Diksha Sundriyal
In Prime Video’s ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ Belly Conklin navigates her complicated romance with the Fisher brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah. While she tries to figure out who she is supposed to be with, her brother also tries to wade through the complexities of romance with Belly’s best friend, Taylor. The couple got together at the end of Season 2, however, at the beginning of Season 3, things seem to be on a rather complicated note for them. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Steven and Taylor’s On-and-Off Relationship Causes Drama
The four year jump between seasons 2 and 3 reveals that Steven and Taylor have been in an on and off relationship. Over the years, they have broken up and gotten back together more times than they can count and we get a glimpse of this in the opening scene, when Taylor and Belly arrive for their first day in college. At this point, she and Steven are already broken up. However, by the time Belly settles into her dorm room, the duo are back to kissing each other, and Belly’s reaction suggests that this is nothing new. Her reaction remains the same in three years later when she realises that the pants that she saw in Taylor’s room were Steven’s.
It is not clear why they broke up, but considering that they have been caught up in the cycle of breaking up and getting back together, it could be any number of things. The most likely thing to have come between them is the distance. Because Steven is about two years older than Taylor, he is off to Princeton while she is still in school. When she goes to college in Finch College, he has moved on to the career phase of his life, which means that they are both operating at different frequencies, which could lead to frequent arguments and disagreements. With both being at different points in their lives, they also want different things. Steven’s career-focused approach would have made the long-distance relationship worse.
Meanwhile, Taylor has her own issues to deal with. When Steven falls into a coma after his accident in the second episode, she confesses that she has issues with trusting people and opening up to others because she is scared that things might not last. This could have something to do with her how she sees her mother’s relationships fall apart. She believes that the same will happen to her, wihch is why the moment things get serious with Steven, she backs out and lets the relationship fall apart. At the same time, she is also in love with him, wihch is why she is drawn back to him, and despite her not wanting to commit to him, she cannot seem to stay away from him either.
Steven and Taylor Have a Difficult Road Ahead
At the beginning of the third season, both Taylor and Steven are in relationships with other people. She is with a guy named Davis, while he is dating a girl named Mia. The fact that they are cheating on their girlfriend and boyfriend does not seem to faze the duo, which suggests that there is a lot of unresolved feelings between them, but they are not taking a healthy approach to figure out the situation. It also turns out that they have been indulging in this secret affair for about three months. It had been a while since they were broken up, but when Taylor went to New York during college break, she ended up crossing paths with her ex, which resulted in the two of them floating into each other’s orbit.
When Steven tries to get serious with her, having broken up with Mia, she does not appreciate his move. Following the accident, she realises that she shouldn’t beat around the bush and waste the limited time she has with Steven. However, the near-death experience also opens Steven’s eyes and he realises that he cannot waste time trying to convince Taylor to be with him when she doesn’t want to. By the end of the second episode, the dynamics have flipped, as now, Taylor is in Steven’s position and vice versa. The future of the couple remains uncertain, especially since the show has diverted immensely from the books where Steven and Taylor’s relationship never progresses beyond a kiss in the first book.
However, now that Steven is ready to move on from Taylor, it is fair to assume that he will look for love elsewhere. He has already been indulging in an almost flirty banter with his coworker named Denise. So, there might be something to explore there. However, as he said to Belly in the first episode, he and Taylor always seem to come back to each other, so there is a good chance that over the summer, buried feelings might lead to another patch up. This time, however, whatever happens would be pretty permanent. If they get back together, it would be ride or die for life, and if they don’t, they will go their separate ways and there will be no coming back from this break up.
Read More: The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 Episode 1 and 2 Recap: Last Season and Last Christmas
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