The Summer I Turned Pretty will return for its third and final season on July 16 via Prime Video. The 11-episode sunset season welcomes back main character Belly (Lola Tung), now in college, as she explores her relationship with Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and tries to make sense of whatever lingering feelings she might have for his brother and her first love, Conrad (Christopher Briney). The first teaser trailer for the finale also sees the return of another familiar character in the series: Taylor Swift.
“I don’t wanna look at anything else now that I saw you/I don’t wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you/I’ve been sleepin’ so long in a twenty-year dark night/And now I see daylight, I only see daylight,” Swift sings as the Lover cut “Daylight” rings out in the first few months of the teaser. The song overlays clips of Belly and Jeremiah cruising in the summer sun, kissing in the library, and slow dancing under purple lights. She’s all smiles, hopeful she’s found her happily ever after.
But in the final moments of the trailer, Belly cracks open the door at the house their families shared at Cousins Beach and finds Conrad standing there. There’s a moment in the bridge of “Daylight” where Swift sings, “I once believed love would be (Burnin’ red)/But it’s golden/Like daylight.” But where that lyric might fit into the clip, one more fitting for the occasion is dropped in: “But loving him is red.”
“Red (Taylor’s Version)” and “Daylight” are the latest songs from Swift to lend harmony to The Summer I Turned Pretty universe. The premiere of “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” arrived in the debut trailer for the series, which premiered in 2022. Trailers for season two featured “August” and “Back to December (Taylor’s Version).”
Jenny Han, author of The Summer I Turned Pretty and a self-proclaimed Swiftie, wove pieces of her music throughout the series to create a few invisible strings of her own. The first time Conrad appears in season one, Belly’s dizzying awe is set to the sound of “Lover.” When he steps in to rescue her from dancing alone at a ball later in the season, the opening chords of “The Way That I Loved You (Taylor’s Version)” kick in. In season two, the show featured “Last Kiss (Taylor’s Version),” “Invisible String,” “Sweet Nothing,” the yet-to-be-released “Delicate (Taylor’s Version),” and more.
“I think Belly could be Folklore maybe, it’s a very reflective time for Belly,” Tung told a fan during a press event for season two when asked to which era their characters were in. “Jeremiah might be in his Reputation era, and I think Conrad, Conrad could be one of the earlier albums. I think he could be in his Red era.”
From Rolling Stone US
