Intro for September 17, 2025

Dear Gossips,   

Today is the end of The Summer I Turned Pretty. Hardcore viewers have probably already finished watching the series finale. I’ve heard of some people getting up three hours before they have to get ready for work every week just to watch the new episodes before starting their day. 

As Duana wrote last week in an essay for The Squawk, this show has maintained a chokehold over a certain corner of the internet for the better part of the summer. Personally, I went in the opposite direction: invested after season one, started to lose interest in season two, and tapped out entirely halfway through season three. This is obviously a minority experience.

There is too much that divides us right now, though. So let’s find common ground here and that would be Lola Tung. We can all agree that we need more Lola Tung that isn’t Belly Conklin, right? 

Lola has been in Paris this week because, of course, Belly moved to Paris. She and Rain Spencer were seen out for dinner last night. I’m also attaching various other shots of Lola over the last few days, looking cute in a series of black outfits as she both promotes the show and also sets up her future now that it’s over. (If it really is over.)

She has a couple of projects already lined up, including an ensemble horror called Forbidden Fruits, also starring Lili Reinhardt that’s expected to be released next year. And it was recently announced that she and Nico Parker have a film in the works.

That’s back-to-back horrors after four years of being at the center of the most-watched television love triangle of the streaming age – I’m into this strategy, even if it’s not intentional, especially since the plotlines and the casts for both Forbidden Fruits and The Young People are all seemingly women and female relationships. Stepping away from romance is a good move. She’s 22 years old, we already know that she can do young love. There’s never a downside to challenging herself and working on her range. 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey