“You can’t marry me to erase him,” was the line that set me off. Okay, fine: I was already weeping at the opening credits. Yes, I’m talking about the show that has reduced so many of us to lovestruck teenage girls with too many feelings: The Summer I Turned Pretty.
In case you’ve missed the hype because you’ve been busy living in the real world (where brothers don’t fight over the same girl and no self-respecting adult calls themselves “Belly”), please allow me to catch you up. Based on Jenny Han’s novel trilogy of the same name, the coming-of-age drama follows Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Lola Tung) and the summer holidays she spends in the fictional seaside town of Cousins with the Fisher brothers, Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno).
Alongside Belly’s older brother, Steven (Sean Kaufman), and Belly’s best friend, Taylor (Rain Spencer), the central trio have grown up together. But the series begins when–as the title suggests–Belly, on the brink of her 16th birthday, “turns pretty” (I know) and subsequently captures the romantic attention of both brothers. A love triangle soon forms, with all of the accompanying archetypes and tropes.
What follows are all the makings of a gripping tale. There’s transcendental yearning (Belly has had a crush on Conrad since she was 10), ricocheting allegiances (one episode you’re team Jeremiah and the next you’re team Conrad), and one pivotal tragedy (the Fishers’ mother, Susannah, dies of cancer in between the show’s first and second season. We’re now on season three).
The show might sound like it’s for children, because it sort of is—Han’s books are categorized as “Young Adult”—but that hasn’t stopped the series from capturing the hearts and souls of millions of millennials like me. The first two episodes of the third season, which will be the show’s last, drew in 25 million viewers and, according to the New York Times, its main audience is 25 to 54-year-old women. Almost every friend I’ve seen or spoken to in the past week has mentioned TSITP at least once. Have I seen the latest episode? I watch them first thing Wednesday morning. Which brother do I fancy? Conrad. Why do we all suddenly want to learn how to surf? Also Conrad.
On TikTok, there are endless videos featuring fan theories and commentary that have garnered thousands of views. There are viral TSITP-themed bachelorettes, as well as watch parties and even Cousins-style dinners (love triangle linguine, anyone?). Then there are the Reddit threads; one of the most popular is titled: “I need someone to yearn for me like Conrad.”
So ardent and extensive is the TSITP fanbase that Amazon even told them to calm down. “The show isn’t real but the people playing the characters are,” wrote the streaming giant in an official statement published across the show’s social media accounts and accompanied by a video graphic that read: “The summer we started acting normal online.” The actors have also spoken out about some of the opprobrium they’ve faced, with Casalegno reminding the New York Times that he is not his character: “It’s important to understand and realize that this is a fictional story.” Meanwhile, last Sunday, Briney’s girlfriend, Isabel Machando, posted an image of herself on Instagram calling herself a “person with feelings.”
What’s going on here? Have we all been brainwashed in some kind of evil genius, Josie and the Pussycats-inspired scheme? Or is this just one of those timeless stories that has somehow tapped into a set of universal truths that perfectly capture what it means to be human? As someone who was extremely skeptical at first (did I mention that the main character is called Belly?), I can now confidently say I believe it to be the latter. That, and the way the show manages to seamlessly blend nostalgia with romantic intensity, offering a comforting kind of escapism that reminds us all of how we behaved at that age.
Despite being a current show, I do think there’s something definitively millennial—both tonally and plot-wise—about the whole thing. Consider the TV shows and films we were raised on: Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, The OC, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill… love triangles (particularly between two brothers) were an integral part of our cultural diet. “It becomes a real talking point of ‘which team are you on?’ and makes you much more invested in the characters because you’re rooting for your ‘team,’” says Holly, 30.
It’s worth pointing out, too, that Han’s books were first published in 2009, 2010, and 2011—so, when a lot of millennials were teenagers. “It reminds me of being that age and all of the comfort teenage shows and rom-coms I loved,” adds Holly. “With the current state of the world, maybe a lot of us want to feel like we’re 16 again.”
It’s mammoth success could also be partly attributed to the fact that episodes are released weekly rather than all at once—a rare but clever tactic that both builds anticipation and harks back to how shows operated when we were younger. “Back then, we had to wait weeks to find out what was going to happen in our favorite programs,” says Jenna, 40. “And in the meantime, we’re having conversations with people, seeing reactions online, and experiencing delayed gratification rather than binging in a day. Watching new episodes becomes an occasion.”
Then there’s the soundtrack, which has thus far featured no fewer than 20 Taylor Swift songs across the three seasons, not to mention tracks by Olivia Rodrigo, Phoebe Bridgers, and Gracie Abrams. All of this ensures that sonically, the series taps into a wider sad-girl musical universe that is characterized by the same themes and feelings as the show: longing, heartache, and seductive melancholia. Fans are even speculating that Swift may drop the first single from her upcoming album, The Life of a Showgirl, in the series finale—which seems deranged, but weirder things have happened.
And, finally, let’s revisit Conrad. Sweet, gentle, and emotionally engaged Conrad. A man so artfully crafted through the female lens that part of the addictive agony of watching TSITP is knowing that he does not exist, while hoping that he might. His aesthetic—all loose collared shirts, dad jeans, and gym sneakers—is also very ’90s rom-com-coded and directly opposes that of his brother’s, which is more polo shirts and cargo pants, giving an “I spend my weekends drinking whiskey and playing golf with the lads” kind of vibe. “The singletons among our generation are so fed up with men in the real world at this point,” says Holly, “but boy, does Jenny Han know how to write a man we all want.”
All of that said, I think the main thing that makes TSITP feverishly popular is that it takes itself seriously. In a society where the wants and desires of women are often ridiculed or belittled, here is a piece of pop culture that tells us it’s okay to feel things deeply. That we’re allowed to lean into the crushes and cravings of the teenage girl that still lives inside all of us. And that, regardless of whether we’re Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah, what we want matters. Even if it is a fictional character with wounded eyes and exceptional hair.