The Best Thing About ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Is How It Portrays Grief

From Left: Lola Tung (Belly), Christopher Briney (Conrad) in a scene from the new season of “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” The second season of the popular show based on the Jenny Han books perfectly captures grief on screen.

This piece has spoilers for Season 2, Episodes 1-3 of “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”

The second season of Prime Video’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” opens the same way as the second book in the series upon which it is based: A dream quickly crushed by loss and death. 

For me and other fans of the Jenny Han books, it isn’t surprising that Susannah (Rachel Blanchard) is dead or that Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Belly (Lola Tung) aren’t together or that Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) is furious at both of them. As a longtime fan of the series — I read the books for the first time more than a decade ago — I expected these things to be true. I wasn’t prepared for the visceral gut punch of watching Belly’s dreams shatter on screen, of the acuteness of the grief I’d feel. 

The episode opens with Belly lying on a lounge chair. The camera hovers over her as she soaks up the sun. With her eyes closed, she doesn’t see Conrad approach. He steps into the frame and shakes his wet, salty hair over her body. She laughs before opening her eyes and looking up at him, the boy she’s always loved. He’s smiling down at her, and, in the background, Jeremiah — Conrad’s brother, who is also the third point in their messy, coming-of-age love triangle — jokes about how into each other they are. Then, the boys’ mom, Susannah, appears and tells them they are perfect together. Conrad smiles before leaning over Belly for a kiss. 

The moment ends abruptly with the slamming of a book on a linoleum classroom floor and Belly lifting her head off her desk. She rubs her eyes and thinks, “I wasn’t in Cousins. Conrad and I weren’t together, and Susannah was dead. Nothing would ever be the same again.” Her internal monologue dashes any hope that — as unrealistic as it seemed — everything is OK. Belly reinforces how different her new reality is when she narrates, “Escaping to your dreams is easier than living with your memories. It’s the being awake that’s the hard part.”

From Left: Lola Tung (Belly), Rachel Blanchard (Susannah) in “The Summer I Turned Pretty” Season 2.

Then, as suddenly as we enter Belly’s present, we are taken back in time to a memory from just moments after Season 1 ended, and Belly and Conrad finally kissed.

Anyone who has lost someone they loved understands this nonlinear movement of time, the way objects (an oversized Cousins Rowing T-shirt) or places (a front door) or people (an old friend) trigger memories and waves of grief. It makes sense for the season to follow the same structure as the book “It’s Not Summer Without You,” which uses a mix of present-day scenes and flashbacks from the previous school year to tell Belly’s story.

Han, the showrunner with Sarah Kucserka, uses this framework to weave a narrative of heartbreak and hope. In the book, Belly asks, “What does it mean when someone is really and truly gone?” This is the question that all the characters are struggling with this season. Belly’s mom, Laurel (Jackie Chung), is lost without her best friend. Conrad and Jeremiah are lost without their mom and brokenhearted because of Belly, who is also lost without Susannah and the boys. Steven is struggling with how you can miss someone but also be happy at the same time because he is beginning a new chapter of his life, graduating from high school and preparing to attend his dream college.

Before Susannah’s death, the beach house in Cousins (the fictional town on the coast of Massachusetts) was the constant in everyone’s life, the place they returned to every summer where they were never lost. But now even the beach house is at risk. After Susannah’s death, her half-sister wants to sell the house, and this conflict brings the characters back together in the second season.

From Left: Lola Tung (Belly), Gavin Casalegno (Jeremiah), Christopher Briney (Conrad) in “The Summer I Turned Pretty” Season 2.

While the first season took place over the course of an entire summer, the second seems like it will follow the book, taking place in just a few days as Conrad, Belly and Jeremiah fight to prevent the sale while their love triangle comes to a climax, forcing Belly to make a choice that will feel like forever.

Like in the book, I suspect the beach house won’t be sold and that Belly will choose the brother least expected. However, finding out those answers isn’t why I will watch the final five episodes. I’m not watching to see what happens; I’m watching to see how Han accomplishes it. The idyllic setting (the picturesque filming locations in Wilmington, North Carolina), raw performances of the young leads, careful adaptation of the book’s most iconic moments, and perfect summer soundtrack (including songs from Taylor Swift’s latest rerecorded album) create a world that feels sun-soaked and salty and real.

The most impressive thing about this season (so far) is the realistic and complicated way it portrays grief. The worst can happen — a person you love can die, and the loss is overwhelming — but you still care about the boy you love laying his head in another girl’s lap, and there’s still the chance of a shared smile across a room, a glimmer of the belief that things can get better.

The show accomplishes this feat with the same innocence and hopefulness that are hallmarks of all of Han’s books and their screen adaptations. The flashbacks and feelings give weight to every moment. But there’s also a lightness, a faith that things can get better, that apologies can be made, people can be forgiven, and places can stay the same. More than anything, I hope that Belly and the others will once again experience the magic Susannah created at the beach house, the magic that imbues summer and its possibilities.

It’s the same magic that connects me to the summers of my past and the places and people I’ve lost, and I’ll be watching the rest of the season to re-experience it.

TV and film writers and actors, including those who worked on “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” are on strike over fair pay and working conditions in the streaming era.

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