The Summer I Turned Pretty recap: Crappy birthday, Belly

*The Summer I Turned Pretty *recap: Crappy birthday, Belly

Wait wait wait, WHO delivered that final voiceover?

By Sara Netzley

Published on July 30, 2025 03:32PM EDT

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Lola Tung and Gavin Casalegno in 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' season 3, episode 4. Credit:

- When Laurel still refuses to support their engagement, Belly moves to the beach house with Jeremiah for the summer.

- Conrad, who secretly stayed in Cousins, reluctantly agrees to be Conrad's co-best man after seeing how upset Belly is.

- Taylor forgoes her New York internship to help her mother pay down her debt and open a home salon.

You are cordially invited to join Isabel Conklin as she celebrates her 21st birthday. The festivities include crushing parental disappointment, kinda sad wedding dress shopping, and weird ex-boyfriend encounters. No RSVP required.

Two weeks have passed since Susannah's memorial, and with six weeks to go before the wedding of the summer, none of the parents have come around.

Belly (Lola Tung) is working double shifts as a server to help pay for the nuptials and has the banged-up feet to show for it. The morning of her birthday, she comes downstairs to find Laurel (Jackie Chung) and John (Colin Ferguson) there with Mickey Mouse pancakes and a bottle of wine from the year she was born.

But when Laurel declines to go wedding dress shopping with her, Belly leaves for work, her breakfast uneaten. John suggests that his stubborn ex-wife try a little diplomacy with their stubborn daughter.**

Kristen Connolly and Rain Spencer in 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' season 3, episode 4.

Belly tries to salvage the day by having Taylor (Rain Spencer) and Lucinda (Kristen Connolly) join her at a shop called Prom Promises to search for an affordable white dress. Y'all, that is *bleak*. But she does find a simple ivory number that Taylor declares is the one.

Afterward, Belly calls Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and has a smol breakdown over Laurel's absence.  "How are we supposed to do this without both of our moms?" she asks plaintively.

Jere promises that they'll figure it out, although he's got his own challenges as an intern at Breaker Capital. Not only is Adam (Tom Everett Scott) dismissive of his attempts to talk about the wedding, but nobody wants the nepo baby to be involved in anything more complex than putting in the lunch order.

At least supervisor Kayleigh (Emma Ishta) puts Denise (Isabella Briggs) in charge of the snack tray for the StarcadeX meeting when she hears her mocking Jere, and Steven (Sean Kaufman) follows up with a suggestion that Denise be nicer to his bro. (In Denise's defense, she's fully prepared for Jeremiah to be everyone's boss in six months, despite his clear disinterest in the venture capital game.)

Denise and Steven glumly watch from a distance as Adam meets with the StarcadeX dudes, although he does eventually ask them both to prepare competitive analyses on the company. Hooray for being minimally valued at work! Also, good for Denise for finally dropping her gamer cred when Steven yet again tries to gatekeep her out of that investment space.

Two more Steven updates this week: First, he hops onboard the wedding train after Jere asks him to be his co-best man. The possibility of a Vegas bachelor party can move mountains, apparently.**

Second, he warns Taylor that Lucinda's not going to be approved for a small business loan because her terrible ex-boyfriend opened lines of credit in Lucinda's name, and she owes $10,000 by the end of the month.

Christopher Briney recalls stealing 'Summer I Turned Pretty' costar Gavin Casalegno's car

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Taylor, who was about to leave for New York to start an internship with the company that does PR for the Met Gala, cancels her summer plans and uses her housing money to pay down the debt so Lucinda can afford to open a home salon.

It's a huge sacrifice, but tough, loyal Taylor does it without complaint — and without accepting Steven's offer to help, of course.

Okay, back to the engaged couple. Jeremiah surprises Belly at home with a Blatant Product Placement Ice Cream Cookie Cake™ and a key to the summer house, which will officially be hers in six weeks.

He also brought flowers for Laurel, but the trio's sit down doesn't go well. Jeremiah says Belly became his person after his mom died, and he wants to marry her as soon as possible.

But Laurel doesn't think Susannah would want this and asks them to at least wait until they've graduated. The fight ends with Laurel saying she won't come to the wedding and Belly moving to the beach house for the summer.

When Belly texts John to ask if he'll still walk her down the aisle, he storms over to Laurel's house to yell at her about it. He says that even though Laurel thinks marrying him was her worst mistake, they need to let Belly make her own choices.**

Colin Ferguson and Jackie Chung in 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' season 3, episode 4.

Laurel corrects him: marrying John wasn't the mistake; she was just too young to be a wife and a mother, and she doesn't want that for Belly. John understands, but he's still going to the wedding.

Meanwhile at the beach house, Belly and Jere fell asleep on the couch, and she wakes up to see Conrad (Christopher Briney) coming downstairs. Surprise! He's still in Cousins!

They both flash back to their unexpected reunion last Christmas, and then Jere pops up from the couch like a curly haired gopher.

Christopher Briney in 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' season 3, episode 4.

Okay, can we talk about the silent communication that happens when these exes are in the same room? Con's eyes flick to where Belly and Jere are holding hands, and Belly's brow furrows when Con's vague about when he starts work at the clinic. Volumes being written in quick glances, I tell you!

The brothers grab their surfboards and paddle out together, but when Jeremiah issues the co-best man invitation, Conrad hesitates, then says, "I mean, you guys are still in college. When you think about it, it's kind of ridiculous."

I swear, I age a decade every time Belly and Jere rush forward despite warnings from literally every person who knows and loves them.

Nevertheless, every neighborhood dog hears Belly's shrieked "*WHAT*?" when Jere recounts the story later, and that night, the happy couple loudly mocks their ridiculousness while floating in the pool watching *Speed *on the projector. (Disrespecting Keanu and Sandy like that? Tsk.)

Conrad overhears it all as he sadly buys a plane ticket to California, where his non-patient-facing lab job starts soon, and okay, could one of you remind me about how awful prom night was so I can feel, like 8% less sorry for him? Because this is brutal.

But wait, it's about to get so much worse.

Before Jeremiah leaves for the week to fetch everyone coffee in Boston, Belly tells him that she doesn't want to spend five months in Paris as a husbandless newlywed. He's thrilled because he didn't want her to go, either. Oh man, Laurel's going to hit the roof.

Also, let's compare Taylor turning down her much-anticipated internship to keep her mom afloat with Belly turning down Paris for Jeremiah. It's apples and oranges, and unfortunately, the oranges are the ones insisting they're ready to get married.

Now alone, Belly looks at her wedding dress in its Prom Promises bag, then sees the debutante ball dress that Laurel surprised her with. She remembers how known and loved she felt in that moment, and it leads to a flashback of Susannah unveiling her new big-girl room at the beach house.**

Lola Tung as Belly in 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' season 3, episode 4.

Little Belly's excited at first, but that night she hears the boys joking around in their room, and when she pads downstairs to announce that she doesn't want to sleep alone, Laurel crawls in bed to cuddle her to sleep.

In an act of emotional terrorism, grown-up Belly cries alone on that same bed as "Landslide" plays on the soundtrack.

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As he's leaving for the airport, Conrad hears Belly crying and hesitates outside the door, but he doesn't go inside to comfort her. It's not his place anymore, and for all he knows, his fight with Jere is one of the reasons she's upset.

But he makes amends in his own way, and Belly's soon bombarded with texts from Jeremiah saying that Conrad agreed to be his best man. She happily bounces downstairs to thank him, and Connie replies, "You are *ridiculously* welcome."

She then notices that he baked her dirt bombs, a.k.a. the good muffins, and he wishes her a belated happy birthday. When she rushes to hug him, he dies a little inside and then…

"What have I done?" Conrad asks in a voiceover.

**Kissin' cousins corner**

- I have questions. Did Belly totally ghost her serving job? Why can't Jere use his rich-kid money to go to Paris with Belly, then finish up his classwork in the spring? Is Con catching a later flight to California, or is he turning down the gig to stay in Cousins for the run-up to the wedding? And why did my mom's friends never import French wallpaper to renovate a beach house bedroom for me?

- Let's take a second to appreciate John taking off his shoes every time he comes to Laurel's. Not only does he remember the house rules, but he respects them. Colin Ferguson's lowkey turning into the season's stealth scene-stealer.

- Which weekend casual lewk did you prefer, Steven's silver vest that would look at home on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, or Denise's non-straightened hair?

- Burn of the episode goes out from Taylor to Lucinda: "I can drop her at the nearest Lululemon. Not a problem. It'll keep her occupied for a couple of hours."

- Yep, that was the tiniest hint at Conrad's inner monologue. Will there be more to come? See you next week to find out!

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