It’s always “Team Conrad” vs. “Team Jeremiah” on The Summer I Turned Pretty. But what about “Team Staylor?!”
Prime Video’s adaptation of Jenny Han’s beloved book trilogy centers on the love triangle between Belly (Lola Tung), Conrad (Christopher Briney), and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), but the show has also expanded the roles of Belly’s brother Steven (Sean Kaufman) and her BFF Taylor (Rain Spencer) into an epic romance of their own. And while the two enemies-turned-lovers finally got together in the season 2 finale, a lot will have changed for them when the series returns for its third and final season, thanks to a two-year time jump.
“If the final season was an ice cream flavor for Steven and Taylor, it’d be Rocky Road,” Kaufman tells Entertainment Weekly. “Steven and Taylor were left in a very happy place, and the start of the new season isn’t exactly where we ended season 2. But one of the beautiful things about Steven and Taylor is the ebbs and flows of their relationship and how they always find a way to come back to each other.”
While the actor is wary to spill any more details about the status of Steven and Taylor’s relationship after the time jump, his costar Spencer reveals it’s actually not an easy answer… because Steven and Taylor might not even know themselves. “She and Steven have broken up and gotten back together more times than anyone remembers, and their relationship status is so confusing,” Spencer says. “They don’t even know what it is. They’re pretty confused. But there will be romance.”
Erika Doss/Prime
Rain Spencer as Taylor on ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ season 3
Kaufman teases that a lot of their problems will come from external issues, based on where they’re at in their lives. “Steven and Taylor are in a really interesting place this season, and age has a part to do with that,” he says. “There’s something about young love at 17 and 18 and feeling like everything is the end of the world when it comes to a relationship, and then as you get older and you get more responsibilities, you start to realize, yes, it’s so important, but there are other things in life. There’s a lot more going on.”
Despite their issues, Spencer is a fan of how Steven and Taylor’s love for each other is always “unconditional,” and that’s why she’s “rooting for them” to end up together.
“I love their story so much — they are authentic and true for their age,” Spencer says. “It feels relatable to me, because I’ve had to learn how to be vulnerable with someone, but I’m terrified, and how do I do this? I love that they’re not perfect, and they both fail, and ultimately they don’t really care that the other person failed. It’s like, ‘Yeah, you hurt my feelings,’ or, ‘You did X, Y, and Z, but I still love you.’ There’s a freedom to not be perfect with them, and that is so cool to me.”
Team “Staylor” is in uncharted territory for the final season, since the characters do not have an epic romance in the books (aside from a fleeting hookup in the first one that’s never really mentioned again). Both actors were surprised to see how much their roles were expanded on the show, and author/showrunner Han reveals that continues in other aspects of the characters’ lives this season.
Erika Doss/Prime
Sean Kaufman and Tom Everett Scott on ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ season 3
“We’ve got Steven with his new job, so we have new characters that you’ll meet in [that] setting,” Han says.
Now that Steven has graduated from college and is working full-time, expect to see a more mature version of him. “I was very happy with the time jump just because it brings Steven closer to my actual age,” Kaufman says. “I do know what it’s like to get out of college and go into the workforce and be scared but also passionate about something and wanting to work hard, but also not being able to rely on school anymore. And Steven is doing it in a funny way this season.”
Kaufman loved seeing how much Steven has changed and grown up during the time jump. “There’s a new sense of responsibility in his life and things he wants to explore and discover and things he’s finding out about himself,” he adds. “He’s a very money-hungry hard worker, nose-to-the-grindstone kind of guy — he gets stuff done. This season, there’s going to be a lot of questioning that, exploring the ‘work all the time and grind all the time’ [mentality], and really getting to figure out what he wants to do.”
Meanwhile, Han reveals that Taylor’s mom, Lucinda, will also be introduced this season. “We get to expand and see more of Taylor’s world and think about who raised this girl and what her home life is like,” the creator says.
Spencer says that Lucinda is a “fun character” to meet this season, especially since her dynamic with Taylor is so unique. “They’re more like roommates or best friends, which sounds fun, but I think ultimately is a tricky dynamic with a mother-daughter relationship,” she explains. “Taylor needs a little bit more of a mom, and I think she ends up parenting her parent. Her mom has trouble with intimate relationships and is sort of like a boy crazy mom, and Taylor’s the one that’s seeing the manifestation of that, and essentially comforting her mother and trying to help her.”
The actor laughs as she adds, “I think she’ll probably need to do some therapy later around it.”
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Learning more about Taylor’s family life will factor into her relationship with Steven as well. “There’s a fear of abandonment that Taylor has, and that’s why she has such a hard time opening up to Steven because she doesn’t want him to disappear,” Spencer says. “She wants to know that she has something before she commits and she has a hard time being vulnerable or expressing her emotions, and that’s what she’s learning. When we [start] season 3, she’s still struggling with it. She’s still trying to figure out how open up to people and to trust people.”
There’s no hints of how the story ends for Steven and Taylor in Han’s books, so Spencer and Kaufman warn that fans should just buckle up and go along for the ride in the final season. “Jenny Han is so good at what she does,” Spencer praises. “She keeps me and everyone guessing, and I’m excited for everyone to see what’s in store this season. It’s really beautiful and we had such a fun time doing it, and it’ll be epic to watch.”
For more on The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s final season, check out EW’s full cover story. The final season premieres Wednesday, July 16, on Prime Video.
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