Summer just isn’t the same without new episodes of The Summer I Turned Pretty, and thankfully after a year-long hiatus, the beloved Prime Video series is returning for its highly-anticipated final season.
Per Prime Video, Season 3’s official synopsis is as follows: “It’s the end of her junior year of college, and Belly’s looking forward to another summer in Cousins with her soulmate, Jeremiah. Her future seems set, until some core-shaking events bring her first love Conrad back into her life. Now on the brink of adulthood, Belly finds herself at a crossroads and must decide which brother has her heart. Summer will never be the same…”
Since The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s Season 3 trailer dropped on Wednesday, June 11, superfans of Jenny Han’s bestselling book series and the show it inspired have been parsing the nearly three-minute tease of the season for clues about what’s in store. Beyond the Belly (Lola Tung), Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), and Conrad (Christopher Briney) of it all, however, viewers are deeply concerned about the fate of another iconic character: Belly’s brother, Steven (Sean Kaufman).
Several Season 3 trailer scenes have fans wondering “Does Steven die in The Summer I Turned Pretty?! Could that potentially be one of the “core-shaking events” that brings Conrad back into the picture? Say it ain’t so!
While we’ll ultimately have to wait and see what Han has in store for the fan-favorite character, here’s what we know about Steven’s fate in The Summer I Turned Pretty books and TV show ahead of Season 3’s premiere.
The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s Season 3 trailer (located at the top of this article) gives fans a glimpse at Belly and Jeremiah’s love story, college years, and wedding aspirations. It shows Belly and Conrad reuniting, with Belly’s voiceover admitting that everywhere she goes, there’s always a memory of him. And it also shows Jer punching his brother and confronting Belly about Conrad’s feelings for her…
As the sacred Jenny Han texts foretold, romance, love triangle drama, and conflicts between Belly and her boys lies ahead. And naturally, we were expecting that! What we weren’t expecting, however, were brief clips that appear to show Steven dropping Taylor off, driving away, getting in a car accident in front of her, and then Taylor sobbing by the side of a hospital bed. WHAT?! Needless to say, fans were SHOOK.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Kaufman warned,”If the final season was an ice cream flavor for Steven and Taylor, it’d be Rocky Road.” So, uh, things don’t sound great!
Does Steven die in The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3?! I genuinely have no idea! This is the final season of the series and Jenny Han and that cast are vaults, people! But the synopsis did tease several “core-shaking events,” so until we learn if Steven survives his crash or not, we’ll be listening to Taylor Swift’s “Out of the Woods.”
Fans of The Summer I Turned Pretty book series who’ve read Book 3, We’ll Always Have Summer, were especially shocked to see Steven’s car crash and Taylor crying in the Season 3 trailer, because those scenes aren’t in the text. In the books, while Steven and Taylor don’t have the same epic romance they do in the series, Steven lives! Per Han, however, Season 3 twists like Steven’s car crash are to be expected…
When speaking with EW, Han explained, “There are definitely changes… There are surprises. And there are things that aren’t exactly like the books.”
Even if Steven and Taylor hit a rocky road, here’s hoping that Han doesn’t take drastic measures and kill him off in Season 3. We can’t say goodbye to another beloved character on this show!
The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 premieres July 16 on Prime Video.