Being Team Conrad on The Summer I Turned Pretty during the third and final season is rough. Mainly because we have to deal with a lot of Jeremiah’s nonsense and how he’s treating Belly. But episode 5 really reminded us all why Conrad is the better choice.
Conrad Fisher (Christopher Briney) and his brother Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) have been in love with Belly (Lola Tung) throughout all three seasons of the show. The difference between the two is that Conrad very much loved her before she “turned pretty.” You cannot say the same about Jeremiah’s affections for Belly.
After season 1, Belly and Conrad were together but when Conrad’s mother Susannah (Rachel Blanchard) passed away, it broke him and their relationship fell apart. It resulted in Jeremiah swooping in and Conrad leaving to go to school in California. Season 3 has been the “love story” between Belly and Jeremiah where he constantly undermines her, wants “this one thing” multiple times over, and refuses to actually care about Belly’s feelings on a situation.
Jeremiah cheated on Belly when they were “on a break” but it is a murky situation at best. He fought with her, left for Mexico, slept with someone else, and then acted like it was a mutual break between the two of them when it was completely one sided.
Belly, to her brief credit, left Jeremiah when she found out. But then her brother Steven (Sean Kaufman) got into an accident that almost ended his life and Belly decided it meant forgiving Jeremiah and agreeing to marry him out of the blue. But the problem with marrying young when your parents think it is a bad idea is that you have no money to do so. And that’s where 90% of their current problems lie.
Is it just this one thing about the cake or the song, Jeremiah?
Belly is really trying to make their wedding work. She works non-stop and uses all her savings to go ahead and buy the things they need to make their small wedding special. Jeremiah wants things for himself at the wedding and they’re all a bit selfish. He wants their first dance to be a song that, as the book establishes, is an inside joke with his school friends. Not Belly. His friends.
Then there is the cake. A wedding cake that is chocolate and not white feels foolish anyway but he wanted this cake that costs hundreds of dollars. Instead of compromising, Jeremiah made good with his father and then came back to Cousins to basically tell Belly that everything she was planning is for nothing now that his father will pay for it.
Did Jeremiah ask what Belly wanted? Of course not. Was he there to help her plan? No. Did he answer when she tried to tell him about the cake? Nope. And yet he wants to swoop in, make it about him, and continue on. With all that happening, I’m supposed to LIKE him?
Then came Conrad’s episode
Episode 5 of the series gave us Conrad’s inner thoughts as he was stuck driving Belly around for her wedding. Some fans online criticized Conrad for being mean to Belly in this instance and his monologue struggled to justify helping her but I guess all those mad forgot that the two dated and he’s still in love with her? And she’s marrying his brother who doesn’t REALLY care about Belly or her feelings?
Throughout the entire episode, Conrad made it very clear that his feelings for Belly haven’t gone anywhere but he was trying to respect both her decisions and his brother’s. At this point, Conrad does not know that Jeremiah cheated on Belly and I don’t think Jeremiah’s sudden connection with their father is going to help the situation.
All this episode did was remind me that Conrad is the more well-rounded of the Fisher boys and he’s the one who actually cares about Belly and her feelings. More importantly, he listens to Belly about what she wants and doesn’t continually try to undermine her and her wedding planning!
(featured image: Prime Video)
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