It’s been a week since the series finale of The Summer I Turned Pretty dropped, and the internet still hasn’t calmed down. Between fan theories, Easter eggs, the movie release announcement, and cast interviews, new details from the TSITP universe keep surfacing, and I am hanging on to every bit I can get.
Lucky for fans, series author and screenwriter Jenny Han sat down with Entertainment Tonight to unpack some of the major lingering questions from the show, and she even pointed out a major Easter egg from Season 3’s first episode that we all may have somehow missed.
With a series soundtrack often dominated by Taylor Swift songs — the queen of Easter eggs herself — it’s no surprise that Han would incorporate similar clues into her own mastermind game, and she says it’s all in the soundtrack. Whether it’s the perfect song she’s had mapped out all along, a suggestion from the show’s musical supervisor, a lyric, or even just “a vibe,” the song is what brought every scene together. (Cue the unforgettable “Dress” scene in the finale.)
One such song was included in the Season 3 premiere. As Jeremiah and Belly lay in bed together, SZA’s “Open Arms” plays. It may have been disregarded as just another moody track, but Han says it was an Easter egg all along. The song’s final verse includes a subtle foreshadowing lyric: “C’est la vie, go to Paris, it ain’t five-star, it ain’t me,” pointing directly to Belly’s move to Paris at the end of the season — a clue hidden in plain sight from the very beginning. Han also said, “The song is about, ‘You’re the only one that’s holding me down,’ and it’s positive, but then the meaning of that shifts as the song continues.”
Han explains that Easter eggs like this are meant as “a wink to the audience,” and little callbacks to earlier moments of the show that deepen the scene. But even if you don’t catch them, you’re not missing out on anything major.
Even the Easter eggs from Season 3 Episode 1 have me eager to get more TSITP, and thankfully, that’ll come in the form of a movie. Han and Prime Video confirmed on the series finale release date, Sept. 17, that a full-length movie will be coming to the streamer.
Though she can’t remember the exact moment, Han said it was some time between filming the second and third seasons that she knew there had to be a movie as a way to give fans what they all want — Belly and Conrad screentime. The movie script’s first draft is still in progress and filming won’t begin until it’s finished, so no signs as to when we can expect filming to start, let alone a release date. And in response to what we’ve all been dying to know — will we ever get a Belly and Conrad wedding? “I’m not saying anything,” Han replied as she sipped her tea.
Until then, we’ll be keeping our eyes — and ears — open to any clues on what’s next for the world of TSITP.