Warning: This article contains minor spoilers.
Summer at Cousins Beach is different this year as the Conklins and the Fischers, the families at the center of “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” grieve the loss of matriarch Susannah Fischer, whose magnetic energy brought the families closer together.
The show follows the families as they spend their summer vacations at the Fischers’ beach house every year because their mothers, Laurel (Jackie Chung) and Susannah (Rachel Blanchard), were best friends. In season two of the Amazon Prime series, which premieres Friday, Susannah’s death leaves her family’s future — and their beach house — in the air as Aunt Julia, her disgruntled sister, chooses to sell the home.
The season, which flips between flashbacks and the present, begins with protagonist Belly Conklin struggling in school and longing for a reality in which everyone is happy and Susannah is still alive. She’s called into her guidance counselor’s office on the last day of the school year to discuss her slipping grades and the revocation of her volleyball captaincy.
“Belly is drowning in her grief at the beginning,” said Lola Tung, who plays Belly. “She can’t get out of this hole that she’s in, and the whole arc of season two for her is finding out how to move forward and reconnect with the things that make her happy. This season, the whole family is in such different places with their grief.”
Belly, unlike her older brother, Steven (Sean Kaufman), became disconnected from school, friends and her family as Susannah became sicker.
Steven is named valedictorian and is on his way to Yale University in the fall. Tensions run high between Steven and Belly at a party on the night of graduation, which leads her to accuse Steven of having moved on from Susannah’s recent death.
“For Steven, it’s tough, because he’s at a decent point in his life when season two picks up,” Kaufman said. “He’s graduating and going off to a future that he’s…
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