The Summer I Turned Pretty's third and final season is in full swing, and while all of the characters have changed thanks to a four-year time jump, one of the most surprising shifts has been in broody Conrad Fisher—he's got a friend! Specifically, Agnes, who is quickly becoming a fan favorite. Fans of the original series will recognize her as Conrad's college fling from We'll Always Have Summer, but the Agnes in The Summer I Turned Pretty is very different from the one in the books.
Agnes only appears briefly in We'll Always Have Summer, the final book in the original TSITP trilogy, but in show, she's a pretty key part of the story. And those changes, according to actor Zoé de Grand'Maison's interview with Teen Vogue, the changes in her character came directly from Jenny Han herself. “She said, ‘Take a look at the scene in the book.’ I was like, ‘I already have [laughs].’ She said, essentially, we're gonna expand the character and dive into that friendship a little more,” she recounted.
In the show, Agnes and Conrad still have a bit of a romantic past, and it's implied that Agnes wanted to have a real relationship with him and he turned her down. But she's more than an ex, she's his best friend and confidante. She's the one person Conrad can actually be honest with about his feelings for Belly, which in turn helps the audience get to know him better.
“I feel like my character's purpose is that I finally give the audience a chance to get into Conrad's head, because she's able to open him up and pull these things out of him,” Zoé said, calling Agnes his “unpaid therapist.”
Later in the interview, she went further, noting, “We've all seen that sexy, brooding character, and in the movie or show, being that way always works out for them. I like that Jenny challenges that. He needs to grow, and it is cool that Agnes is playing a huge role in being like, ‘Hey, buddy, you know, you're great and I have so much love for you, but you need to make some changes here and you need to address these feelings.’”
