Every Year After Season 1 Review: A Charming Summer Romance Blossoms in Barry’s Bay

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

4

Prime is on quite the generational run.

If there is one thing they are proving without a doubt that they know how to do, and do well, it’s pull off a sun-drenched summer romance.

While many of its themes may draw comparisons to The Summer I Turned Pretty (ahem: a disgustingly beautiful locale, two handsome blue-eyed brothers, the trials and tribulations of coming of age), Every Year After charts its own course.

Based on Carley Fortune’s debut novel Every Summer After, this 8-episode season follows the sweet, yet often fraught, friends-to-lovers relationship between Percy Fraser (Sadie Soverall) and Sam Florek (Matt Cornett).

We join them as they navigate all the magic and pain of young love — and the lasting impact it leaves, even as adults.

The show opens on our main character, Percy, a struggling obituary writer living in Seattle, giving a speech at her best friend Chantal’s (Aurora Perrineau) engagement party.

After leaving for a quick hook-up with the groom’s half-brother, she receives a call from Sam’s brother, Charlie (Michael Bradway).

Their mother, Sue (Elisha Cuthbert), has recently passed away from cancer, and Charlie is calling to invite Percy to the memorial service.

Percy then experiences a panic attack, and in an interesting use of visual symbolism, she rails on her closet door that refuses to close.

It’s apt foreshadowing for the core theme of this season: once opened, some doors will not stay shut.

With Chantal in tow, Percy heads back to the lake town where she spent her teen summers, the incredibly picturesque, water-so-blue-you-can’t-believe-it’s-real Canadian lake town of Barry’s Bay.

Percy has to come to terms with her past regrets; choices that have left her estranged from the Florek brothers and her former childhood friends, Delilah (Abigail Cowen) and Jordie (Joseph Chiu).

The episodes bounce back and forth between past and present-day timelines, where we watch Percy and Sam fall in love over the course of six teenage summers and discover the (honestly, not entirely shocking) twist that derailed it all.

Barry’s Bay Expands, and for the Better

The setting of Barry’s Bay is a main character in itself.

Thankfully, there are many glorious montages of lake swimming and dock-diving, ice cream eating, and boating as the golden sun sinks behind the Canadian mountains.

I’ll be the first to admit that my kryptonite is ANY story with a lake setting. If you’re in it for the vibes, I promise, they will not disappoint.

Fans of the book may also notice several subtle changes, but the bones of the story are largely the same, keeping many of the original story beats and character details.

However, the show makes one critical change, which drastically improves the adaptation for the screen: the expansion of its supporting cast.

Every Year After knows that the secret to elevating a teen drama lies in its ensemble.

It succeeds in making its supporting cast a set of nuanced, complex characters, ones you could easily see carrying future seasons as leads.

Chantal, a Type-A lawyer, quickly becomes a favorite as she embarks on a journey to find identity beyond her work and relationships with others.

Her quick wit and chemistry with the other characters keep scenes feeling fresh and surprising.

Delilah may initially appear to be the classic mean-girl archetype, but appearances are certainly deceiving. Under her polished exterior is a sensitive, complex, and very funny friend.

Jordie is also a breath of fresh air, balancing out the ensemble with his golden retriever energy and effortless charisma.

These supporting characters add some much-needed spice, compensating for the sometimes less-than-sizzling chemistry between Sam and Percy during the present-day timeline.

Percy and Sam’s teen years are marked with some sweet, convincing yearning (an edited version of the book’s “anatomy lesson” is a high point).

But as the later episodes unravel their past mistakes, their relationship dynamic is complicated by the actions of their present-day counterparts.

The show keeps them on pretty rocky ground through to the end, and their chemistry isn’t quite strong enough to convince you to unflinchingly root for them as the season draws to a close.

Unfortunately, Every Year After also drops the ball on the partners of their main characters; Sam’s girlfriend, Taylor, and Chantal’s fiancé, Jordie, quickly become collateral damage to the Barry’s Bay crew’s drama.

While minor characters, they’re still portrayed as relatively multi-dimensional during their screen time, and it would have been nice to explore that fallout with a bit more nuance.

However, I am absolutely HOOKED on the budding love triangle between Jordie, Delilah, and Chantal… and I truly do not know how I want this to play out.

The writers do an excellent job playing up the chemistry between each pair of characters, including Delilah and Chantal, who steal every scene they’re in together.

A Tale of Two Timelines

One of the biggest strengths of the season lies in how well the actors can oscillate between their teen and adult selves.

I admit, I was skeptical about how well this could come off on screen; casting actors that can plausibly play a 10-year age gap without taking the viewer out of the story is quite a lofty task.

However, through a combination of styling and subtle acting choices, all three of our leads pull off the challenge, bouncing back and forth between their youthful energy and their more grounded, sharper adult selves with apparent ease.

Sadie Soverall delivers a particularly compelling performance, showcasing her emotional range as an ambitious, curious teen and a woman haunted by the weight of her past mistakes.

No significant suspension of disbelief needed!

Real props to the younger actors as well, who play Percy, Sam, and Charlie over their first two summers.

Not only do they look the part, but they nail the charming awkwardness and eagerness inherent to the years that straddle the gap between childhood and becoming a teenager.

Can We Talk About That Unexpected Ending?

***Spoilers for Episode 8, so if you haven’t made it that far yet, you may want to skip this!***

Fans of the book will notice that the end of the season leaves things much more open-ended than the happy ending of Every Summer After.

The novel ends with Sam, Percy, and Charlie’s relationship healed, and Percy and Sam are engaged and living in Toronto.

Every Year After does not attempt to wrap things up nearly as cleanly.

It leaves room to further explore the complicated relationship between Sam and Charlie (which is still messy and broken) and to delve into how Percy and Sam can repair their trust.

Percy is now the owner of The Tavern, and the season ends with Sam returning home to Barry’s Bay in a sweet reversal of Episode 1’s “You came home” moment. Their relationship status, however, remains up in the air.

What I did not expect was for the season to end on a cliffhanger.

Charlie sees a photo of him, Sam, and Percy as teens hanging in his boss’s office.

For those who haven’t read Charlie’s love story, this is the inciting incident of Fortune’s novel One Golden Summer!

Upon viewing that photo, he suffers what appears to be a heart attack.

Is the condition that caused his father’s heart attack genetic? Will he be okay?!

After all the final two episodes did to deepen Charlie’s character development and test Sam and Percy’s bond — along with all the teasing of the Jordie/Delilah/Chantal love triangle — I’m going to need Prime to confirm Season 2 quickly!

Over to you, Every Year After Fanatics!

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this series and how Prime Video adapted it, so hit the comments below, share your thoughts, subscribe for more of our content, or share this with a friend!

You can stream the full season of Every Year After on Prime Video.