Dear Gossips,
Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah?
I couldn’t say because I hadn’t watched The Summer I Turned Pretty until this weekend. Does it have problems? Yes. Did I still mainline the series? Of course. Can I answer the question: Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah, which has been TikTok’s preoccupation for the last few weeks? I can, finally. As Kathleen texted me this weekend, “There are teams and you pick one”.
That’s how this has always worked – it’s the teen romance formula, it will endure the test of time.
But what’s also true is that teen rom-coms and teen romantic dramas are for more than just teens. Jenny Han’s previous pop culture teen takeover was To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and as we saw, one of the reasons it became a big deal is that proper adults were also all over that story. The same is true of The Summer I Turned Pretty, and the show makes it obvious right in the script. A 16-year-old in 2022 does not know what “prune” means when you’re taking a photo (episode six). That’s a mid-2000s gossip reference that happened when they were barely out of diapers.
But anyway, back to the question: Conrad or Jeremiah?
Can I just preface by saying that I am on a team but it’s not the most devoted I’ve ever been on a team? Definitely not devoted enough to throw down hard. And that may be because the actor who plays Conrad, Christopher Briney, reminds me of a young Michael Pitt. If you don’t know who that is, google “young Michael Pitt”, the resemblance is undeniable. So, sure, Team Conrad, but not ardently.
Because the team I belong to and will fight to the death for is Team Steven. Steven, played by Sean Kaufman, is main character material. And he and Minnie Mills (who plays Shayla) are the OTP I will forever be shipping.
Cast them both in everything!
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
