This article contains spoilers for The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 finale, “At Last.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty fans are either Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah. But there was always a third option lurking in the shadows that everyone seemed to fear going into the series finale: Belly (Lola Tung) choosing herself instead of either Fisher brother.
And ultimately, everyone’s fear came true. Belly did choose herself. But the big twist was that she also chose Conrad (Christopher Briney), because being Team Belly didn’t mean that she would end up alone. That’s why series star Tung wants to know why fans were so afraid of Belly choosing herself throughout the entire final season.
“I understand how obviously passionate people are about the teams, and I’m so grateful that people are even that passionate about the show,” Tung tells Entertainment Weekly. “But I think the fear around this idea of choosing herself, I was like, ‘Why? Why are you scared of that?’ She can’t choose Conrad without choosing herself.”
To be fair, a female protagonist in a love triangle on TV who “chooses herself” has historically meant she rejects both love interests, leaving fans feeling unsatisfied after watching the back-and-forth relationship drama play out for seasons. It’s a trope seen in Beverly Hills, 90210, The Bold Type, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and The Good Wife, to name just a few. But Tung loves how The Summer I Turned Pretty actually laid the groundwork for Belly choosing herself and choosing love throughout the final season.
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“Like Jeremiah [Gavin Casalegno] said to Belly, like, ‘I don’t want some of you. I want all of you,’ you can’t expect all of a person,” Tung says. “That’s not fair and that’s not possible. Having her go to Paris and take time away from everything that just happened and meet new people and live her life and figure out who she is without the boys is essential to the story and to her growth and to her being with Conrad. She couldn’t do that without being secure in her own identity and her own life and other relationships.”
Tung argues that Belly actually couldn’t make the right decision about her love life without putting herself first — a lesson she hopes viewers take to heart. “She has to choose herself — there’s no doubt about that,” she adds. “I’m so grateful that Sydney Bucksbaum Jenny [Han] wrote these episodes of her being in Paris and then of them having this really mature conversation because you can tell from that they’ve grown and they’ve both done the work and that she has chosen herself. So I don’t think there’s anything to be scared of with that sentence of, ‘She’s going to choose herself’ … and? Okay, great!”
By the end of the finale, Belly learned to love herself, forgive herself, and accept that she deserves love despite everything that happened in the past. It was this epiphany that led her to finally declare her love for Conrad (after sprinting through the streets of Paris, as one does in an epic romance). It’s similar to how Han’s book, We’ll Always Have Summer, ends, albeit with the story expanded to really drive home the point that Belly can have it all.
“In choosing Conrad, she’s choosing herself, because she’s honoring the self that has always loved him,” Han explains. “As she’s looking at that little girl version of herself and feeling tenderness towards that little girl — that’s something important to remember for adults too — to have a little grace for yourself. We all have that little person inside of ourselves, and she’s having that reminder in that moment, and in doing so she’s able to remember what she’s always known. We do hear Susannah [Rachel Blanchard] say that she’s always been a girl who knows her own heart, and that is knowing her own heart.”
And that means that, yes, Belly was always going to end up with Conrad — sorry, Team Jeremiah fans. It’s always been baked into the DNA of the story, in both the books and the TV show. However, Han did keep her mind open when beginning to develop the onscreen adaptation on who Belly could eventually end up with … and then she realized pretty quickly that her ending wasn’t going to change.
Prime Video
“I knew going into it that it was Conrad, but I’m always open as a storyteller,” Han says. “To see, in terms of before we started the show, what feels right. And I really from the get go felt between Belly and Conrad and then through Lola and Chris’ performances that that connection was really undeniable. I also really wanted to honor the story that I wrote and all the fans who really love that story.”
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That said, Han loves how passionate — and hopeful — Team Jeremiah fans have been throughout the three seasons, despite knowing they were likely destined for disappointment.
“To me, it’s a compliment that people love Jeremiah and continue to love Jeremiah, because I think he’s a great character,” Han explains.
Just … not for Belly.
