"The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3" They Know this Show is Supposed to be Fun, Right?

    Boooooooooooooooooooooooo. This show is just sad at this point man. I have no words. I can't believe even the little things I was complimenting this show about in the first season are just completely gone. Whether it be the very obvious music choices, the setting, or the proper diverison of minutes to each "couple," this show continues to erode at any sort of plausible realism fans might have been able to cling to, and I'm not even talking about the obvious one. This show has simply ballooned in the worst way, there's clearly too much money to throw around, and somehow this show decided that it's ambitious enough to try something it should have never even begun to sniff. Don't even get me started on all of the random characters or sideplots from past seasons that just fell off or died on the vine.

    Let's start with the slight improvements over season two. For better or worse, season two loved living in the past, whether it be the fact that 60% of the show took place within what felt like a week, and was littered with too many flashbacks, it liked calling back to certain characters and events. Constant callbacks to Susannah, and even characters like Cam Cameron and Cleveland showed up. By the time season three came around, they trimmed the cast even more. Laurel is back with their dad for some reason? Which honestly I didn't mind because John is apparently the only good father in the show (only for them to break them up right after anyways?). Cousins is hardly a factor, season mainstays like Skye and their mom simply don't exist, and it's almost like they tried to give it a fresh slate with a brand new season. Almost.

    And just as quickly as you can clean a table, just as quickly can the messy child dirty it up right again. They decided to throw in new side characters, like Denise who I actually didn't mind until she started bouncing around the male cast because of reasons? Oh and don't forget for some reason we all get more heapings of Taylor, too much Taylor in my mind, because I simply don't care about her that much. She only really ever appealed to me as a character in relation to BELLY, THE MAIN CHARACTER. SO WHY IN THE HELL DID THEY DEDICATE SO MUCH TIME TOWARDS HER AND HER MOTHER. I DON'T CARE ABOUT HER CAREER IN PR, FRANKLY I DON'T THAT MUCH ABOUT HER RELATIONSHIP TO STEVEN. All I'm saying is that this show decided that with their added budget they would balloon this show to eleven episodes and stretch it out for what feels like no reason.

    I mean why else would they spend four seasons on Belly in Paris by the way? The funniest part is that everyone acts like she's been gone for like six months, she's moved places, found new jobs, made all of these friends but then you realize it's literally only been six months since she blew up the entire wedding because she couldn't decide which brother to choose. I just find it very hard to believe she actually managed to stay in Paris and found peace after that short amount of time. But what do I know? What I do actually know is that instead of choosing songs that fit very easily, it feels like the showrunners had too much money and decided to just throw it at big very popular songs. Like Please, Please, Please? HOT TO GO!? Funnily enough, I'm not even going to complain about the amount of Taylor Swift songs, of which there were many, for the most part they actually tried to make some of them fit into the scenes, though frankly they peaked in season one with The Way I Loved You, but I do love that song so perhaps I'm biased.

    Keep in mind I haven't even begun to touch the stench that is the whole Conrad-Belly-Jeremiah love triangle Whether it's the fact that Belly decides to marry a man like 2 days after learning he cheated on her multiple times, people compare it to her chilling at a house with her ex who happens to live there, or the fact that there really aren't many Belly-Conrad scenes to begin with. This is of course if you can ignore how much of a massive plothole it is that two brothers who are supposedly close to each other would ever let it get this far. I mean I could see that wedding wasn't happening from a mile away, it was so hilariously rushed. They really crafted the perfect atmosphere for a fun, sunny summer show and just decided to ignore it after the first season. Don't even get me started on how the final episode reframes everything.

Final Score: 25/100

    Yeah I watch trashy TV? So what? I like rooting for a random side like an animal. I can't believe they're stretching out this show even more with a movie. What's the point? She literally chose Conrad? If we have another "I don't know if I want to be with Jeremiah or Conrad" thing during the movie then what's the point? There's only so many times you can intertwine them all with it having enough drama for it to be messy and yet also plausible. On a side note can we talk about the hilarious "diversity" in this show. The fact that Laurel/her children are Asian are brought up a total of like three times in this show, and they decided to never once bring it up or talk about how it might impact the dynamic of them feeling poorer when they're in the Cousins house, like at all. Then you realize it's because all of the characters were originally white so it's basically a race swap with a couple Wasian's because why not. Anyways, uhhh I'm still not over them not bringing back Shayla.