SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Sometimes the internet gifts us with a main character, someone or something everybody online has decided to be obsessed with. Now, sometimes I know what this is, and sometimes I don't. But ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Mia Venkat usually does. Hey, Mia.
MIA VENKAT, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: Who is it this week?
VENKAT: It's the TV show "The Summer I Turned Pretty."
DETROW: OK, I've truly never heard of this.
VENKAT: OK, some of us have not been able to escape this show, Scott. And warning, if you have not caught up on the show, this segment will have spoilers. Clearly...
DETROW: Spoiler alert.
VENKAT: ...I'm going to spoil it for you.
DETROW: Everything will be a spoiler for me.
VENKAT: It's a hit series on Prime Video based off the bestselling trilogy by Jenny Han. There are three seasons, and the third and final season premiered on July 16 and has had weekly drops since it had its finale this week. But the fans of the show are so active on social media that it truly feels like this season has been going on for 10 years.
And just now, when I thought I was free, creator Jenny Han announced this week that they're in the process of making a "Summer I Turned Pretty" movie with the same characters. And I just want to be clear. I also have not seen the show.
DETROW: You've not seen it?
VENKAT: I just feel like I have because the fans of this show are so obsessed and the clips go viral every week. I feel like I know what the show's about, even though I haven't seen it.
DETROW: So based on that understanding, what is the plot?
VENKAT: OK, my understanding is that there's one very gorgeous girl whose name, for some reason, is Belly. And...
DETROW: Like...
VENKAT: ...Her childhood best, like...
DETROW: B-E-L-L-Y?
VENKAT: B-E-L-L-Y, that's right. We have to keep moving on, Scott, because there's so much more. Her childhood besties are two brothers that are in love with her, and one of them is annoying and literally cheated on her, and the other one is broody and hot and perfect. And yet, she's very conflicted about who she wants.
DETROW: OK.
VENKAT: And then she ends up choosing the bad and weird one. And every episode, it seems like the good one is being emotionally tortured. And then he's on the edge, and then the bad one proposes to Belly with, like, a Cracker Jack box ring. It's the tiniest thing I've ever seen in my lie. But then she, like, leaves him in the altar or something. And then she presumably moves to Paris and then gets a very chic bob. A lot of stuff happens, I think, after that. And then finally, this week, she had her happy ending with the good, hot brother.
DETROW: Oh.
VENKAT: (Laughter).
DETROW: OK. I got it now. I know.
VENKAT: But a shoutout to the fans of this show for posting about it so much that I feel like I can still be a part of the discourse without actually having to do any of the work.
DETROW: Who are they, and why are they so obsessed?
VENKAT: OK, the fans seem to be mainly millennial women, and, frankly, I don't even know how good the show is. It seems pretty corny from what I've seen but, like, the entertaining kind of corny. Like, the beach romance love triangle with hot people, like...
DETROW: Sure.
VENKAT: ...What's not to love?
DETROW: Sure.
VENKAT: My fellow ATC producer Matt Ozug is a 47-year-old man. You know him. He's decidedly not the target audience for this show, but he watches it with his teen daughter, and I asked him if he thought it was a good.
MATT OZUG, BYLINE: I don't know how you make a distinction like that. If you sit down and the time flies by and you're screaming at the television together, I think that's a good show.
DETROW: OK, OK. What does - beyond Matt, what does social media have to say about it? Like, what's the general mood?
VENKAT: I think people are obsessed with this because people love to just, like, get excited about anything.
DETROW: Yeah.
VENKAT: One thing that I've mainly seen on the online discourse is whether you're Team Jeremiah - bad brother - or Team Conrad - good brother.
DETROW: Like Twilight.
VENKAT: Exactly. Here's a TikTok from the user, theplanistobefamous.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
THEPLANISTOBEFAMOUS: Team Conrad versus Team Jeremiah and what it says about you - if you're Team Conrad, you've definitely had the thought, I can fix him. You want a little bit of a chase situation going on.
VENKAT: So I posed the question, Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah, to Matt Ozug, too.
OZUG: I'm Team Belly. This has been a confusing time for her. I think she's just going to take some time, figure her stuff out. I just want what's best for Belly.
VENKAT: So a very political answer from Matt O., but he has not seen the finale yet. So I'll have to check back in with him when he has watched it with his daughter to see if he's satisfied with what Belly decides.
DETROW: NPR's Mia Venkat, thank you so much for getting me up to speed on this show...
VENKAT: You're welcome, Scott.
DETROW: ...That I never watched.
VENKAT: (Laughter). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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