The Summer I Turned Pretty star Lola Tung talks about the final scene of the series

Amazon Prime Video’s The Summer I Turned Pretty is a coming-of-age romantic drama based on Jenny Han’s best-selling trilogy. The series premiered on June 17, 2022, and quickly gained attention for its emotional storytelling and youthful themes.

One of the central characters is Isabel “Belly” Conklin, portrayed by Lola Tung. Belly navigates complex relationships and personal growth while caught in a long-standing love triangle with brothers Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher, forming the core conflict of the series.

Lola Tung disclosed in a recent conversation that even the finale provided the resolution to Belly and Conrad and still preserved the moments of bitter tension, which helps to emphasize the emotional burden of all the characters in the story.

More about Lola Tung and the finale scene of

The Summer I Turned Pretty

Lola Tung has given a detailed account of how the series finale was created and shot, focusing on how both emotionally and technically important it was to shoot the final scenes of the series.

Tung argues that the last episode, which is called At Last, is a kind of climax of the story and character development. The production team was careful during the finale because it had to balance out the narrative between the romantic satisfaction and the convolutions of the past conflicts.

Tung referred to the key scene of Belly and Conrad as one that had to be planned well, and an intimacy coordinator had to be involved in order to retain professionalism and authenticity. The sequence was not only a love resolution but an event that was intended to capture the maturing nature of characters.

The inner conflict of Belly, who has had his share of heartbreak and made some challenging decisions, is critical in influencing the mood of this last meeting. As pointed out by Tung, the scene had to be one of both reconciliation and vulnerability, and this shows how much the characters had evolved since the start of the show.

Through narrative, the ending of The Summer I Turned Pretty shows Conrad surprising Belly in Paris, as this turns out to be a heart-to-heart talk, and the misunderstanding between the two is cleared. The episode ends with Belly taking Conrad on a train, and then there is a holiday montage, which hints at the fact that they are still together. According to Tung, this resolution neither takes away the repercussions of the previous rulings, and therefore, the audience is left with a sense of reality instead of the perfect ending.

"I mean, I hope that the three seasons have felt like [that] leading up to this, and that nothing felt rushed, and I know people were wanting that moment early on. And it’s like, I think you have to have everything happen the way that it does in order for them to get to this place.I think that’s why it is great that they feel like, not different people. They’re the same people at their core, but they feel like they’ve actually experienced new things and lived life without each other and had time apart. Then they have tough conversation after in Belly’s apartment. It feels like, “Okay, I mean, we’ve done all the things. What’s stopping us now?”, Tung said.

Cast of The Summer I Turned Pretty

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The series features a strong ensemble cast. Lola Tung plays Isabel “Belly” Conklin, with Christopher Briney portraying Conrad Fisher and Gavin Casalegno as Jeremiah Fisher.

Other supporting cast of The Summer I Turned Pretty consists of Sean Kaufman playing Steven Conklin, Rain Spencer playing Taylor Jewel, and Jackie Chung playing Laurel Park, the mother of Belly. This is the basic team that makes the series emotionally rich and provides the depth and dimension to its major themes of love, family, and self-development.

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