'The Summer I Turned Pretty' Season 3, Episodes 1 & 2
The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3, Episodes 1 & 2: Betrayals, Time Jumps, and a Whole New Belly
If you thought the biggest heartbreak in The Summer I Turned Pretty was the love triangle, buckle up. Season 3 is here, and it’s serving real emotional damage.
The show picks up four years later, with Belly now a college junior and back at Cousins Beach. But this isn’t the same Belly, and this definitely isn’t the same summer. The world Jenny Han built has grown up, and so have the stakes.
Episode 1 – “Last Season”
We open with a warm flashback and fast-forward straight into heartbreak. Belly and Jeremiah are together until they’re very much not. The reveal? Jeremiah cheated. Offscreen. With a sorority girl.
Yes, it’s brutal, but what really lands is Belly’s reaction. She’s not the weepy, wide-eyed teen anymore. She’s pissed, stunned, and quietly unraveling. For a show often labeled as “YA fluff,” this episode hits with heavy emotional undercurrents grief, betrayal, and the quiet anger that comes when someone shatters the version of your life you were counting on.
The title “Last Season” doesn’t just refer to the literal show ending it’s about Belly’s old self dying off. The “girl who turned pretty” is gone. This Belly is trying to figure out what kind of woman she wants to be.
Episode 2 – “Last Christmas”
This episode is heartbreak wrapped in holiday lights. Belly’s home for Christmas, but the house feels cold emotionally, at least. Tensions with her mom, awkward silences with Steven, and the fact that Jeremiah is still lingering like the ghost of bad decisions all make for the coziest disaster imaginable.
But the show doesn’t stay surface-level. It digs deep into family dynamics, unresolved grief over Susannah, and the pressure on Belly to be okay when she’s clearly not. Also, Steven and Taylor’s storyline deserves its own spotlight. Their chemistry, awkward fights, and almost-breakup somehow feel more real than any other couple on the show right now.
By the time the episode ends, we’re left wondering not just who Belly will choose—but if she’ll choose anyone at all. Because for the first time, this story doesn’t feel like it’s about romance. It feels like it’s about Belly choosing herself.
What Makes These Episodes Different?
The tone has shifted. The golden glow of Cousins Beach is still there, but it’s muted, heavier. This season’s emotional hangover is real. It’s not just about who Belly kisses. It’s about what it means to grow up, to make peace with loss, and to reckon with the people we were vs. the people we want to be.
The pacing is slower, more deliberate. The cinematography is cooler, more adult. Even the soundtrack still dripping in Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo feels like a breakup playlist from your twenties, not your teens.
And yes…Steven and Taylor might be lowkey stealing the whole damn season.
A Few Easter Eggs You Might've Missed
That photo of Susannah in the background? It changes between episodes.
Belly’s outfit choices are subtly nodding to her emotional state..neutral tones, layered up, always covered. She’s hiding.
The classic Belly bandaid moment returns, this time more metaphor than accident. She’s not just cut she’s been bleeding for a while now.
🎙️ Want the Real Talk?
If you're as obsessed as we are, you have to tune into our latest episode of the Spill It, Girl Podcast, where we break down every lingering look, call out the under-the-radar symbolism (yes, the Christmas cookies matter), and give you our hot take on what’s next for Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah.
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Because some summers are for love triangles…but this one?
It’s about survival. And we’re spilling every second of it.
