‘The Summer I Turned Really, Really Pretty’ pushes a love triangle but is actually about Disgruntled Character #2

Review that quickly devolves into commentary on a single background character with 3 minutes of screentime

Everything triangulates around this one character; I am not crazy

Airing in January, “The Summer I Turned Really, Really Pretty” was the hottest show of the winter season. The new television series attempts to deliver a classic, small-town teen romance, featuring the precocious and shy-but-friendly protagonist Dovie Nell Kitty as she tries to understand her budding feelings for her childhood friend Preston Hunter, who has recently developed an affinity for being broody and mysterious.

Coming after his brother is Jebediah Hunter, who has always been a reliable companion for Dovie throughout their shared youth. When Jebediah begins to want something more, however, it challenges Dovie’s ideas of love and, more strikingly, who she really feels it for.

Episode six, “The Mysterious Presence That Manifested Inside of Your Heart,” throws a curveball at audiences when both brothers gang up on Dovie and begin screaming at each other in a public park, refusing to observe social norms. This overt display of passions shows that they really love her, and Dovie is shocked by their capacity for romantic demonstrations.

Unfortunately, Dovie is alone in her unique ability to comprehend and empathize with her beloved boys and their rambunctious, socially unconventional behavior. The public scene created by their messy love triangle results in pushback from the public, as a middle-aged woman pushing a stroller sidesteps the three of them with a look of disgust, asking what their problem is.

As Jebediah gears up to throw a passionate punch at his brother, another guy can be seen clutching his bag as he quickly swerves out of the blast radius. He is wearing a dark green sweatshirt and light-wash blue jeans, and his hair is neither very short nor terribly long. In one second, it becomes clear that he is wearing striped sneakers.

As the green-clad character swept out of sight, I looked past Dovie, Preston and Jebediah to see if there was anything more that I could learn from the encounter. Yet there was nothing new to be learned, only an emptiness in my heart that had not been there before his arrival and abrupt departure.

Episode six’s end credits yielded no more information about the mysterious presence other than the fact that he could be referred to with the moniker “Disgruntled Character #2.” I cherished this newfound familiarity, and hunkered down to finish the remaining two episodes. Surely, the continuous unraveling of Dovie’s heart when faced with the extremely difficult decision of which brother to date would demand another appearance from Disgruntled Character #2.

After all, his presence was pivotal. Thematically crucial. He revealed things about the very nature of love itself, within the boundaries of the television series extending outside the realm of fiction into reality. Love is messy. It might end in judgment from others, and it is completely irrational. Yet it endures. I did, too, as I waited for him to return.

I scanned each scene, from quiet moments in Dovie’s room to tentative date nights at the ice-cream parlor. Perhaps he was hiding behind the staircase to signify that the truth sometimes hides in plain sight. He might have been obscured by the throngs of people lining up at the counter to choose their ice-cream flavor, symbolizing the difficulty of locating your true love in a mesmerizing crowd of choices. Patiently, I searched up and down, left and right, waiting for him to appear once more.

Yet he never did. Not once.

Moments that were probably narratively important, like Preston and Dovie holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes, passed me by as if I were in some sort of fugue state. Jebediah and Preston made up, probably. I barely paid attention.

How is it possible that Disgruntled Character #2 never appears again, even once? He is literally the thematic core of the story — that true love is full of unnamed potential, just waiting for you to explore it. True love is worth waiting for, even when it’s difficult! Even when it seems hopeless. Even when it sends you into an inexplicable spiral, and you sound kind of crazy.

I combed back through my memories of him, all 16 seconds of him, and thought deeply about his green sweatshirt. Green. What does green signify? Innocence, envy, the popular “Wicked” franchise — but most importantly, life. Life, which heralds new beginnings, growth and the ability to make money.

Walking away from the screen only meant that he would come back, stronger and even more meaningful than when he left me. That was when I knew that it was undeniable: there would be a spin-off about Disgruntled Character #2.

Written by: Julie Huang — arts@theaggie.org