We’re just days away from the conclusion of the epic Belly/Conrad/Jeremiah love triangle, as The Summer I Turned Pretty ends its run on the 2025 TV schedule on September 17. So far in Season 3, we’ve seen the tide shift dramatically in Conrad’s direction — often with one Taylor Swift song or another playing in the background. The relationship between the Eras Tour artist and Jenny Han’s book-to-screen adaptation is well-documented, so what can we expect to hear from Swift’s catalog in the series finale?
The Swifties here at CinemaBlend can’t stop talking about which needle drops might accompany The Summer I Turned Pretty’s most important episode of them all (streaming with an Amazon Prime Video subscription). So, here are our best guesses, from mastermind-level theories to our wildest dreams.
This Love
Just like we got a reprise of “False God” in Season 3, mirroring the almost-kiss between Belly (Lola Tung) and Conrad (Christopher Briney) in Season 1, I think we’re in for another repeat, and “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” from 1989 seems quite appropriate.
It first played in the Season 1 finale “Summer Love,” when Belly and Conrad FINALLY had their first kiss, and Jenny Han was passionate about the timing of it. Will we get that full-circle moment if they reconnect in the Season 3 finale?
Begin Again
While it seems Jenny Han has been pulling from Taylor Swift’s later albums more this season, “Begin Again” from Red just seems so perfect for the Bonrad love story. Can you imagine these words being sung as Conrad unexpectedly walks through the door of a Parisian cafe?
I've been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end. But on a Wednesday in a cafe, I watched it begin again.
I am screaming on the inside at the possibility of this, but there’s another song that has possibly even more-perfect lyrics for the eventual Conrad/Belly reunion. (I mean, we all assume that’s where this is going, right?)
Paris
In The Summer I Turned Pretty books, Conrad did not see Belly again until she returned from her travels, so we’re in a whole new territory now. While the Midnights track “Paris” seems like an on-the-nose song choice, it would be such a fun option to open the final episode, with Belly feeling like a badass with her new haircut. Or I could see it playing over a montage of her and Conrad exploring the city together. And HELLO? Just look at these lyrics:
I wanna transport you to somewhere the culture's clever. Confess my truth in swooping, sloping, cursive letters.
It’s Conrad’s letters for me, thank you very much. It will be a missed opportunity if this song doesn’t make an appearance, in our opinion.
The Alchemy
It’s practically a given that we’ll get something from The Tortured Poets Department in The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 finale. Four tracks from Taylor Swift’s latest album have been featured since Episode 7, and given the inevitability of Belly ending up with a Fisher boy, it seems “The Alchemy” is a strong contender.
The sign on Conrad's heart is clearly still reserved for Belly, and I think it looks like an infinity symbol. Who are they to fight it?
Actually Romantic
The Summer I Turned Pretty has featured yet-to-be-released Taylor Swift songs in the past, including “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” before she’d even announced 1989’s re-recording and “Delicate (Taylor’s Version)” from the Reputation re-recording that’s likely never coming. So it’s not completely out of the question that we’ll get our first taste of The Life of a Showgirl on the episode that drops 16 days ahead of her album.
As for why we think it might be “Actually Romantic,” this TikTok video explains it really well:
How epic would it be for Jenny Han’s series to feature a track off of TS12? Next Wednesday can’t come soon enough.
Red
Hopefully, you’ve been paying attention to the colors this season, because we’ve seen a definite shift from blue (Jeremiah) to red (Conrad), and it would only be fitting for The Summer I Turned Pretty to include Red’s title track when Belly stops fighting the Conrad flashbacks and echoes to realize that “moving on from him is impossible.”
Plus, it's also worth noting that this track was prominently used in TSITP's early ads for Season 3...
Other Possibilities
We threw around so many different ideas for which Taylor Swift songs might help to close out The Summer I Turned Pretty, so here are our other possibly less-strong guesses that we’d still love to hear:
- So High School: It’s The Tortured Poets Department’s other main love song, and it mentions Aristotle, who Laurel just happened to have a book about in her office.
- Mine: We have grand visions of Bonrad running away together at the episode’s end to the words, “Hold on and make it last. Hold on, never turn back,” with the final words being, “We’re gonna make it now.” Chills!
- How You Get the Girl: References to breaking her heart and putting it back together, as well as leaving her all alone and never telling her why, definitely hit on some key story themes here.
- August: When Jenny Han attended the Eras Tour, she posted a TikTok holding up pics of Conrad and Jeremiah during “Delicate,” “The 1,” and “August.” Of those three songs, the last one is the only one that hasn’t yet appeared in TSITP. Its love triangle theme is definitely fitting!
- Bejeweled: Ahead of Season 3, Jenny Han threw out three Taylor Swift songs that fit Belly’s story this season — “Don’t Blame Me,” “Midnight Rain” and “Bejeweled.” If one of those were to actually appear in the finale, I think the latter best captures Belly’s Paris era, and you just know she still makes Conrad’s whole world shimmer.
By our count, there have never been more than two Taylor Swift songs featured in any one episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty, so I know there’s no way we’ll get all of these amazing needle drops. I’m hoping for a super-sized episode, so maybe there will be space for one more.
Either way, I can’t wait to see if any of these predictions come true and to see how this love story comes together in the end. The Summer I Turned Pretty’s series finale drops Wednesday, September 17, on Amazon’s Prime Video.
