While I enjoyed the first season of The Summer I Turned Pretty because of the relationship drama between Belly, Conrad and Jeremiah, I think it fell off after that. The relationship drama had already gotten pretty old by the time the first season ended. Everything after that felt very formulaic, even with the new added conflicts of them having to sell the house and Susannah’s unfortunate death. I do like how the show doesn’t solely focus on Belly, Conrad and Jeremiah, but the show seemed to get progressively worse as they added new couples and love interests. All of the characters in a relationship went back and forth between if they wanted to be in the relationship or not, there seemed to be a plague of indecision in this show.
The show also had a lot of disappearing side characters which made each season feel incomplete without them. For example, I really like the side plot in season two of Jeremiah and Conrad connecting with their family, Skye and Julia. I thought it was a nice break from the romance but then they just disappeared into thin air. They weren’t even at Belly’s and Jeremiah’s wedding, and I was really hoping to see a small moment or scene with all of them together again in season three. To add to that, Cam Cameron, what happened to him? Both Skye and Cam Cameron got a lot of screen time for side characters in season two, but they suddenly weren’t in season three and I think that made the seasons feel disconnected.
Season three felt like it couldn’t keep a consistent pace. Some episodes were super sped up, but some felt extremely slow. One of the worst slowdowns was to make strangely placed ad scenes within the show. The episode where Conrad and Belly go to Michael’s is a great example of this. It didn’t feel like it fit in with the show at all, and it felt very slow, whereas almost every other shopping trip in the show was faster paced. Later in the show the episodes seemed to drag on quite a bit minus the final episode. Every time I paused it, I thought I must have been halfway done with the episode but in reality, I was only about 10 minutes in. In contrast, the last episode felt very unsatisfying to me because of how rushed it felt. For example, how Taylor and Steven decided to make a whole lifestyle change in five minutes in the episode time. It felt like they were trying to fit in a completely new lifestyle change for each character and all of it felt very out of place.
Apparently, there will be a movie that depicts what happens after the third season. While I do plan to watch it, hopefully now that the relationship drama has hopefully ended there will be conflicts with more depth. While I didn’t hate the series, I definitely didn’t like it has much as some other series that are similar, such as We Were Liars. However, if romance drama is what you like in a TV show, The Summer I Turned Pretty might be for you. If you aren’t as drawn to a show by the romance, you might want to consider passing on this one.
