The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 came to an end on Sept. 17 (until the movie comes out, that is). Spoiler alert: Spoilers for The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 follow. But in the penultimate episode of the series, a few fans were wondering whether a whole new storyline might be introduced in the finale: Whether John Conklin would have a heart attack in the TSITP finale.
If you’re a casual watcher of The Summer I Turned Pretty, that question might’ve felt like it was coming out of left field. However, some fans picked up on a tiny moment in Season 3, Episode 10 that could have potentially pointed to a health emergency for Belly’s dad. On Thanksgiving, Laurel and John are celebrating the holiday, and as John takes a sip of wine, he grabs his chest and says, “Ugh. I have had heartburn all day. Are we out of Pepcid?” John then goes to a cabinet to look for the bottle of pills and comes up empty-handed. “I don’t see it. I think you moved it,” he tells Laurel. Laurel then sighs, walks over, and finds the bottle within approximately two seconds. “I told you it was in there,” she tells him.
So, was this moment just showing how Laurel and John have gotten back into a bickering husband and wife dynamic? Was it ad placement for Pepcid? Or was it foreshadowing something bigger that might affect John’s role in the TSITP universe?
It looks like we finally know the answer. The Summer I Turned Pretty author and series creator Jenny Han told Entertainment Weekly after the finale, “It was a moment to show a couple who had known each other a very long time who were giving it another try and kind of falling back into their old dynamics of low-key annoyance. And no, it was not a product placement [either].” So there you go.
It’s not that wild for fans to think something bigger might be happening with Belly’s dad. Some YA book-to-series lovers pointed out that something similar happens to the father figure George Walter in Netflix’s My Life With The Walter Boys in the Season 2 finale. The classic love triangle between those three main characters — Jackie, Cole, and Alex — is put on hold while George suffers a medical emergency.
But there are a few things that made The Summer I Turned Pretty different from My Life With The Walter Boys. For one to introduce such a big plot line in the show right before the finale didn’t seem very natural. Second, fans might’ve forgotten that the episode showing John Conklin’s heartburn spanned a period of about six months. He has the heartburn on Thanksgiving in November, and fans see the episode end around the anniversary of Susannah’s death, which is April 14. If John Conklin was going to have a heart attack because he had heartburn all day on Thanksgiving, chances are, something would have happened by the time that episode ended.
And third, John Conklin didn’t have a heart attack in The Summer I Turned Pretty book series. While the show took some creative liberties, it also stuck pretty closely to the book’s plot as it related to Belly and Conrad (give or take a few details).
Now that Han has told us the real reason behind John Conklin needing some Pepcid, we can all take a deep breath.