Strike up a conversation with any woman aged vaguely between 25 and 35 and, chances are, she’ll tell you there’s something important happening next week. Not an election. Not a solar eclipse. The series finale of The Summer I Turned Pretty. After three seasons of slow-burn yearning, a legion of adult women (myself included) will be tuning in next Wednesday, fully invested in whether Belly and Conrad—two fictional college students—will finally get it right.
It’s not a groundbreaking story by any means. But that hasn’t stopped us from hanging onto every episode. In the first week, season three drew in 25 million viewers globally. Wednesday evenings have become something of a mass event, with watch parties scheduled and emotionally-wrought reaction videos flooding TikTok almost immediately after the credits roll. So why are so many of us—predominantly grown women—this emotionally invested in a teen love triangle? The answer, inevitably, is Conrad Fisher.
Let me set the scene. The show follows Belly, who spends every summer at Cousins beach with her family friends, the Fisher brothers: Conrad and Jeremiah. We’ve spent three seasons watching her flip-flop between the two, classic love-triangle style. And while audience allegiances may have shifted episode to episode early on, with the finale looming, let’s be real: if you’re not Team Conrad, are we even watching the same show?
He’s the most emotionally complex character in the TSITP universe. But part of the addictive agony of watching the show is knowing that Conrad—like all the best fictional men—does not exist. From his vintage Levi’s to his tantalising leather watch, he is carefully crafted both by and for the female gaze – unbearably real and, at the same time, painfully out of reach. We’ve met him before – at least versions of him. Mr Darcy standing stiffly in the rain, the self-sacrificing Gilbert Blythe, and the broodingly protective Edward Cullen. Key to this yearning archetype is, usually, a suffocating love that eventually explodes in a devastatingly sincere monologue.
But part of the addictive agony of watching the show is knowing that Conrad—like all the best fictional men—does not exist.
In the case of Conrad, that (finally) comes to us in episode seven, when he tells Belly to leave Jeremiah, and be with him instead. I know I speak on behalf of single women everywhere when I say this honesty is a welcome balm for the soul wounded by one too many bad Hinge dates. He’s the literal embodiment of every young girl’s slightly older, distantly acquainted crush—except in this case, the feelings are actually reciprocated.
Then there’s his younger brother. While the maturity gap between Conrad and Jeremiah has, in my opinion, been there all along, in season three it widens the point of no return. Jeremiah fails his last semester of college, cheats on Belly, and impulsively proposes to make up for it. He smokes too much, and oscillates between frat boy and daddy issues, with no real idea of who he is yet. Meanwhile, Conrad is busy at Stanford medical school, yearning for Belly, yes, but focusing on healing emotionally and trying his best for quite literally everyone around him.
But where their differences really come to light is in the different sides of Belly both brothers bring out. Perhaps my Conrad partiality can actually be traced back to the fact that I’ve dated a Jeremiah. I’d argue most heterosexual women have. And like most relationships in your late teens and early twenties, it led me, like Belly, to lose myself.
Over the course of season three, we’ve watched her shrink. Belly gives up a trip to Paris to stay at Finch with Jeremiah, would prefer to hang out in his room than attempt to make friends, and overall, doesn’t seem to have much real ambition (beyond marrying a Fisher). She loses sight of who she is outside of who she’s with. To top it all off, she finds herself frequently mothering a boyfriend who, when it comes down to it, won’t make the same sacrifices in return.
She loses sight of who she is outside of who she’s with.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going. Time and again, we’ve seen Conrad put Belly’s wants and needs before his own. Even when it meant her marrying his own brother, he ditched his internship, swallowed his feelings, and followed her through Michels, drove her to bakeries, and even got Laurel on side. With the benefit of a few years of life experience, is it any wonder that older Gen Zs and Millennial women have had such visceral reactions to watching a young woman stumble down a path we’ve walked before? We see ourselves in Belly because we’ve loved like her, and now we know better.
Conrad might be fictional, but Jenny Han, if you’re reading this, let us have this one fantasy. For Belly’s sake, and for ours too.
