The Summer I Turned Pretty has run out of book events to follow three episodes before the series finale — and the show has already started to tease major changes.
During the Wednesday, August 27, episode of the hit Prime Video series, viewers saw the last few pages of Jenny Han‘s We’ll Always Have Summer adapted from page to screen when Belly (Lola Tung) prepared for her wedding to Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) days after his brother, Conrad (Chris Briney), confessed his feelings to her.
Just like in Han’s third and final book in the series, Belly planned to go through with the nuptials despite her conflicting feelings (and the show mirrored that by finally bringing back her narration). But once Belly told Jeremiah what Conrad did, the groom fled the morning of the wedding.
Conrad was able to track down Jeremiah, which led to a fight that turned physical. It got even worse when Conrad passed on a letter their late mom, Susannah (Rachel Blanchard), wrote for Jeremiah, but as book fans know, there was a mix-up, and Jeremiah instead read the letter from Susannah that she wrote for Conrad about how much he loved Belly.
Ultimately, Jeremiah — with a little help from Taylor Swift‘s “Cardigan” — revealed to Belly that he always knew she spent Christmas with Conrad. That is why he picked a fight before going on the spring break trip where he cheated. He also knew she could never be fully over Conrad, so Jeremiah couldn’t go through with the wedding.
Similar to Han’s book, Belly and Jeremiah officially ended their relationship after Conrad already told her goodbye and left. But We’ll Always Have Summer didn’t reveal anything between the events of Belly and Jeremiah’s almost-wedding day and the epilogue several years later as Belly prepares to get married again.
In the book, Belly gives a general overview of what happened between those two days, but the show went in a different direction. The last few minutes showed Belly packing up her things and leaving Cousins now that she had no future with Jeremiah.
She was then seen at the airport buying a ticket for Paris — where she was ultimately meant to go during next semester. But before she got on the plane, Belly saw Conrad waiting for his plane to Boston.
Let’s briefly suspend our disbelief about an international flight to Paris being one gate over from a local one to Boston to point out there wasn’t ever a moment between Belly and Conrad like that in the book series.
With three episodes still left to go before the finale, there is no telling what will happen next. Han, who is a creator on the hit Prime Video show, previously teased that changes were coming, telling Entertainment Weekly in March, “There are going to be surprises. There are the things that [book fans] know and then there are things they think they know, and then there’s going to be, hopefully, things that surprise them.”
In a separate interview, Tung, 22, showed support for onscreen shakeups.
“The one thing I’ve always admired about Jenny is that every season and every decision about what’s coming next is purely to serve the story,” the actress explained. “She’s never going to do anything that doesn’t make sense for the story.”
Tung continued: “It’s all about this beautiful world she’s created and giving the fans something really, really special and giving us something really special to work with.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty airs on Prime Video Wednesdays.
