I watched The Summer I Turned Pretty at a sports bar with dozens of other young women. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Stephanie Branchu/Amazon Prime, Kelsey Weekman/Yahoo News)MANHATTAN - The charming neighborhood sports bar is so packed that none of the people clutching their cocktails and phones can move. Nor would they want to. Their eyes are fixed on the TV screen. Conrad Fisher has just appeared. Everyone screams. He's not even doing anything; he's just there.I'm at a watch party for The Summer I Turned Pretty at Blue Haven in New York City, where they're playing the penultimate episode of the series on every screen. The young adult romance show airs weekly on Prime Video and is based on beloved books by Jenny Han. It follows Belly Conklin's journey as a young woman who learns that she's gotten hot, and how the two longtime family friends she grew up with spending summers at the beach, Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher, have noticed she's hot too.
Now in its third and final season, the characters are staunchly late-college-aged and making adult decisions about marriage and careers. The stakes are high. I realized that watching the romantic sparring between brothers evoked feelings in me that I'd only ever experienced in the front rows of a game between my college's football team and its rival: Fourth down, ball on the ten-yard line, no time-outs left, just seconds left in the game. I wanted to scream, and I did, at a sports bar surrounded by a crowd of 95% women in their 20s and 30s.A spectator sportThis is the first television show that Blue Haven has ever hosted a watch party for, and they started with Season 3. The staff picked The Summer I Turned Pretty because it was fun, emotional, girly and set in the summer. The bar's manager, Sarah, was down to try it immediately. They just never expected it to blow up like this.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"We're used to the crowds for sports and all, but this is a different demographic," Maria, a 27-year-old server, tells me. "The majority of our staff are women, so we're such a girl group anyway."The first watch party only had three tables set up for viewers, who watched in the back room of the bar. Then Maeve, a 27-year-old manager, posted on social media about drink specials the bar created that were named after the characters. Their bespoke menu went viral, and by the next episode, they had to expand viewings to the main room.
People mostly come in small groups of two or three, but file in so tight they mingle with each other. Tables get reserved weeks in advance and the space fills up long before showtime. Maeve says one woman traveled from Brazil with her mom just to come to this watch party."This is our home, and we're essentially inviting people into our living room to watch the show and bond ... it's like one big slumber party watching a TV show," Maria says before handing me the Conrad cocktail, which was a perfectly moody Manhattan with a cherry.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMaddie, the bar's 26-year-old social media manager, screens the episodes on Wednesday mornings before their 7:15 p.m. screenings so she knows exactly when to whip out her phone to get the perfect reaction shot on social media. People tend to boo Jeremiah, the younger, frattier, more outgoing brother who dates Belly for several years before getting engaged in the third season.
What team are you on?I polled dozens of people in the room in search of someone on Team Jeremiah, but I couldn't find any. He cheated on Belly, though they were "on a break," which is an indefensible crime in the eyes of the masses. Maria said she commented in his favor in one of the bar's viral social media post, and it accrued quite a few likes, but if there are any of his defenders in the room with us, they're silent.
Maria and Maddie both admit that they've been Team Jeremiah in the past, though they rebuke him now. He was the better choice in Season 2, they say, because he was emotionally available, consistent and good at loving Belly. But it was never a fair competition because Conrad, whom she dated in Season 2 and harbored a long-term crush on throughout their childhood, was always in the back of her mind."Jeremiah was more fun, always smiling and extremely cute. Conrad is always sulking, which is understandable. I love brooding," Maddie says.
While navigating through the bar, I misheard something that Chanila, who is 28, was telling her friend over nachos, and mistook it as pro-Jeremiah. She quickly corrected me, shouting "No!" over and over again. "I'm Team Conrad! You'd better put in your article that she was adamant about not being Team Jeremiah."AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHer friend, 29-year-old Courtney, says Jeremiah only ever wanted to be with Belly to one-up his brother. They get into a playful screaming match."You wouldn't be with someone for four f***ing years just to one-up your brother! Guys, that's f***ed up!" Chanila