Three years ago, Prime Video transported us to Cousins Beach for the very first time and one of the greatest love triangles in TV history was officially born. From the start, The Summer I Turned Pretty divided fans into two passionate factions: Team Conrad and Team Jeremiah.
For the last three seasons, we’ve watched Belly navigate her complicated feelings for the Fisher brothers. There have been moments along the way for Team Conrad and Team Jeremiah members, but both sides of the fandom have kept hope that in the end, their team would prevail and get its happy ending. We know in the books that it’s Team Conrad who wins out with Belly and Conrad ending up together in the epilogue of the final book in Jenny Han’s hit series, We’ll Always Have Summer. However, Amazon and Han have stirred the pot on many occasions hinting that the show would end differently than the books.
This gave way for a renewed hope for Team Jeremiah and left Team Conrad to fear that perhaps Belly and Conrad would not be end game in the show. Heading into the series finale, the ship seemed to have sailed on Belly and Jeremiah, while Conrad ended the penultimate episode boarding a plane to Paris in hopes of rekindling his relationship with Belly. So did Conrad and Belly get their happy ending, or did the writers throw a last-minute curveball audiences’ way?
Read on to find out how exactly The Summer I Turned Pretty came to an end. (Needless to say, spoilers ahead!)
Conrad arrives in Paris and reunites with Belly
The series finale opens with Conrad having arrived in France and landing on Belly’s doorstep. Much to our surprise, when Belly arrives back home she’s not only rocking a new look but she’s still with Benito. Conrad watches on from afar as the pair share a kiss before Benito rides off.
Having come all this way, Conrad goes up to Belly and she’s stunned to see him. Rather than professing his feelings as he intended when he jumped on the plane, he plays it off that he just happened to be in the area and wanted to celebrate her birthday before his conference in Brussels. Clearly shaken by seeing Conrad for the first time since that night at the airport before she left for Paris, Belly agrees to show him around for the day before her plans in the evening.
When she drops his bag in her apartment, it’s clear her old feelings begin to come back as she applies lipstick and asks herself what she’s doing before assuring herself she’ll simply play tour guide and then send him off to Brussels.
The pair embark on a day in the city and we get a really sweet montage of the pair’s journey through Paris. As they walk through the corridors of a museum, he admits to spending a lot of time thinking about her life in Paris and tells Belly he wishes he could see the city the way she does, which gives her an idea as they head out.
She ends up taking him to a rooftop she used to frequent often with breathtaking views of the city. As they look around, Belly tells Conrad about how when she first got to Paris and was figuring things out the manager of bar she was working at told her about the rooftop. The view just helped things to finally click for Belly with the way it all comes together beautifully, which Conrad equates to the human body in how when you take a step back it’s miraculous seeing how everything together works together.
Conrad points out that Belly seems comfortable in Paris and she admits it took some time to adjust and struggled to do the simplest of things like figuring out the difference between laundry detergent and dish soap. There so many times she felt like a complete idiot, but then she came up to the rooftop one day to watch the sun rise and remembered something Conrad had told her years ago about the first time he saw the Pacific. How it felt like standing on another planet where anything felt possible, and Paris has been that for her.
He assures Belly that he never doubted she could do it. She’s always been scrappy and never been one to back down from a challenge. Paris never stood a chance. Caught up in the moment, Belly invites Conrad to take a later train and join her for the birthday dinner.
Steven and Denise are moving to California to start their new company
Back in the states, Jeremiah is gearing up for an important dinner arranged by Taylor. He’s excited about the opportunity, but also feeling overwhelmed. As he tells Denise about Conrad going to Paris to see Belly, he begins to talk about finding a new couch for their apartment which is when Denise drops an unexpected bit of news on his plate.
It turns out that she and Steven secured the seed money for their company, but it was contingent upon them both moving to San Francisco. It seems that Steven hasn’t told the news to Taylor and Denise swears Jeremiah to secrecy, only to find out that Taylor heard the whole conversation.
As Taylor spirals about Steven keeping this from her, Taylor also is dealing with the fact that the venue she booked for Jeremiah’s dinner is dealing with flooding. Denise suggests the beach house and Jeremiah agrees to move the dinner, marking the first time he’ll be back to the house since the events of his wedding.
We jump ahead to Denise, Taylor and Jeremiah getting things ready for the dinner, and Steven arrives with supplies. Rather than confronting him directly, Taylor lays it on thick talking about their future clearly hoping he’ll come clean. When he doesn’t she storms off leaving him speechless.
Do Belly and Benito breakup?
As we return to Paris, Conrad is getting ready for Belly’s birthday dinner and begins to take a look around her apartment including the many photos of Benito. He also spots Junior Mint and remembers the moment he won the bear for Belly all those years ago. Enter Belly who looks stunning in her little black dress, leaving Conrad speechless. He helps her with her bracelet and she returns the favor by playfully ruffling his hair before they head out.
When they get to the party, Gemma and her friends make a comment that clues us in on the fact that Belly might not be seeing Benito after all when they mention how she moved on fast. Before we can process the line, Benito arrives and pulls her away to give her his present: a photograph he took of Belly in bed.
At dinner, Benito and Belly seem to give couple vibes sitting together at one end of the table as Conrad sits among Belly’s friends. Gemma tells Conrad she thinks what he did was romantic, professing his love for Belly before the wedding and they liken the story to something out of a movie. This is when Benito chime in that in the movie Conrad was the villain, to which Belly says if anyone was the villain, it was her. Benito then asks why he’s in Paris and he’s giving serious jealous boyfriend vibes until we learn that Belly actually dumped Benito six weeks ago!
That’s right, it seems Belly broke up with Benito before Conrad’s arrival when she declined his invitation to go Mexico for his grandma’s birthday.
As the dinner continues, Conrad asks about Benito being her boyfriend to which she points out that she never said he was. The night continues and Conrad finally gives Belly her gift: sand from Cousins Beach which he collected on the Fourth of July that summer. He knew he wasn’t going to be back for a long time and so whenever he missed home he’s take the bottle of sand out and it’d make him feel closer to everyone, he thought that since she might not be back for a while she might like to have it. She thanks Conrad with a sweet kiss on the cheek as her friends bring out her birthday cake for her to make a wish.
Do Steven and Taylor end up together?
Back in Cousins, Jeremiah’s dinner keeps hitting one snag after another. Taylor is working to help make things go as smoothly as possible, but he’s also dealing with the Steven news. That’s when Jeremiah clues his friend in on the fact that Taylor knows about Califnornia and suddenly her behavior makes sense to Steven.
As if the pressure of the dinner weren’t high enough, Adam arrives with some champagne from Jeremiah’s wedding and he begins to spiral about whether the beach house is cursed. As Jeremiah spirals, Denise helps ground him with a sweet pep talk and it seemed like the pair were about to kiss before she hit him with a friendly shoulder punch instead.
After kicking Steven and Taylor out of his kitchen to focus on the preparation of the food, the pair finally clear the air outside as Steven admits he can’t imagine a future without Taylor. He explains he hadn’t asked her to move as it didn’t feel fright to ask her to uproot her life again to follow him to another city. The conversation ends with Taylor agreeing to move to California as they share a kiss and we’re so happy the pair are destined to get their happy ending.
Conrad reminds Belly she’s not the villain in this story
After the party, Conrad and Belly take a romantic – yes, I’m calling it as I see it – stroll. He admits to her that he thought Belly came to Paris to hide from everything that happened. He admits that he wanted to believe it was temporary, that she’d forgive herself and come home; however, he sees that she wasn’t hiding out and made an amazing life, one he’s happy he got to see.
Belly admits that he’s not wrong. She was hiding out at first. It was hard and lonely and she did think she deserved that. Conrad reminds her she’s not the villain, but she’s not so sure of that pointing out how she broke up his family and came between him and Jeremiah.
Conrad assures Belly it wasn’t on her to keep their family together and they weren’t trying to hurt each other. He then proceeds to let her know that Jeremiah knows he’s there in Paris and is okay with that, even wishing him good luck before he left. He tells Belly that he likes being under the same moon as her again and just as it seems he’s about to come clean about his feelings, she cuts him off and tells him there’s one more place she wants to take him.
Belly and Conrad hook up in Paris, but the night ends with a twist
Belly take Conrad to the riverfront and he asks her to dance with him. She asks if he remembers the last time they danced, which he admits was not his finest moment. Belly admits she envisioned this perfect prom movie where they’d dance the night away, but instead he yelled at her in the rain and ran off. The two laugh it off as Conrad remembers when she told him to f*ck off at his mom’s funeral.
As Belly leans into Conrad’s chest, she admits that his letters kept her going. Whenever she was lonely and missed home, she’d sit and read them, over and over. He asks her why it took so long to write back and she admits she had to move on first. He asks if she’s moved on and silence fills the air before she pulls Conrad in for a kiss. That kiss quickly evolves into something more as they take things back to her apartment and take to the bedroom.
After a passionate night together, Belly admits to him that she used to wish for him on her birthday but the pillow talk quickly takes an unpleasant turn as Belly suggests he shouldn’t miss his train and the conference.
Belly asks Conrad what his plan was and he says he wanted to tell her that he loves her and that he wanted to know if any part of her still loved him. She admits she’s always loved him, which is the problem. How are they supposed to know if they love each other because they love each other or because they were told to. She questions whether if Susannah hadn’t gotten sick again, would they have ever gotten together. If they didn’t lose Susannah, would it loom so large for them? What if he only loves her because its what his mom wanted and then his mom died?
Conrad assures her that’s not why he loves her. He has tried everything not to love her for the sake of Jeremiah and not dragging her down in grief. He fought it way before his mom got sick, as she’s always been important to him. At one point, he started to see her differently and that scared him because he didn’t want things to change and that the way he feels about her has nothing to do with his mom. While he’s changed a million things about himself, the one thing that has never changed is that he love her.
Belly wishes she could be as sure as him, but she can’t as she sends him away.
Do Belly and Conrad end up together in The Summer I Turned Pretty?
After sending him away, Belly quickly realizes just how wrong she was. She’s always loved Conrad, and that’s never changed.
Belly races to the window and tries to call out for him, but he’s already gone. She races out to the street and hails a cab. Racing through the train station, Belly eventually boards the train to Brussels and begins frantically searching for him on the train cars.
Then it happens, she finds him.
“I choose you of my own free will. If there are infinite worlds, every version of me chooses you in every one of them,” Belly professes, finally embracing the love she’s always had for Conrad. The pair exchange I love yous and we flash back to the beach house where Jeremiah and the family are celebrating after a successful dinner.
As the show comes to an end, we jump ahead an unspecified time as Belly and Conrad finally return home from Paris to the place where it all began: the beach house. The pair roll into the driveway and walk through the door together, we watch the happy couple head to the backyard as the camera zooms out before finally fading to black.
Odds and Ends
- Jeremiah’s dinner works out, but more importantly he and Denise share a sweet kiss hinting their relationship will evolve into something more.
- Belly’s dad does not die as so many fans feared.
- Adam finally tells Jeremiah just how proud he is of him.
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