“The Summer I Turned Pretty” might be over now, but Season 3 was quite a wild ride, and series creator Jenny Han loved seeing which Easter eggs the community around the show managed to find during those final episodes. While Han came clean about some classic film references that she managed to slip into the show, she says that there’s one in particular that no one seemed to have caught.
For Belly (Lola Tung) on the Prime Video series, the universe seemed to be trying to tell her something as the show barreled toward its dramatic series finale. Han revealed to the Hollywood Reporter that eagle-eyed fans managed to miss that a significant movie was playing during an important flashback for our protagonist.
“Belly was watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ and that movie is just about exploring the road not taken, and kind of the what if’s,” the showrunner shared. “I think that is something that the story engages with as well. I don’t know that I saw anyone talking about that.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty’s showrunner misdirected viewers
If there was an award for posting signs right in front of the viewer, Han would be in the running with details like that planted throughout Season 3 of “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” The idea of dreaming about your future is something that Belly does a lot of over the course of the show’s run.
But Han hasn’t always been so upfront with the audience. In the same interview with THR, she admitted to leading them astray on purpose with some of the official posters for “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” On the official images leading up to the season’s release, it’s Jeremiah kissing Belly, only for Conrad to get swapped in once Belly chooses him in the finale.
“That was always my idea to do the switch,” Han elaborated. “Fans know that in the classic movie ‘Sabrina,’ David is the one kissing Sabrina but he’s not the person that she ends up with. So I thought it just added a little bit of intrigue and fun to see the switch.” These kinds of Easter eggs show the kind of care that Han and the rest of the creative team put into the show. Let’s hope that the “Summer I Turned Pretty” movie will have the same attention to detail, because the series was filled with small moments that made it pop.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
