Susannah Shouldn’t Return in ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Season 3

Summer and insane love triangles can only mean one thing. Prime Video‘s best teen romantic drama series, The Summer I Turned Pretty, is back. On July 16, the first two episodes of this love story’s third season were released, with the remaining episodes premiering weekly on Amazon’s streaming platform. Even though the widely loved Prime Video series is full of amazing characters and some fan favorites, there is one person who manages to still be annoying even beyond the grave. Susannah Fisher (Rachel Blanchard), the mother of Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), died of cancer in Season 2 of The Summer I Turned Pretty. It was rough on the rest of the characters, but somewhat of a relief for viewers, because Susannah was controversial (to put it mildly).

Now that Season 3 of The Summer I Turned Pretty is finally blessing our screens again, Belly (Lola Tung) and the two swoonworthy Fisher boys are back and ready to take us on a roller coaster of mixed feelings, messy secrets, shocking betrayal, and one or two (or many) Taylor Swift songs. Unfortunately, though, it’s not just the usual suspects that have returned in this new season of Jenny Han’s book-to-series adaptation. Susannah Fisher, out of all people, is also a part of the third season, even though she died in the previous one. Some might say it’s exciting to see her in flashbacks, but you won’t find any of that sweet talk here.

Susannah Has Always Been Problematic

Don’t talk badly about the fictionally dead, but Susannah had it coming for a long time. Yes, she played a significant role since she was one of the most important characters in The Summer I Turned Pretty, but, looking back, she wasn’t responsible for many exciting scenes. Susannah’s terminal cancer diagnosis tremendously impacted Conrad and Jeremiah, and even Belly, Steven, and Laurel. Each of them was grappling with the fact that they were about to lose a part of their family, and they were handling it individually. Susannah’s last few months added tension to the other relationships, and it was essential from a storytelling aspect.

However, Susannah wasn’t a saint, and she wasn’t that great of a loss from a character development point of view. Even though Rachel Blanchard did a fantastic job of bringing Susannah from the books to the screen, there arguably wasn’t much to play with. In many ways, Susannah radiated a sense of entitlement, which Laurel even occasionally pointed out, and she often crossed boundaries without first thinking about how it would affect others. Sure, they were all close, and they all regarded each other as one big family. That doesn’t change, though, that Susannah frequently overstepped and replaced Laurel in her role as mother to Belly and Steven, which is straight-up toxic behavior. It didn’t matter how close they were; there should have been at least some sort of boundary, and Susannah didn’t have that word in her dictionary.

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Throughout the first season of the coming-of-age series, there were similar issues between Susannah and her two sons. She coddled Conrad and Jeremiah in many ways, but they weren’t necessarily good. She kept her cancer diagnosis from the boys and pushed them to do things they weren’t up for, like accompanying Belly to the debutante ball, which she didn’t even want to do at first.

The most problematic aspect was that she played a significant role in causing a rift between Conrad and Jeremiah. It felt like her main hobby was shipping both of them with Belly. She even mentioned that she always knew Belly would end up with one of her boys, but when she realized they both had feelings for her, she begged them not to let a girl come between them. A bit too late for that, Susannah, because Conrad is still emotionally immature and Jeremiah is the most toxic Golden Retriever ever. Maybe interfering in the love lives of both boys with the same girl wasn’t the smartest move.

Susannah Shouldn’t Appear in ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Season 3

Flashbacks involving Susannah aren’t anything new. Season 2 of the best romance series on Prime Video already had various scenes showing Susannah having tough conversations or heated moments with some of the other characters, and some of them worked. Heartfelt goodbyes and last wishes. Some of them made sense, but Season 3 is taking it too far. Is it necessary to still have her be a part of this? This might trigger some, but in all honesty, Susannah’s flashbacks are overrated.

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She was sometimes portrayed as this super-wise, hip woman who had life figured out and lived it to its fullest, but it’s all a facade. She came across as phony and, sadly, also empty. Considering that she played such a significant role and is used for flashbacks to keep her memory alive, she should be a much more complex and thrilling character. Yet, there is barely anything there. No matter how she will be included in this new season of The Summer I Turned Pretty and Belly’s constant back and forth between Conrad and Jeremiah, it will likely fail to add much value to the overall story. Her death is so far in the past that arguably none of these old conversations would affect the other characters’ present. And please don’t let there be another session of painting her sons as Greek gods.

Flashbacks showing Susannah would take away from the overall excitement of the series. They would probably only drag everything down, as, ultimately, her opinion doesn’t matter anymore. She can still be loved, missed, and talked about, but there is no need to include her in scenes. Whatever she said was many years ago, since there was a significant time jump in TSITP. The series needs real conversations, real interactions between real people. Not flashbacks to bring ghosts back. At least Susannah won’t be the character at the center of a potential The Summer I Turned Pretty spin-off series. So, let’s just hope that any new scenes involving Susannah will be short and, hopefully, at least somewhat sweet.