Diksha Sundriyal
Prime Video’s ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ returns for a third and final season to bring Belly Conklin’s whirlwind romance with the Fisher brothers to a conclusive end. The previous season ended with Belly deciding to move on from Conrad and focusing on the love she has with Jeremiah. The two-episode premiere of this season reveals that not everything is as perfect as it seems with the younger Fisher brother, either. In the end, it all comes down to how much Belly wants to be with him or not be with him. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Belly and Jeremiah’s Golden Years of College Come to an End
After Belly and Jeremiah get together, she decides to go to Finch College because she wants to be with him and spend more time with him than just the summers. Meanwhile, Steven and Taylor have broken up, but that lasts just a minute as they are back to kissing each other again. Three years pass in a romantic haze as Belly and Jeremiah spend some of the best days of their lives together. Now, she is in her final year, while he is ready to graduate, or so it seems. When Jeremiah goes to get his cap and gown for graduation, he is told that there has been a mess up, and he needs to attend another semester to finish his graduation.
Belly discovers that she has been selected for a semester abroad in Paris. Before she can tell Jeremiah about it, he tells her about his graduation issue and how he will be in college for another semester, which makes her reconsider her move to Paris. Meanwhile, Steven and Taylor are back in a complicated situation. It seems that they broke up again and have been dating different people. But then, they have also been secretly hooking up. While Steven tries to get back to the way they were before, Taylor believes that things are better this way, when they have no strings attached, and it is just a fling between them.
Conrad, on the other hand, is doing rather well at Stanford. He is still in therapy, where he is trying to process his feelings, especially now that he is supposed to return to Cousins for summer, where he and his brother have to give a speech about their mother’s memorial garden. He doesn’t want to go, mainly because he is still in love with Belly. He gets a reason not to when he is selected for a job that means a huge deal for his career, and it starts immediately. While he could ask his boss for leave for a family matter, she has been known to fire newbies, so he decides not to go after all.
Belly and Jeremiah’s Relationship Reaches Its Breaking Point
While Jeremiah is still upset over his graduation, Belly tells Steven about the Paris thing. He encourages her to go, which is exactly what Taylor told her earlier that day. She decides to go forward with it, and is happy to discover that her boyfriend completely supports her and doesn’t want her to stay back just because of him. They happily enter a party where Belly meets a girl from Taylor’s sorority who also spent a semester away in Paris. Later that evening, Belly overhears the same girl talking about how she hooked up with Jeremiah in Cabo during spring break. She is heartbroken over this betrayal, while Jeremiah tries to explain that he thought they were broken up at the time.
Meanwhile, Conrad celebrates being selected for the job with his friend and now coworker, Agnes. It seems that the two of them were briefly in a relationship, but it didn’t work out. The break-up was clearly mutual and amicable, as she remains Conrad’s closest friend at the moment. He admits to her that he was (subtext: still is) in love with Belly, and his feelings for her are the reason why he has stopped hanging out with the whole group. He recounts the time when they were together the last time, and Belly and Jeremiah tried to downplay their love for each other, but they were clearly happy together. Conrad didn’t feel like he fit in with them, and so, he decided to make himself scarce and remove himself from the equation completely.
While Belly is heartbroken about Jeremiah’s betrayal, she also thinks about the time she spent an entire night with Conrad. This happened over winter break, when Jeremiah and Conrad were supposed to spend the holidays with their father, and Steven was away in New York. Belly was alone, so she decided to go to the one place that brought her comfort: Cousins. The thing is that she didn’t tell anyone about it, which is why she was surprised when Conrad showed up there. The bad weather resulted in his flight getting delayed, so he decided to spend the one day he had in Cousins. At first, things were awkward between them, but they soon warmed up, and they spent the entire day in the same vicinity, quietly sharing space, without the need to talk to one another.
That night, when Jeremiah called her and she told him she came to Cousins alone, Conrad overheard her. When she tried to tell Jeremiah that Conrad was there with her, the call cut off due to a bad connection. The next morning, Conrad left quietly, though he did leave a goodbye note for Belly on the crossword he was solving the previous day. One of the clues in the crossword was the missing word in the title of Jenny Han’s book, ‘P.S. I — Love You,’ and as Belly wrote the word “still,” the lingering feelings she had for Conrad came to the surface. It is also noted that she never told Jeremiah about the incident because she thought there was nothing to tell.
Belly Reels from Her Breakup With Jeremiah
The revelation that Jeremiah cheated on her breaks Belly’s heart, and she falls into a pit of despair. She refuses to talk to him and even blocks Taylor for a while because the girl he cheated with was from Taylor’s sorority, which makes her wonder if her best friend knew about the fling in Cabo. What happened was that Jeremiah revealed his plans to go to Cabo with his frat brothers at the last minute, which led to a fight between him and Belly. She wondered why he hadn’t told her about it and if he didn’t want her to come with him, especially after he told her that girls from sororities would also be joining them.
The argument escalates such that Jeremiah says that they should break up, Belly agrees in anger, and he leaves the room. He spends the next week in Cabo while Belly wonders why he hasn’t called her back. Taylor advises her to talk to him when he gets back, so that’s exactly what she does. By this time, both of their anger has cooled off, which leads to a swift reunion. When Jeremiah says that he thought he had lost her, she says that it was just a fight, which seems to disturb him a bit, because this is when he realizes that he has cheated on his girlfriend. However, he chooses not to tell her about it.
To get her mind off the breakup, Belly decides to focus on preparing for her departure to Paris. She calls her mother to get her birth certificate, but Laurel is at a conference at the moment, where she is unexpectedly joined by John, her ex and the father of her children. As they reconnect and reminisce, old feelings surface, and they end up spending the night together. This also puts them completely out of touch with their children, as they get so drunk that they don’t pay any attention to their phones. This turns out to be a huge mistake as massive news hits them the next morning.
Steven’s Accident Leads Everyone to Reconsider Their Relationships
Belly spends the entire day walking around the college grounds and remembering the golden time she and Jeremiah spent, and how it would be impossible for her to go to Cousins now. Meanwhile, Steven breaks up with his current girlfriend because he wants to be with Taylor now. Despite breaking up numerous times, they always come back to each other, which makes him wonder whether they are meant to be together. He shows up at Taylor’s door later that evening, while she is still upset about Belly’s issue. They get in his car, and shortly after, he tells her he broke up with his girlfriend. He thought that she would be happy to hear it, but Taylor tells him that he shouldn’t have done it, as she is not interested in getting back together.
As they argue about it, Taylor tells him to drop her by the side of the road. As she walks away, Steven tries to turn the car around, but does not see another vehicle coming from behind and is hit by it. A frantic Taylor calls Belly, who immediately shows up at the hospital, where it is revealed that Steven has fallen into a coma. When her parents don’t pick up their phones, Belly asks Taylor to call Jeremiah and Conrad. Jeremiah shows up at the hospital, but respecting Belly’s space, he stays in the lobby, out of sight but not out of reach. Conrad gets the news while he is at work. Though he is far away, he wants to help. He talks to his boss about her possible connections to the hospital where Steven is.
Luckily, she knows someone and calls them up to help Belly and Taylor figure out what is really happening with Steven. Belly and Taylor spend the entire night by Steven’s side, and Taylor confesses her love to a comatose Steven. The next morning, as she leaves to freshen up, she tells Belly that she is going to break up with her boyfriend, Davis, because she wants to be with Steven, which she realizes after almost losing him forever. Before leaving, Taylor also tells Belly to get back together with Jeremiah, if that’s what she wants. She advises her not to let their four years together go to waste for one mistake. So, Belly talks to Jeremiah, and he profusely apologises to her.
When she talks about starting anew, he happily accepts this second chance and promises that he will not break her heart again. The reunion goes so well that by the end, Jeremiah asks Belly to marry her and she gladly accepts. Meanwhile, Conrad gets fired after he makes a mistake at his job. Agnes points out that their boss was right when she said that his emotional state got in the way of his work. She advises him to figure out a way to resolve his feelings; otherwise, they will always hinder his life. Moreover, now that he doesn’t have anything holding him back, he can go to Cousins and get the closure he so desperately needs.
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