After the final scene in season 3 episode 8 – and the fact that we got an entire trailer for the final farewell – I thought The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 episode 9 was going to be Belly’s (Lola Tung) single girl redemption. But my God, I couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Thankfully, her wedding to Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) never happened, with Jeremiah realizing Belly still has feelings for his brother Conrad (Christopher Briney). Belly’s been in complete denial about it, even though her inner monologue is literally just a Conrad vision board. Typical teen behavior, really.
But when Belly decides to get away from it all with a spontaneous trip to France, she’s set on a brand new course. This was Prime Video‘s moment to show her flourishing as a young woman in a new city, making new friends and learning more about who she is away from everybody else.
But did The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 episode 9 deliver any of that? Nope. Instead, we sat through almost an hour of the same old bad boy dross, and I’m right behind the fans who are fuming over precious time wasted.
The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 episode 9 had the biggest ‘go girl, give us nothing’ energy yet
today’s episode could’ve been an email unfortunately #TheSummerITurnedPretty pic.twitter.com/AfHXy2sN3ySeptember 3, 2025
Instead of Belly having her Emily in Paris moment, we got more of Jeremiah’s poor behavior while both drunk and sober, Conrad getting punished for merely expressing his feelings, and a little too much camera time for Steven (Sean Kaufman) and Taylor (Rain Spencer). Basically, it’s a continuation of everything we’ve suffered through before rather than giving us our promised fresh start.
Given showrunner Jenny Han only has two episodes to wrap The Summer I Turned Pretty up for good, this is pretty darn concerning. The original books (and our hearts) tell us Belly and Conrad end up together in the end, and it feels like we’re a million miles away from reaching that conclusion. On top of this, we want as much onscreen time of the pair as possible, and it feels cruel that we’re being denied it.
“Jenny… u have 2 eps left… wtf was this,” one fan posted on X/Twitter, with another agreeing, “I can’t believe episode 9 was so bad and a filler when we are so close to the finale. Sadly I feel like we will only get half of the last episode of Belly & Conrad happy together.”
If you watch the above trailer – that condenses episodes 9-11 into one neat package – the final leg of season 3 feels like an entirely separate show. New perspective, new narrative arc, and new realizations as our lead characters have the space to mature. But now I’m worried our ending is going to fall flat on its face.
Now more than ever, I can’t see Belly and Conrad’s happy ever after being all that satisfying for fans who’ve not wanted for anything else. Amazon has two weeks to change my mind… and if it’s feeling really adventurous, maybe Belly can actually be her own woman for a few milliseconds too.
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jasmine.valentine@futurenet.com (Jasmine Valentine)
