Love triangles are so back as The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s third season rolls onto Prime Video. The show, based on the Jenny Han books, follows Belly (Lola Tung) through her life spending summers in Cousins and her love for both Fisher brothers.
Conrad (Christopher Briney) and his brother Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) have known Belly her entire life. Their mothers were best friends and it led to summers spent together. While Jere was always Belly’s friend, her crush has always Conrad. We have seen through season 1 and 2 how her affection for both brothers shifts and while we all have our favorites, season 3 kind of put the nail in the Jeremiah coffin.
The start of season 3 features Belly and Jere in love and in college but when Belly overhears Taylor’s (Rain Spencer) sorority sister saying she hooked up with him when he was in a relationship with her, Belly ends things with him. Jeremiah tries to use the Ross from Friends excuse and says they were “on a break” but when we see the flashback, it barely registered with Belly because Jere caused a fight out of nowhere before heading to Cabo, where he cheated on her.
Now to be fair, I’ve never understood the Jeremiah of it all. This was just the final nail in his coffin for me. Belly didn’t deserve that, not when she constantly makes herself smaller to deal with Jeremiah’s moods. Like not telling him she got the study abroad semester or lying to her mother because she didn’t want her to view Jere differently.
None of this has warmed me to him. If anything, it fuels my real hope for Belly’s future on The Summer I Turned Pretty.
I’ve made my choice
Sometimes, I need to remember that the actions of these characters are the actions of teenagers and young adults. They’re not really thinking clearly and that ends up leading to more dramatic moments. But they are all dealing with heavy issues as well. Conrad and Jeremiah lost their mother and that was when Conrad and Belly were together. So yes, he wasn’t the best boyfriend to her.
And in defense of Belly, she also lost someone close to her when their mother died and all their grief led to less than stellar decisions. But season 3 puts all three characters closer to their actual age. They’re making more grounded decisions and yet there are still moments of that immaturity that comes with young love. Like Taylor telling Belly to get back together with Jere despite what he did.
The end of episode 2 shows a moment in Belly’s life when she stayed in Cousins with just Conrad, the two not doing anything but spending time together. She never told Jere about it but my fear is that Belly will use that as some kind of way of excusing what Jere did and that is no that same. He fought with Belly just because, put them on a fake break, cheated on her, and didn’t tell her about it.
So yes, I am still team Conrad.
(featured image: Erika Doss/Prime Video)
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