Jasmine Blu
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Summer just doesn’t feel like summer without Susannah.
But with the teens banding together to cling to this last bit of Susannah they have left on The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2 Episode 3, the series feels more like itself than before.
If Julia believes she’ll somehow rip the beach house away from the Fisher boys, she has a hell of a storm coming.
It’s amazing how everything feels significantly better when all the teens come together.
Sure, there was some lingering awkwardness and tension of all types lingering among most of them, but beyond that, there’s a deep love and care that all of these characters have for one another.
It’s genuine care for their friends and ex-lovers that brought them to the beach house in the first place. And that same love has them fighting to keep Susannah’s memory and the magic of the place she held dear within their grasp.
Nothing can top a common enemy bringing people together, and this one comes in the form of Susannah’s half-sister, played by the incomparable Kyra Sedgwick.
Jeremiah: I don’t understand how you can just give up something your sister loved so much.
Julia: It’s not personal.
Jeremiah: Yeah, I bet.
From the moment she appeared onscreen, and we saw her distant interaction with Jeremiah, thus confirming that the broody Conrad wasn’t exaggerating her poor demeanor, she was instantly unlikeable.
It genuinely makes you wonder what could possibly have happened between the sisters that prompted her to be so cold-hearted and inconsiderate of her sister’s memories and what she loved, and worse yet, her sons.
The two sisters were estranged as Julia didn’t even recognize Jeremiah and interacted with him as if he was nothing more than a stranger. And honestly, how can anyone not soften toward Jeremiah’s crystal blue eyes, winsome smile, and all-around earnestness?
Notably, she immediately got defensive when he brought up the house and assumed that he wanted her to give it to him as a gift.
The moment, while brief, feels crucial to unpacking whatever storied history there is between Susannah and this half-sister, who likely harbors some form of resentment or perhaps never thought she got her just due in whatever complicated family structure existed there.
Oh, something is definitely driving Julia to be so callous, disregarding her nephews’ grief and feelings as if they have no bearing on her whatsoever and insistent on selling something her late sister treasured.
Most likely, Julia is hurt, and as we know, hurt people hurt people.
It would explain why she didn’t attend Susannah’s funeral. It’s such a godawful thing not to at least reach out in some capacity. If we’re learning anything this season, particularly through the unexpectedly sage words of Taylor, everyone grieves differently.
Everyone deals with grief in their own way, and in its own way, The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2 feels like this microcosm of bereavement, rolling out of pandemic times; there is something raw and resonant about watching beloved characters’ journey through loss.
Haven’t literally all of us been there? Aren’t we still there in some way or another?
One of the most enjoyable aspects of this hour is how many characters still felt alone at the start, but they don’t anymore by the end.
All Jeremiah needed was a person, and for so long, the struggle was figuring out who that was. Jeremiah needed to make amends with Belly. She’s this integral person in his life, and he doesn’t function the same without her.
Belly: Conrad pushes people away when he needs them the most.
Jeremiah: It’s only so many times I can take being pushed. It’s fucking exhausting.
But Jeremiah’s person is his brother. Despite their differences, Jeremiah still looks to Conrad for things.
Conrad is the only other person who is experiencing the exact same loss and instability that he is, he understands what it’s like to lose Susannah as a mother and not have the most present and supportive dad, and Conrad checked out on him, retreated into himself and left Jeremiah alone and wrecked.
And the irony of Belly’s dynamic with the Fisher boys is that more than her being an obstacle and point of contention between them, she’s also the bridge, especially with Susannah gone.
She’s the one that both boys can communicate with. Thus, she helps them connect. And with the tensions that arose from the previous summer and onward, it’s no wonder that Jeremiah and Conrad’s relationship was strained even during a time when they should’ve been able to lean on one another most.
Conrad: Sorry about this morning. I was scared that you guys were going to see me fuck everything up. I’m glad you were there to talk to dad with me, though.
Jeremiah: I knew Julia was a stretch, but I thought I could convince dad.
Conrad: Hey, you kept me from completely tearing into him, so that’s no easy feat.
Jeremiah: You know, I just feel like everyone is slipping away, and the house is the last thing tying us together. Conrad: We’re not giving up. We’re not giving up. We’ll figure something else out.
It’s fitting that it took the three of them reuniting at the beach house, troubleshooting this situation together, for Conrad and Jeremiah to talk finally…
It was easily one of the best moments of the hour. We don’t get to delve into that relationship between the brothers as much as we’re often so focused on what that dynamic is like with Belly at the center of it.
But Jeremiah is still the younger brother who looks up to his brother, needs him, and wants to be his equal. He wants it to be him and Conrad against the world, shouldering some responsibility without being disregarded as just some “kid.”
And Conrad is such a heavily on-brand eldest sibling. Amusingly enough, he inhabits the Eldest Daughter Syndrome incredibly well for, you know, a son.
He takes it upon himself to handle everything, failing to communicate, not letting anyone in, and attempting to shoulder everything alone without leaning on any support network.
Conrad always wants to play hero, disappears into himself rather than let anyone support him, and pushes people away and self-sabotages.
Jeremiah’s assessment of his brother was right, and his feelings about getting tired of Conrad pushing him too much and too far were valid, and so was his feeling that Conrad was being selfish and self-consumed.
It’s easy to understand Jeremiah’s position, one that they continue to flesh out nicely. How could he not get angry that Conrad found out the news about the house, failed to tell him, and took it upon himself to fix it without considering Jeremiah’s feelings in the matter?
Jeremiah: I want to be there when you talk to Dad. I’m better with him lately, and once he sees how passionate we are about keeping the house, he’ll have to let us use our trusts.
Conrad: Our trusts?
Jeremiah: No more doing things alone.
It’s an exact repeat of how things were with Susannah, so it was an understandable sore spot.
Conrad’s behavior is offputting and frustrating. He routinely falls into the same patterns and barely does anything about them, and he’s most decidedly flawed.
He’s emotionally stunted in a way that the other teen characters are not, which is fascinating given that he’s the eldest of the bunch. But it’s also conveyed realistically and sympathetically.
Conrad places all the responsibility of being the perfect, responsible older son who fixes everything onto himself. He wants to be the rock, the steady person in a hard time, the problem solver, and the one to save the day essentially.
And he literally makes himself sick by placing this unrealistic burden on himself of who he thinks he’s supposed to be or the role he feels he should take on.
He destroys himself in the process. It’s no wonder that all of that manifests itself in anxiety.
What’s critical is the final moment. He got a text message or email that triggered a full-blown anxiety attack.
Old Conrad would push Steven away, something he’s presumably been doing this whole time, and try to keep whatever it is under wraps, but for him to grow, he needs to lean on the support system around him.
I didn’t know it then, but I was already losing him.
Belly Voiceover
How he reacts in the moment after that anxiety attack will be defining.
It was utterly frustrating that their father denied them the chance to buy Susannah’s house using their trust, but there’s hope in knowing that the brothers are more united than ever.
Conrad finally recognizes the value of his brother and that Jeremiah isn’t some kid with silly thoughts who isn’t capable of helping him shoulder burdens. And Jeremiah gets to see how effective they are when Conrad lets people in.
In the flashbacks, Conrad’s self-destructive nature and penchant for pushing people away reared its head.
Belly was right about how distant he had become by prom. His mind was elsewhere the whole time, and he was willfully an asshole just to push this good thing away from him when he was barely present at her prom and then wanted to break her heart that night and bail.
Conrad’s burden and some of it is rooted in the eldest child thing, was always being intuitive enough to pick up on things that the others hadn’t. He always had one foot in the adult world, while the other teens could simply be teens caught up in the summer magic.
Most likely, he had already reached the tragic conclusion that Susannah’s change in meds was because she was dying, and he couldn’t allow himself to have the happiness of Belly and his relationship when he knew in his bones his mother was dying.
All Belly wanted to do was support him, and he wouldn’t let her. He had already put his guard up and shut her out, making that painful exchange in the school’s parking lot so heartrending.
Conrad: I’m sorry.
Belly: I know this is hard with everything going on, but please don’t shut me out.
Conrad: I feel like I keep disappointing you.
Belly: You haven’t, and you aren’t.
Conrad: I have; all I’ve done today is disappoint you, and you don’t deserve that.
Belly falling into her brother’s arms after that made you feel for them both. Simmering in the background is how displaced Steven has felt in all of this.
Conrad and Jeremiah were his brothers; things changed when both brothers fell for Belly. The fallout from that put a definite strain on the friendship among the guys since things were tense with the brothers.
But then he had to watch Conrad break his sister’s heart.
Indeed Steven was there for the fiasco at Susannah’s funeral, too. It couldn’t get any uglier.
Conrad is no better than Belly in how gone he is for her. He easily could’ve let her go at the funeral, stayed in the rec room, hugged up with Aubrey rather than chased after her, itching for a fight.
But he can’t let her go even when he’s doing everything he can to push her away. The display at Susannah’s repast was humiliating. It made you want to cover your eyes and ears to what was happening in front of everyone.
Conrad retreated into himself again, pulling his card of being a dick and pushing people away before they could leave him, or perhaps because he couldn’t accept good things amid all the sadness and bad ones.
He humiliated Belly, then stuck the knife in deeper in his effort to get her to hate and give up on him, but hitting her with the thing she would’ve been sensitive to and feared the most, that he made a mistake being with her.
Conrad: I should’ve known you’d be like this.
Belly: What do you mean?
Conrad: Forget it.
Belly: No, say it, tell me.
Conrad: I knew it was a bad idea starting something with you.
Belly: I don’t believe you.
Conrad: It was a huge mistake.
Belly: I hate you.
Conrad: Good.
Belly: And I don’t want to see you again.
It would’ve hurt no matter what, but the idea that she lost her virginity to Conrad and he’d say that would be unforgivable to Belly. He was twisting the knife so it hurt her more, he wanted her to hate him, and even in saying all those ugly things, you could tell he didn’t believe them.
But that humiliating moment, coupled with her falling while wearing her too-short dress that Susannah always loved in front of everyone, was probably one of the worst moments of her life.
It makes Steven‘s drunken tirade against his sister at that party in front of everyone even worse. He knew how much that would hurt Belly.
With Conrad and Steven, we haven’t had any significant moments of amends with them and Belly, but the love is there all the same.
Conrad cooled off relatively quickly after the initial shock of seeing her again and his pathetic attempt at pushing her away again. Then they settled into something comfortable despite so much unspoken between them.
And as for Steven, we didn’t have any great moments like with the Fisher boys, but sometimes you don’t need those.
Steven had strong enough scenes with Taylor that conveyed where he is in all of this.
I appreciate the exploration of his perspective in all of this. It’s evident, mirroring some of Conrad’s “big brother” attempts, that he’s trying to keep his mom and sister together, mourn Susannah, and still be happy about things in his life.
Steven: Does Belly really think I don’t care about Susannah’s death?
Taylor: Of course, she doesn’t really think that. She was having a really shitty night.
Steven: I miss Susannah, but I’m also really excited for Princeton. Am I an asshole?
It must suck that everyone around him seems to imply that he wasn’t as close to Susannah and isn’t suffering too. But he’s trying to get by as best as he can.
The Steven and Taylor scenes were great, especially when we got to see the genuine friendship that formed between them outside of Steven’s feelings for her.
Taylor cares about him, and she doesn’t shy away from giving him sound advice, and Steven desperately needs a sounding board since he’s lost all of his.
Like Jeremiah, it’s nice to delve into Steven more and understand his place in the narrative and the Conklin-Fisher “family.”
Taylor’s addition to all of this feels right, too. And things are strong when we have the teens altogether at Cousins.
I still miss the adult storylines often interspersed with that of the kids. Susannah’s death is taking such a massive toll on the characters, but her absence leaves a hole in the narrative, especially concerning Laurel.
It’s shocking that her underwhelming funeral didn’t seem to do the vivacious woman justice in the least and didn’t have any focus on Laurel at all.
Susannah was the linchpin, somehow connecting the adult stories with the teen ones, and this series expanded beyond that of a teen romance coming-of-age drama to a more rounded multi-generational one.
It’s an element of the series that I miss.
Over to you, Summer I Turned Pretty Fanatics.
What were your thoughts on Susannah’s funeral and that big Conrad and Belly blowout?
What’s your impression of Julia? Let’s discuss everything below!
An all-new episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty returns on July 21 on Prime Video.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is an insomniac who spends late nights and early mornings binge-watching way too many shows and binge-drinking way too much tea. Her eclectic taste makes her an unpredictable viewer with an appreciation for complex characters, diverse representation, dynamic duos, compelling stories, and guilty pleasures. You’ll definitely find her obsessively live-tweeting, waxing poetic, and chatting up fellow Fanatics and readers. Follow her on Twitter.