Why 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' Finale Feels Like the Last Great Teen Love Story
By Natalie McCarty
"I choose you of my own free will. If there are infinite worlds, every version of me chooses you in every one of them.”
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I have been playing Marvin Gaye’s “Just To Keep You Satisfied” on loop around my home for weeks, preparing for this moment. Nothing prepared me. At one point, I actually held my breath so long I thought I might faint. And yes, I do review films and media for a living. I can’t even begin to count all the things I’ve watched this past month, let alone this past year. And yet, nothing has enraptured me like The Summer I Turned Pretty finale in quite some time.
Last night, I wept over the eleventh and final episode of season three. Full-on, unraveling-in-your-chest sobs, like I was seventeen again. The kind of crying reserved for first loves, heartbreaks, and summers you thought would never end. Mind you, it’s fall. I’m in a happy relationship. I’ve moved past that tangible moment in time. And yet, whenever I watch this show, I am a teenager again: young, new to love and life, unaware of what looms around the corner, naive to the decisions I’ve yet to make. Familiar with grief, unable to measure the scale of love and loss. That is something you only ever feel at the intensity and peak of your final teen years. Nearly impossible to capture in all its nuance, but that’s Jenny Han’s genius. She does it, and she does it well. Her stories take you hostage inside your own adolescence and dare you to feel it all over again.
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When Phoebe Bridgers’ “Scott Street” hit, it was like someone ripped the air out of the room. Lethal. Precise. Perfect. It transported me back to a world of TikTok Normal People edits and crying in my best friend’s car after breaking up with my high school boyfriend. And yet it also carried me somewhere new: mourning myself as the middle schooler devouring Han’s novels under the covers, the high schooler streaming the show like it had been made just for her, and the adult realizing I am no longer a little girl. Of course, I already knew that, but feeling it alongside a story that grew up with me? Surreal. And sobering.
In many ways, I was Belly–same age, same restless heart, same stubborn streak, same awkward confidence, same capacity to love so hard (and so stupidly). Her friendship with Taylor mirrors my bond with my lifelong best friend, Monet, with whom I share the kind of sisterhood that could only be written into your DNA. Belly’s back-and-forth with Steven is my relationship with my brother Ryan, sarcasm laced with unconditional love. But, beyond those personal mirrors, every character felt alive. Every scene hit like a memory from a life I once lived, too.
I know my experience isn’t unique, and that’s precisely why this show became a phenomenon. Every generation has its defining teen mythology. Millennials had The O.C. and Gossip Girl, the late 2000s had Twilight–The Summer I Turned Pretty slots right into that lineage, but it’s different. Softer. Quieter. Tender. Earnest. In 2025, when cynicism dominates media and antiheroes rule the screen, that kind of heartfelt, unabashed earnestness feels radical, and desperately needed.
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Jenny Han elevates small, intimate moments, like sleepovers, family dinners, and car rides into town, into something epic. Something colossal. She insists that the emotions of young women matter, that crushes, heartbreak, friendships are the marrow of becoming. That’s why The Summer I Turned Pretty resonated. Sweetness, sometimes, is radical.
Let media be sweet sometimes! We need it.
And the audience noticed that. The final season’s premiere drew 25 million viewers globally in its first week, a 40 percent jump from season two. The series hit number one on Prime Video in 120 countries. TikTok went insane: every glance between Conrad and Belly was analyzed, remixed, and edited expertly. Team Conrad vs. Team Jeremiah debates roared with the fervor of Edward vs. Jacob all over again. This show was a shared cultural heartbeat.
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And yes, controversial opinion… but I loved the ending. The show diverged from the books, but kept its heart. Belly’s study abroad in Paris gave her the independence the novels only hinted at. Jenny Han wanted a finale that surprised viewers while still feeling inevitable, and she nailed it.
The finale hit me in a way none perhaps have since the True Blood finale, not because the shows are alike, but because of the aftershock: that strange ache of realizing you’ve outgrown a version of yourself. Endings like this close eras of your life. You, along with the characters, don’t step into something better, but you step into something new, something different.
It wasn’t just about Belly choosing Conrad, or saying goodbye to Cousins Beach. It was about letting go of the versions of ourselves who once clung to these stories. Grief and love, failure and growth—they coexist, shape us, direct us to where we’re meant to be. Bob Dylan said it best: “There’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all.”
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I took a second to say anything, because I anticipated more… and, yes, it’s been officially announced that a movie is coming. Han confirmed it in Paris today! Yes, the movie is coming, and fans will scream and cry all over again, but, even with the looming feature to flesh out this story, the conclusion of this series gave me what I didn’t know I was aching for: a reminder that the younger versions of me are still alive, that the emotions I once dismissed as “silly” were anything but. Feel your feelings, girl!
Call it teen fluff. Call it nostalgia. Roll your eyes at romantic melodrama. But for me, and millions of others, it’s bigger than that. This is the last great teen love story of a generation. Cousins Beach, heartbreak, grief, family, first love, growing pains, and the aching beauty of becoming, it’s all here.
You’re not the girl who believed every summer could rewrite your life, but a piece of her still lives inside you.
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Also, for those of you still reeling from last night’s episode, I made a playlist. You can thank me later!
Try A Little Tenderness - TSITP Reflections Playlist
