SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “Every Year After,” now streaming on Prime Video.
Showunner Amy B. Harris had three specific plot points in mind when she set out to adapt Carley Fortune’s YA romance novel “Every Summer After” for Amazon Prime Video, now titled “Every Year After.”“The pilot ending with ‘You came home,’ the anatomy textbook scene, and the truck sex, where he says, ‘You broke my heart’ had to be in there,” Harris tells Variety. (In a separate conversation with Variety’s Jennifer Maas, Fortune echoed the importance of “You came home,” the textbook scene, and friendship bracelets.) “I thought, ‘These are non-negotiables, and then everything else we’ll figure out where it fits or doesn’t.’”“Home” in this situation refers to the lake town of Barry’s Bay, located in rural Ontario, Canada. The idyllic location serves as the backdrop for the slowburn romance of best-friends-turned-lovers Persephone Fraser (Sadie Soverall) and Sam Florek (Matt Cornett). The pair meet as young teenagers when Percy – as she is referred to – becomes an annual summer visitor after her parents purchase a property in town. Over the course of the next few summers, the two grow closer over horror films and swims in the lake, frequently accompanied by Sam’s older brother Charlie (Michael Bradway), Percy’s best friend Delilah (Abigail Cowen), and Jordie (Joseph Chiu), a fellow local and Sam’s best friend.After years of will they/won’t they, Sam and Percy begin dating, but break up the summer before college when Sam says he needs to focus on school and ends their long-distance relationship. After, Percy sleeps with Charlie – a move that they both feel immense guilt over, and prevents Percy from getting back together with Sam. A decade later, Percy, now an adult living in Seattle, gets a call from Charlie telling her their mom, Sue Florek (Elisha Cuthbert), has died. A grieving Percy heads back to Barry’s Bay after years of no communication, and finds old feelings stirring up as her and Sam grow close once again. She’s accompanied by her best friend Chantal (Aurora Perrineau), a workaholic lawyer engaged to a manchild.
