Sharmistha Dasgupta: A Myriad Quill Canvas

If you had internet access and were even remotely active on social media in 2025, you must not be oblivious to the ‘Bonrad’ frenzy that gripped the web world for months this year. Even Oxford took note of it, or so it may seem.

The third and final season of ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ created by author Jenny Han for Amazon Prime Video aired weekly every Wednesday from July 16 till September 17.  With a mashup of Taylor Swift’s ‘Daylight’ and ‘Red’ playing in the teaser, fans were certainly teased of a ‘Bonrad’ endgame when Conrad (Christopher Briney) appears towards the end after it shows how steady Belly (Lola Tung) and Jeremiah’s (Gavin Casalegno) 4-year old relationship was. They did speculate how Conrad’s return from California to the Cousin’s beach house in his camel-coloured coat sucking on a candy right before Christmas would turn the tables. However, that did not confirm the madness and rage that was yet to come about.

Until the second season, there was an animosity between the rooters for Conrad and the ones for Jeremiah. At least, the concept of Team Jeremiah existed. Jeremiah’s supporters banked their emotions on how he was wronged in the first season after Belly changed her mind to be with his elder brother and her childhood crush Conrad after making out with Jeremiah.

Conrad, however, is depicted as a teen who is not in sync with his emotions for Belly. That is justified for he has a lot going on. Susannah, the mother of the two brothers, suffers from cancer in the first season and eventually dies. Conrad silently carries the burden of knowing about his mother’s sickness in the first season and their father’s extra-marital affair to protect his mother and brother’s peace. He is shown as someone who pushes Belly away in contrary to how he feels for her. But Han makes sure to plant the idea of their soulmate-ism in the hearts of the fans since the first season itself. She does it with the music, the infinity neckpiece and Susannah’s iconic line, “For Belly, Conrad is the sun and when the sun comes out, the stars disappear”. Conrad is introduced in the series with Swift’s ‘Lover’. In the deb ball, Jeremiah was supposed to be Belly’s dance partner. But fate takes things in its hand, when Belly’s Prince Charming aka Conrad had to walk towards her as her partner with Swift’s ‘The Way I Loved You’ playing in the background. Also, the recurrence of the infinity symbol and the neckpiece throughout the series convey how there is an ‘invisible string’ tying them to one another.

From the third season, however, the attitude of the fandom takes a drastic turn with how the story unravels and the portrayal of the same. Noticeably, the concept of Team Jeremiah fades away.

In a world that is starved of the bare minimum acts of care, Han shows that what the world wants from relationships currently is not grand gestures. The reason she managed to garner the support and attention of millions across continents was because of her portrayal of an evolved, independent Conrad who goes to therapy, addresses his emotions and thus does not shy away from expressing how he feels for Belly, now his former girlfriend and family friend. At a time when ghosting and playing hard to get is the norm to keep someone’s focus hooked on to the said person, Han showed us that the only thing that can heal all the hearts rooting for ‘Bonrad’ is an old-school love story. In this era of virtual existence, when people can move on in seconds, Han fed the fandom with a slow-burn trope centered on yearning. From the soft gazes and eye contacts Belly and Conrad shared, him cancelling his flight and baking for her when he found her crying, him keeping an old photograph of them in his drawer in California and writing letters to her while she was in Paris and sending her a care package during the holidays so that she finds an essence of home in her first Christmas away in a different country, it almost seemed he is a remnant of the World War Two generation.

However, one thing that I could not help but notice was how Jeremiah’s character was practically reframed to cultivate the support for ‘Bonrad’. I do believe that infidelity is the last straw, but the way the character was portrayed as an immature and irresponsible ‘manchild’ (as netizens termed it), was something that did seem forced instead of a natural revelation.  Whether it was his insistence for cacao in the wedding cake when they were short on funds, or the wedding proposal itself, it all seemed far-fetched for Jeremiah. Han’s deliberation was only too visible to even a casual viewer.

The Internet can be a very emotive, unrestrained and brutal platform. The hate for Jeremiah and even Casalegno poured in with no sensitivity. It took a total 8 episodes for the viewers to look at Jeremiah’s side of the story when he told Belly, “You can’t marry me to erase him (Conrad)” when the wedding was called off after Conrad confessed to Belly that he still loves her.

As humans, we get fixated on the ideas of almost(s) and could-have-been(s). Certainty and stability seldom make good fiction. There was justification for how angry the fandom became when Jeremiah cheated on Belly with Lacie, but it was how Han sketched the slow-burn ‘Bonrad’ arc this season that can be called as ‘rage bait’ as per the Oxford definition. Coincidentally (or maybe not) ‘rage bait’ also happened to be Oxford’s Word of the Year.

The Parisian endgame was however the perfect ending that the fans ‘yearned’ for. From high-school students to married couples and even people above 60, Han surely captivated hearts from all age groups. The world could not resist the chivalry Conrad exhibited, as Instagram reels on modern dating drew comparisons of the two brothers while their wrath for Jeremiah shaped the algorithm.

For the Gen Z, who lived and breathed the ‘Bonrad’ madness on Instagram, Reddit, Facebook and practically every platform, Belly and Conrad’s story did make them reflect on what their hearts crave most. Being the non-chalant one might be their go-to move, but if anything, it did make them realise that it can only take them so far.