Why we’ve all fallen for The Summer I Turned Pretty: ‘Endless, wonderful melodrama’

The third season of the Amazon teen drama has become a certified phenomenon, encouraging watch parties and intense fan reactions

It’s after work on a Wednesday night, and I’m at a sports bar in downtown Manhattan. It looks exactly like what you’d expect of a bar in the Financial District. Men in button-up shirts stand around a tall table with folded arms, ranting about the current season as multiple baseball games are playing on TV screens all around the bar.

I feel out of place as I wait for a friend, but I know it’s only a matter of time until things change. A stream of women slowly trickles in, group by group. The mood abruptly changes when the TV screens flicker on to a clip of sparkling water. The bar cranks up the volume, a wistful three notes plays over the speaker, the brief theme song of what has become a show so popular that sports bars in Manhattan are throwing watch parties for women who, like me, are years older than the show’s protagonist.