On Wednesday, Sept. 17, The Summer I Turned Pretty will put an end to its three-season escapade — and I’m not looking forward to it. 

Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t watched the show or read the books — you’ve been warned.

As someone who has been a loyal reader and watcher of Jenny Han’s young adult series, this final season has done nothing but fall flat. The first season was all a viewer could ever want — summery days on the beach, debutante balls, summer loves and bonfires — until it’s discovered that Susannah Fisher (the mother of Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher, the male leads in the show) is dying of cancer. The second season follows the aftermath of her death, and the third season? It’s all about Belly Conklin — the show’s lead — getting engaged to her boyfriend of four years after finding out he cheated on her (twice!) — and then deciding to call off the wedding because she realizes she’s grossly obsessed with the groom’s brother. I love to hate this show.

While Han is really trying to make the show a yearning love story between Conrad (the older brother) and Belly — his childhood friend who grew up in his family’s beach house — it now feels impossible for the two to end in holy matrimony (as happens in the books). 

Why does this feel impossible? The entire third season was spent focusing on a disastrously failed wedding between Belly and Jeremiah (Belly’s supposed soulmate’s brother) and making every single character in the show so unlikeable it feels immoral to even keep watching. At least three of the main characters have cheated on their partners, the dialogue and emotions are incredibly exaggerated and harsh, and not one person supports the wedding that’s going on. 

All the complexities of young love, grief, family dynamics, friendships, and coming-of-age that glued the first two seasons together have vanished, leaving us with a third season that is so over-the-top and inflated that nothing about it feels realistic nor enjoyable.

Not to mention, Belly quite literally gets into relationships with both of the Fisher brothers. Hello?! 

Instead of deepening her characters’ redeemable qualities that she solidifies in the first two seasons, Han makes her characters wholly unlikable. She puts so much emphasis on Jeremiah’s man-child-esque bad traits (and trust me, there are a lot) and makes Conrad’s tendency to keep his emotions to himself appear whiny and pathetic. Belly is no longer the innocent young girl caught in a love triangle and is now the reason why the Fisher brothers can’t be in a room together (because who dates brothers?). Oh, and Belly’s best friend and her brother are written to be a magical couple (after both cheated on their partners with each other). 

I’m entertained every Wednesday when new episodes are released, but not for the show’s actual entertainment value. The Summer I Turned Pretty is an absolute trainwreck, but I can’t stop watching. I’m more invested in how much I dislike Jeremiah than who Belly actually ends up with.

During the second-to-last episode, aired on Wednesday, Sept. 10, Belly had moved to Paris and away from the Fisher brothers after calling off her wedding. And after some time spent in the city, she fell for a new man — Benito! Within the span of an hour, the gentle and kind Benito became all of the things that both Conrad and Jeremiah have not been for Belly in the entirety of the third season. And now, with the finale coming soon, viewers’ familiar with the books’ original plot are meant to believe that Belly is suddenly going to run back to Conrad and get married to her ex-fiancé’s brother. 

Did I mention Belly hasn’t texted Conrad once in the time she’s been in Paris (around a year at this point), and he continues to send her letters and packages to which she doesn’t respond, and now he’s flying to Paris for her birthday unannounced? What about this is love? 

As someone who has been a loyal supporter of Belly and Conrad’s love story for the past three seasons (and three books), I am severely disappointed in the way that the final season is coming to a close. Every character is insufferable — including Belly and Conrad — and it seems impossible to wrap up the catastrophe that has been this season in one final episode. There has been a three-season-long buildup to Belly and Conrad finally getting together, and because of all the illicit affairs and ruined characters it took to get here, it feels wrong, gross, and doesn’t make any sense for the pair to fall in love.

This is the worst show I’ve ever seen; it’s also my favorite show. I’ll be watching (angrily) this Wednesday.