This is how ‘Summer’ ends
The UNC Visitors Center hosted a fitting finale for student fans of the Prime Video series that was partially filmed on campus.
After three seasons of the wildly popular Prime Video series “The Summer I Turned Pretty” — and years of wondering if Belly Conklin would choose Conrad or Jeremiah Fisher — the wait is finally over.
And at least 360 Carolina student fans avoided social media spoilers and came to watch the Sept. 17 finale together on both big screens at the Varsity Theatre. The UNC Visitors Center hosted the special free event. Director Rhonda Beatty and staff went all out with beachy decorations, photo prop cutouts of Belly, Conrad and Jeremiah, prize giveaways plus free popcorn and Sour Patch Kids, Belly’s favorite snack.
All this, and a Campus Life Experience credit, too.
Even Rameses got into the spirit, donning a Carolina Blue Cousins Beach T-shirt and posing for pictures in front of the blue hydrangea backdrop.
“There’s such a community around it,” said Sophia Kuzora, a first-year student from Wake Forest who first read the YA book trilogy by Carolina alumna Jenny Han in the eighth grade. “I love the summery aspect of the series.”
Rameses donned Cousins Beach apparel before the watch party. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)
Posing for photos with Kuzora was her friend Caitlyn Yi, both on Team Conrad. “I love the drama. It really keeps you on your toes,” said Yi, a first-year business major. “And I love that it was filmed at UNC.”
Once inside, fans competed in a “TSITP” trivia quiz while waiting for the show. The first winner was Lance Bowman, a first-year student from Statesville, appropriately dressed in official “Cousins Rowing” merch.
Students had the chance to hear from those involved in the filming of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” before the showings.(Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)
Finale attendees also heard from three special guests involved with the filming: Gabriella Neyman, media relations manager in University Communications and Marketing; Izzie Deneka, the primary guide for the UNC Visitors Center’s “TSITP” tour; and Amy Hyde, a junior from Belmont, North Carolina, who appears as a background actor in this season’s first episode.
“I sat there for 30 minutes and did the exact same thing, over and over again,” Hyde recalled. “But it was so fun to see the books I loved in middle school brought to life, especially in a place that I love so much.”
Then the lights went down, and all eyes were on the show. Audience members gasped at unexpected twists in the plot, cheered their heroes and booed their villains until the inevitable happy ending.
So which brother did Belly choose? Well, if you don’t know by now, we’re not telling!
Students wait outside the Varsity Theatre to get prime seating for the watch party. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)
