The Summer I Turned Pretty premiered on Prime Video on June 17, 2022, with a premise that sounds like a hundred other young-adult romances: a teenager, a beach town, two brothers. What separates it is Jenny Han, who created the series with Gabrielle Stanton and wrote the novels it comes from, and who understands that the real subject here is not which boy wins. It is the summer Belly Conklin stops being a kid in the room and becomes a person the room has to reckon with.
Lola Tung plays Isabel “Belly” Conklin, who turns sixteen the summer her family returns to Cousins Beach, the beachfront town where they have spent every year with the Fisher family. Christopher Briney is Conrad. Gavin Casalegno is Jeremiah. The love triangle is the engine, but the show’s better instincts live in the house around it.
Trailer, via Prime Video.
A Love Triangle Built on Old History
The series is based on Han’s novel trilogy: The Summer I Turned Pretty, It’s Not Summer Without You, and We’ll Always Have Summer. The show is not improvising a romance. It is adapting a story that arrives with readers already attached to it.
Belly’s relationships with Conrad and Jeremiah start to change as she enters a new stage of adolescence. The show frames this as growing independence, shifting family dynamics, and the slow complication of long-standing friendships. The Fishers and the Conklins have a deeply connected history, and the romance only works because that history is doing the work underneath it.
The cast around Tung carries the domestic weight. Sean Kaufman plays Belly’s brother Steven. Jackie Chung plays her mother, Laurel Park. Rain Spencer is Taylor Jewel. Kristen Connolly plays Lucinda Jewel, and Isabella Briggs plays Denise.
What the Numbers Say
The production timeline tells its own story about how quickly this became a priority for Prime Video.
- Production began in 2021.
- Season 1 premiered June 17, 2022, with seven episodes.
- Season 2 debuted July 14, 2023, with eight episodes.
- Season 3 premiered July 16, 2025, with 11 episodes.
- The series ran three seasons and 26 episodes, with the finale airing September 17, 2025.
The series was renewed for a second season before its premiere, a vote of confidence most new shows do not get.
Casting That Han Got Right
Casting began April 28, 2021, when Tung, Rachel Blanchard, Jackie Chung, and Briney were set as series regulars. Han has said choosing Briney for Conrad was the easiest casting decision of all the characters.
In July 2021, Casalegno, Kaufman, Minnie Mills, and Alfredo Narciso joined the main cast, with Summer Madison, David Iacono, Rain Spencer, and Tom Everett Scott in recurring roles. Kyra Sedgwick and Elsie Fisher joined in recurring capacities for season 2 on August 31, 2022. Mills exited ahead of the second season, announcing it April 20, 2023. For season 3, reported June 4, 2025, Briggs and Connolly became series regulars, with Sofia Bryant, Lily Donoghue, Zoé de Grand’Maison, Emma Ishta, and Tanner Zagarino in recurring roles.
A feature-length film was announced after the series concluded, set to continue directly from the finale.
That is a lot of machinery for a show about a beach house. Some of it is noise. The casting churn in particular reads as ordinary TV business rather than a story about the series itself.
What Cousins Beach Gets Right
The Summer I Turned Pretty is a coming-of-age romantic drama that understands its own premise better than most. Belly’s arc runs on first love, first heartbreak, and the transition out of childhood, and the show treats that transition as genuinely painful rather than decorative. Cousins Beach is not just a backdrop. It is the shared property of two families, and the romance draws its tension from that.
The weakness is structural. A love triangle can only generate so much suspense, and the show is at its best when it lets the adults carry a scene.
Still, the first season holds up, and Tung’s performance is a large part of why. She plays Belly as someone discovering she has an effect on the world, and the show is smart enough to let that discovery be uncomfortable.
Key facts
- Premiere: June 17, 2022, Prime Video
- Seasons: 3; episodes: 26
- Finale aired: September 17, 2025
- Score: 7.2/10 (Metacritic 72/100)
Score: 7.2/10 (Metacritic 72/100)
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