Every year after season 2 changes the moment Percy’s one-night stand with Charlie lands, putting the reveal between the closing credits of Episode 5 and the opening of Episode 6. Amy B. Harris said that shift was part of how she adapted Carley Fortune’s novel for screen, keeping the series focused on when viewers learn the secret rather than just on the secret itself.
Harris said the pilot ending with “You came home,” the anatomy textbook scene, and the truck sex scene where Sam says “You broke my heart” had to be included. That gives the adaptation a clear set of anchor beats, even as the show reorders one of the book’s key disclosures for television pacing.
Barry’s Bay and the novel
Barry’s Bay is a lake town in rural Ontario, Canada, and the series uses it as the place where Persephone Fraser returns again and again after her parents purchase a property there. Percy and Sam Florek become the central romance, starting from years of will-they-won’t-they tension and ending with Sam ending their long-distance relationship the summer before college because he says he needs to focus on school.
That breakup leaves room for Percy to sleep with Charlie, and the one-night stand prevents her from getting back together with Sam. In the series, the timing of that information changes what the audience knows about Percy and Sam while their present-day story keeps unfolding around the return to Barry’s Bay a decade later.
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Carley Fortune’s timing
Carley Fortune said she did not want that reveal moved up in the show. “I also felt you need to have an understanding of the characters before you learn that,” she said. “You need to be able to see how we got there.”
She added, “And I think you have to spend that time with them before the reveal.” That places the adaptation choice squarely around audience alignment: the series waits until Episode 5 and Episode 6 to make Sam learn what the novel’s readers already knew through Charlie.
Episode 5 to Episode 6
The TV version makes Sam discover the one-night stand on screen, instead of learning it from Charlie as he does in the novel. That means the series withholds the information through the first five episodes, then uses the break between episodes to reset how viewers read Percy, Sam, and Charlie’s history.
For viewers following the relationship rather than the book, the practical takeaway is simple: the show is treating the reveal as a structural pivot, not a throwaway twist. Harris built the adaptation around a few fixed scenes, but she moved this one so the disclosure arrives only after the characters have had enough room to earn it.
