Waiting for the next chapter of Belly’s messy, heart-wrenching love life feels like waiting for a summer that just won't start. Honestly, the strike-induced delays were a total gut punch for fans of the Prime Video hit. But there is a massive silver lining that makes the long wait for the Cousins Beach return feel a whole lot more worth it.
If you're wondering how many episodes The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 will actually have, the answer is officially bigger than anything we've seen before.
Jenny Han, the mastermind behind the books and the show’s creator, basically broke the internet when she confirmed that Season 3 is going to be supersized. While the first season gave us a breezy seven episodes and the second season bumped it up to eight, Amazon has gone ahead and ordered a massive 11 episodes for the upcoming third installment. That is a significant jump. It’s nearly 40% more content than we got in Season 2.
This isn't just a random number. It’s a deliberate choice because Season 3 is tasked with adapting We’ll Always Have Summer, the final book in the trilogy. That book is dense. It’s emotional. It involves a massive time jump, college life, and a wedding plotline that fans have very strong opinions about. Trying to cram all that growth and the definitive resolution of the Belly-Conrad-Jeremiah triangle into eight episodes would have been a disaster.
Why the 11-episode count for Season 3 changes everything
The math is simple: more episodes means more room for the story to breathe. In the world of streaming, we've gotten used to these tiny, eight-episode "seasons" that feel more like long movies split into chunks. By giving us 11 episodes, the writers can actually let the moments of silence and the atmospheric Cousins Beach vibes sit for a while.
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Think about the source material. Without spoiling too much for the non-readers, the third book deals with some heavy adult themes. Belly is no longer that wide-eyed 16-year-old. She’s in college. She’s making choices that have permanent consequences. Those extra three episodes are likely there to bridge the gap between the high school drama of the first two seasons and the more mature tone of the finale.
It's also worth noting that Season 2 faced some criticism for its pacing. Some fans felt the weekly release schedule made the grief-heavy episodes feel like they were dragging, while others felt the actual "romance" was rushed. With a higher episode count, the show can balance the heavy stuff with those signature "fluff" moments that made everyone fall in love with the series in the first place.
The production timeline and why we had to wait
Production kicked off in North Carolina around the spring of 2024. Because they are filming 11 episodes instead of the usual eight, the production window had to be extended. You can't just film three extra hours of high-quality television in a weekend. It takes weeks of extra location scouting, late-night shoots on the beach, and post-production editing.
Lola Tung, Christopher Briney, and Gavin Casalegno have all been spotted back on set, but the scale of this season is clearly larger. We’re moving beyond just the Fisher house. We’re seeing college campuses. We’re seeing a world that is expanding as the characters grow up.
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What the expanded episode count tells us about the ending
There has been a lot of chatter online—mostly on TikTok and Reddit—about whether Season 3 is the end. While Amazon hasn't explicitly used the words "Final Season" in every single press release, the fact that they’ve increased the episode count to 11 suggests they are trying to wrap this up in a way that satisfies every "Team" out there.
Usually, when a show is a massive hit, streamers try to stretch it out. But Jenny Han has always been protective of her story. If she says it takes 11 episodes to tell the end of Belly’s journey properly, that’s what she gets. It feels like a definitive "thank you" to the fans who stayed loyal through the long hiatus.
Breaking down the possible structure
If you look at how TV pacing works, an 11-episode season usually breaks down into three acts:
- The Aftermath: The first three episodes will likely deal with the immediate fallout of the Season 2 finale. Belly and Jeremiah are "together," and Conrad is off at Stanford, presumably heartbroken.
- The Time Jump & The Conflict: Episodes four through eight are where the meat of the book’s drama will live. This is where the wedding plot usually kicks in and where the cracks in the new status quo start to show.
- The Resolution: The final three episodes. This is where we get the definitive answer. Who does she end up with? How does the letter-writing campaign from the book translate to the screen?
That extra space in the "third act" is crucial. In the books, the ending feels a bit like a whirlwind. By having more screen time, we might actually get a more fleshed-out look at Belly’s life after her big choice, which is something the fans have been begging for since the books were first published over a decade ago.
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Dealing with the wait for Summer 2025
The most frustrating part? We know exactly how many episodes there are, but we still have to wait until 2025 to see them. Prime Video confirmed that the show is skipping Summer 2024 entirely. It sucks. It’s basically a crime to have a show called The Summer I Turned Pretty not air in the summer.
But look at the bright side.
The cast is older. The characters are older. The stakes are higher. If they had rushed Season 3 to get it out by now, we probably would have ended up with a truncated, 8-episode season that skipped half the best parts of the book.
What to do while you wait for those 11 episodes
- Re-read Book 3: Seriously. We'll Always Have Summer is different from the show in many ways, but the core emotional beats are there. It'll give you a roadmap for what those 11 episodes will cover.
- Watch the "Bonrad" vs. "Jelly" debates on TikTok: The discourse hasn't died down. If anything, it’s gotten more intense.
- Track the filming leaks: Fans in Wilmington, NC, are constantly posting updates. Just keep in mind that some of what you see might be "decoy" scenes to throw off spoilers.
The reality is that how many episodes The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 has is a direct reflection of how much Amazon trusts this franchise. They aren't just dumping a short season to get it over with. They are investing in an 11-episode event. It’s going to be a long, emotional, and hopefully beautiful conclusion to a story that has defined the teen drama genre for the 2020s.
Get your tissues ready. Cousins Beach is calling, and this time, we get to stay there just a little bit longer.
To stay ahead of the curve, keep an eye on official Prime Video social channels around early 2025 for the first teaser trailer, which is expected to drop roughly three to four months before the actual premiere date. Based on previous release patterns, once the marketing machine starts, we’ll likely see a weekly release schedule rather than a full binge-drop, meaning those 11 episodes will keep us occupied for nearly three full months of summer. Make sure your subscription is active by May 2025 so you don't miss the initial wave of spoilers.