After seven *chef’s kiss* episodes filled to the brim with legendary Taylor Swift tracks, emotionally and physically messy house parties, and a quest to save the Fishers’ Cousins Beach home, The Summer I Turned Pretty’s eighth episode finally (!!) hit our screens and saw Belly (Lola Tung) faced with the difficult choice between Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno).
Now, if you’re reading this article, chances are, you (a) haven’t tuned in but simply cannot escape the drama and need to know how to communicate with the Jelly and Bonrad stans in your life or (b) wanna go over the season 2 finale again because you probs missed something through all the tears you shed. But DW—that’s where we come in!
Ahead, you’ll find a handy-dandy breakdown of everything that happened at the end of The Summer I Turned Pretty season 2—from Belly’s final choice and *that* car scene to the brewing romance between Taylor (Rain Spencer) and Steven (Sean Kaufman). 👀
So who does Belly choose at the end of season 2?!?! Conrad or Jeremiah?
In the end, Jelly fans everywhere were able to rejoice after Belly ended up with her BFF and ESP partner Jeremiah. And, I mean, how could they not?! Over the course of the season, these two slowly began to fall for each other after their movie night at the country club, their scary (but weirdly romantic 🥺) roller coaster experience, and a final emotional plea from Jeremiah, who confessed to Belly, “If I fall for you again, I don’t think I can take it if you change your mind like last time” after she asked for a second chance at a relationship with him.
Kk, we got the high-level overview out of the way, but if you really wanna know how it all went down (or you just want to relive the season finale as a proud Jelly stan), then keep on reading…
Alright, time to get into more season 2 finale deets!
The season’s finale episode—which is appropriately titled “Love Triangle”—opens with Conrad finishing his final at Brown and heading to his car, where he finds Jeremiah and Belly kissing (read: fully making OUT).
Shocked and hurt, Conrad runs away and Belly promptly chases after him at Jeremiah’s request. Conrad then accuses Belly of kissing his brother to get his attention, which Belly refutes and says isn’t the situation at all—a point Conrad definitely doesn’t take well. This leads to him telling Belly he doesn’t want to be with her anyway. Eek!
Conrad heads back to his dorm room to collect a few more of his things—including the infinity necklace he once gave Belly, but more on that detail later!—and eventually agrees to drive back with Jeremiah and Belly. And that’s where things get…awkward, to say the least.
Like, Conrad becomes a literal menace and takes his emotions out Belly and Jeremiah, even bringing up the people his brother has hooked up with and asking Belly which of the brothers is a better kisser. Like I said…awkward. To make matters worse, the trio is forced to spend the night at a motel when a storm breaks and the highway shuts down. By the time they finally check in (after an awkward convenience store moment during which Conrad tells Jeremiah he doesn’t know Belly’s fave candy), there’s only one available room with a single bed left.
The night is tense. Conrad is still upset about Belly and Jeremiah’s burgeoning relationship. Plus, Jeremiah is grappling with the fact he doesn’t believe his brother is over Belly and even confesses he wants her to get closure with Conrad before officially starting something new with him. And he’s definitely not wrong about Conrad’s ~feelings~! While Jeremiah is asleep on one side of the floor—the boys let Belly have the bed and they each slept on opposite sides of the ground—Conrad admits to Belly that he didn’t mean what he said earlier and he still has feelings for her.
“I still want you. Of course I do,” he confesses. But before she can even respond, he adds, “You don’t have to say anything; I just wanted you to know that,” to which Belly doesn’t say a thing.
The next day, Belly wakes up and notices Jeremiah is gone, which prompts her to go outside and call him. He doesn’t pick up, but moments later, he shows up with breakfast for her (BE STILL MY HEART!) and Belly finally reveals that she chooses him. The two then share a kiss set to Beyoncé’s “XO” in a moment I have yet to recover from.
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xo being a song about appreciating the love u feel in the present because no one knows what happens in the future and jeremiah being belly’s unexpected love in the future oh theyre real for this #tsitp pic.twitter.com/d84XpcwI1B
— iz 🎾 (@yangelics) August 18, 2023
Then, in a heartbreaking scene for Bonrad stans everywhere, Conrad and Belly have a second alone—set to Taylor Swift’s song “Exile,” ofc 😭—during which he tells Belly they are just friends and gives back the infinity necklace he had gotten her. As Conrad walks away and leaves Jeremiah and Belly to be together, Belly’s forever-iconic inner monologue tells us she’s turning over a new leaf as she says to her former love, “I evict you from my heart.”
Conrad ends up taking a bus back to Cousins Beach and lets Jeremiah use his car to drive Belly home, promising that they’ll see each other during the Fourth of July and telling Jeremiah to make sure he “gets her home safe.” He takes a moment alone outside with full-on tears in his eyes before finally making his way back to the beach town. Jeremiah, for his part, drives Belly home and brings her to volleyball camp, where she succeeds in fighting for her spot back on the team.
Aaaaaaaaand scene!
That was…a lot! But let’s talk more about that car scene for a sec 👀
Let’s! The Summer I Turned Pretty cast actually opened up about filming those tense moments in a convo with Entertainment Weekly. During the interview, Lola admitted, “Those scenes were really fun.”
“It was really funny because Chris was crushing it during those scenes to the point where Gavin and I were actually irritated because he was just playing it so well. It was fun to explore that dynamic of the three of them being trapped in this car together after something really major just happened that completely altered their relationship. Chris killed it,” she added.
“I had a blast,” Chris admitted with a laugh. “I actually made Gavin really mad. [He] didn’t talk to me. I was trying to stay in it between takes and I was saying stuff to him and I may have taken it too far. But it’s fun to be a jerk and find justification for that.”
“I was working such long days and hours, and then having someone who you’re normally pretty chill with go complete goblin mode…I was done,” Gavin said about shooting the car ride IRL. But the whole trio is “good now” and there are no hard feelings, don’t worry!
And, hello, what about Steven and Taylor?!
It would be impossible to recap the season and not talk about the other key couple in the Summer I Turned Pretty universe. Enter: Staylor! In the finale, Taylor and Steven meet for a preeeeetty awkward first date. It starts off as a group outing and ends with Taylor and Steven arguing over whether Belly should end up with Jeremiah (which is what Taylor wants) or Conrad (which is what Steven wants) in a moment that is the literal definition of art imitating life. While Steven enjoys their tiff, Taylor gets annoyed, says they don’t actually have to fight all the time, and leaves.
Steven proceeds to go home and we see that, despite all his texts to Taylor, she’s definitely ghosting him, which, ouch. But to make matters worse, Steven takes a sec to listen to Taylor’s ex’s truly awful diss track about him—a moment that was 😭 for him but 😂 for the rest of the world.
Still, he’s determined to be with Taylor and drives to her house the following day to catch her before she goes to volleyball camp. It’s a sweet moment for the pair, and Taylor ends up revealing she’s had a massive crush on Steven for years, but with him heading to Princeton, she’s worried she’ll get hurt after finally getting the thing she’s wanted the most: a chance with him. But Steven promises her fear will never be realized, and they end up kissing on the hood of his car (seriously, what is it about this group and car make-outs?!?!).
“I think that Taylor has just been in love with Steven her whole entire life, so it’s a kind of scary thing to admit that, out of fear of rejection,” Rain revealed during a recent interview with Elle. “It’s like neither of them want to show how they really feel, so they just make fun of each other the whole time. And that was really, really fun, because I think it brings a lot of nuanced moments.”
Post-make-out, Taylor and Steven drive to Belly and Taylor’s volleyball camp, where they are surprised to find Belly and Jeremiah arriving together. Steven heads home to play video games and doesn’t stay to watch the competition, but something tells us it’s only the beginning for him and Taylor. 🥺❤️
In that same Elle interview, Rain said she hopes to explore Taylor and Steven’s relationship even further in season 3. “I hope that they can continue to learn from each other, that it’s okay to create a safe space for each other, that it’s okay to be vulnerable,” she said. “It’s okay to communicate how you’re actually feeling in any given moment and really just be there for each other. I mean, they grew up together, so it would make sense that they should feel safe in each other’s company.” Obsessed!
What does TSITP cast have to say about the season 2 finale?
Jenny Han, the show’s creator, specifically noted that episode 8 ending with Belly playing volleyball was important since the scene captured yet another aspect of the protagonist’s life beyond her storyline with the Fisher brothers.
“I really loved seeing her being able to come out of her grief and smile again and have lightness and joy again,” Jenny told Entertainment Weekly. “Her relationship with Jeremiah has always brought her a lot of happiness—it’s almost like permission to be happy again at the end of the season. She’s been punishing herself for some time now, and she’s forgiving herself in many ways. It’s a step toward living again because she’s been under a cloud for a long time. She’s getting some glimmers of that carefree Belly back, because there was a fear that they’d all kind of lost that piece of themselves when they lost Susannah,” she added. “It’s good to see her able to find that hope again.”
Lola shared a similar sentiment and mused, “It’s this beautiful note of just Belly.”
“Not only is it about her and Jeremiah ending the season together but also about her moving forward out of this grief and out of this confusion with everything, so it’s a really hopeful ending and a really lovely thing to see.”
The series’ star also gave some insight into her ~feelings~ about Belly choosing Jeremiah in the finale: “I was very happy with how the season ended. We see it in episode 6 at the party when Belly is drunk on the beach and she’s talking to Conrad, she tells him how much she would’ve fought for that relationship, how much it meant to her, and he just doesn’t seem to be able to articulate to her that same sense of urgency and that same idea that he would’ve fought for them. She wants someone who’s going to fight for her, and in that moment, Jeremiah is that right choice and the choice that will allow her to be happy without the drama of it.”
TL;DR: Season 3 simply cannot come soon enough!
Assistant news editor
Gretty Garcia is the assistant news editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covers all things news, entertainment, and pop culture. Before joining Cosmo, Gretty was a social strategist for Mrs. Dow Jones and a features and special projects editor at Editorialist. She holds an MS from the Columbia Journalism School and studied art history at Harvard College.