like there have been moments where it's like needle drop, one line, another needle drop. Like the pacing of the music I find to be very frustrating. Music can turn the stakes up. This show in general, the low stakes.

This girl is. is just trying to go to Paris. All these people will be fine. Absolutely. They're going to go to cousins and they're going to leave cousins and we're all cousins. But I think the show,

that's kind of the engine that it pulls. It's like it's trying to tune you in. Even in those seconds when you lose out and you're like starting to fade, they're like, oh, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift. And I think that's why people watch it. I mean, to be fair,

when I rewatch the show, I leave it on my like TV, I just let it go. And sometimes I will like turn my head because I'm like, oh my God, they just played the one by Taylor Swift. And I'm like, dance moment. continue back to work.

I have such a love-hate relationship with the way that this show deploys music. Yeah. But at the same time, sometimes it's really effective. Yeah. If you were just, like, looking to marinate in, you know, like what people are actually listening to, this is a good way to do it. I do think it's fascinating. The way that Amazon is set up, you know, because this show airs on Amazon Prime. And when you pause it, you know, you not only have the opportunity to buy products, but you'll get, like, here's the actor who plays the character that's in this.

scene, here's the song that is playing right now. And so there are so many needle drops that it's nice to be able to kind of pause and be like, wait, who is this? A soundtrack album for this show would be like a 20 hour. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I've been thinking a lot and asking around, trying to figure out why this summer, the summer of 2025, is the reason that like this show has really exploded into this, like, Team Conrad, Team Jeremiah, 24-7, 365. sphere, especially online. I have two thoughts and definitely give me your theories as well. My first is just that I wonder if the love triangle is something that as a pop culture, media-infested society, we haven't fully felt satisfied with. The first being like, is it that this is the

closest thing we have to challengers, a movie I still love? Is it that materialist, which came out earlier this summer, did that leave us unsatisfied and we just wanted to take that energy and put it somewhere else? I've been thinking a little bit about, is it possible that that this is a show that kind of posits two people, Conrad and Jeremiah, like candidates with no election with no politics to it in a way that I actually compare a lot to American Idol, where, you know, it didn't really matter if David Cook or David Archiletta won, both of them would walk with a record deal, but also they wouldn't necessarily change the state of our country. And I think in a similar way, like Conrad and Jeremiah, they live inside this box called my Amazon Prime account. And no matter what they do, no matter what Belly does, it's not even actually up to me. There is a loss of agency from the audience because the show is written, the show is made, the show is done, and it's going to upload what it uploads. And so I was thinking about that.

But then I was also thinking about the fact that, like, is it possible that right now the TV landscape is really flooded with a lot of like highbrow stuff, right? Like the bear severance, the last of us. Those are shows that really take up the oxygen. Is it possible that the show has a gravitational pull because it feels like that. like happy hour. Like you can walk in, not be prepared. You don't need to be deeply informed on the lore. You don't need to be in the subreddits. There is something very calming in this time in this summer in this year of like having a show that's a weekly drop that has this baseline for everyone to kind of congregate around. And then on top of that, the TikToks, which Isabella, I'm on the same

timeline as you, babes, where just it never stops. I think about it all the time. And it feeds me in a way where I am not full, you know? I think the escapism is a huge part of it. Yeah. I think the very competitive nature of the love triangle and not to get too deep into it, but the different kinds of masculinity that Conrad and Jeremiah presents, I think is something that, like, it's just really compelling to, like, have this thing that you're invested in and you're cheering for someone.

But, yeah, it's just, like, not that deep. And it's not, like, making this huge commentary on capitalism and labor and all of these bigger things that, like, that's the real world. You know, it's kind of like Emily and Paris, like, smooth brain, happy hour. Like, I just want to turn on the little show. What about the girl wearing the little outfits and these boys? And honestly, I don't see how this show can end well because to me, like, the brothers of it all is just like, there's no bouncing back from that. I know.

It's toxic, but, like, I can't look away. For my part, I just boil it down to four words. High drama, low stakes. Absolutely. All right. Well, we want to know what you think about the summer I turned pretty. find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash PCH. That brings us to the end of our show.

Candice Lim, Isabella Gomez Sarmiento. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Liz Metzker, and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In, provides our theme music. One more thing, these days, a lot of listeners are asking us how they can support the show,

and there is a super easy, totally free thing. you can do. It takes literally two minutes. Go into the podcast app where you're listening to right now and rate and review this show. That's it. Doing that helps other people find Pop Culture Happy Hour. That helps us keep going. Thank you so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson and we will see you all next time.