'The Summer I Turned Pretty 'recap: Adam Fisher's guide to passive-aggressive restaurant antics

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Belly and Jere's engagement news lands like a dead jellyfish — especially for Conrad.
Well, that was the worst-timed seafood tower in the history of shellfish.
Episode 3 of The Summer I Turned Pretty's final season opens with Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) making his engagement to Belly (Lola Tung) official with a down-on-his-knee offering of a delicate little ring.
Belly declares it perfect. I declare them too young — and I won't be the only one saying so before the credits roll.
Team Jellyfish agree to announce it when their families are together for Susannah's memorial garden dedication that weekend, but Taylor's (Rain Spencer) less-than-enthusiastic reaction when Belly shares the news over breakfast should've been a warning sign.
'Oh my god, are you pregnant?' she asks while choking on her chocolate croissant. It's the only reason she can see for a rising college senior to be marrying the guy she broke up with, like, 30 seconds ago for cheating on her. Aaaand that's how the school year ends.
On the drive home, Belly resists the temptation to tell her dad (Colin Ferguson), while he lets it slip that he was with Laurel (Jackie Chung) when she got all those missed calls about Steven (Sean Kaufman). He lies his way out of it, but his road trip mix includes the song that he and Lauren used to dance to.
Alas, Laurel insists that their hookup was a secret one-time thing, so John offers to skip the dedication service. He then stretches the truth and says Belly might suspect something, and it was their daughter, not him, who brought up their dancing song.
'What song?' Laurel asks.
'You know the song,' he replies softly. Okay, this is the couple I'm currently rooting for.
Steven, meanwhile, is frustrated by Laurel's hovering as he recuperates at home, impatient to get back to work. When Belly brings up Taylor, he says he was never on solid ground with her, so he decided to get off that roller coaster.
This is… smart? And healthy? Sure, we hate to see Taylor sad, but Steven coma'd his way through her confession of feelings last week, so all he's got to go on is her distance and her hostility. From his perspective, it's a reasonable choice.
Taylor, meanwhile, arrives home to find that her mother (Kristen Connolly) broke up with her crappy boyfriend, bought a new TV, and doesn't believe that she and Steven are over over. When she escapes to Chez Conklin with newly deep-conditioned hair (hate to say it, but her mom was right — it looks so much better), she's ready to be thrilled for Belly's engagement, although she predicts that Laurel will freak.
She is correct, but we're not there yet.
The lifelong friends squeal in excitement as Taylor agrees to be Belly's maid of honor and they flip through their dream wedding scrapbook from when they were kids.
But a chilly interaction with Steven kills her good mood, so Lucinda calls him OMG, asking for a hand with her beauty salon's finances.
The ruse backfires when Steven a) agrees to help over email, not in person, and b) discovers that Lucinda's a month away from being completely broke. He calls Taylor to warn her, but she hangs up on him when he offers to help, vowing to fix it herself.
The morning of the dedication, Belly's all dolled up and gorgeous as she slips her engagement ring into her pocket and slaps a colorful Band-Aid on her leg after nicking it while shaving. She watches proudly as Jeremiah's speech honors Susannah and the love she brought into the world.
Then everything kicks into slow motion when Conrad (Christopher Briney) suddenly appears.
He hasn't been home in two years, but at Agnes' (Zoé de Grand'Maison) urging, he hopped a red-eye flight for some exposure therapy to the girl he's still in love with. (As proof that this technique works, Agnes cops to having been in love with Con herself, but she got over it by spending time with him.)
There are awkward hugs all around, followed by awkward family photos. But the king of cringe is Adam (Tom Everett Scott), who jovially refers to Belly as Conrad's little sister. Nuh-uh, nope, no to infinity.
On the drive to the restaurant afterward, Belly and Jeremiah discuss how to share their news — tell Conrad first? Call Belly's dad right afterward? — and ultimately decide to make the day about Susannah, not their engagement.
As they wait to be seated, Steven vents to Conrad about being treated like a kid at work instead of doing great things like future doctor Connie, who still hasn't told anyone that he lost his clinic job.
Things get worse once everyone's seated. Laurel offers to pay, so Adam orders surf and turf and a seafood tower. (I resent this man for using lobster in his passive-aggressive games.) Then Steven asks Conrad if he's got a girl in California, Jere jokes about his brother getting wasted, and Adam steals Laurel's thunder on the toasts and negs her party-planning skills.
The group does, at least, raise their glasses to Suz, to Beck, to Mom, to Susannah.
The adults then toast the kids: Steven's early graduation and recovery from the crash, Conrad's brains and career aspirations, Belly's bright future and upcoming Parisian studies, and, um, Jeremiah's super-senior status and no particular plans after that.
Again, Adam is the worsttttttttt, and Belly won't stand for this Jere-Bear slander. Grabbing her beloved's hand, she announces that the two of them are getting married.
In August.
It goes exactly as well as we all expected.
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'I'm sorry, what? Is this a joke?' Laurel asks as Adam demands to know what Jeremiah's dragged Belly into.
The objections start piling up: it's insane, delusional, wild. Is Belly pregnant? Why can't they ease into things by fostering a cat? Adam snaps that they won't be getting Susannah's ring, not that Jeremiah expected that for a second, and Belly angrily flaunts the very smol band her fiancé bought her.
Conrad, meanwhile, sits in shocked silence, his eyes fixed on Belly. He only speaks quietly to tell Steven that no, he didn't know about any of this.
The arrival of the aforementioned seafood tray is the last straw, and Laurel declares the meal over. She drags Belly to the car to head back home, forbidding her from spending summer at Cousins Beach for Jeremiah.
Jere insists that the time apart will let everyone calm down and listen to reason, and the two exchange longing glances as they pull away in separate cars. Looks like Laurel just created a pair of star-crossed lovers with a persecution complex!
When it's all over, the only person left is shell-shocked Conrad, who stands like a ghost in the empty parking lot as Radiohead sings about experiencing one final bellyache.
Kissin' cousins corner
Let's talk about that Band-Aid, book girlies. Did you squeal when it made an appearance? Were you hoping it would have a bigger moment with Conrad? (For non-series readers, Connie almost doesn't recognize the person Belly's become when he sees her at the dedication. But when she stands up and he spots the Band-Aid, it turns her back into the Belly he knew. It's a lovely, important moment in the book.) Either way, we've definitely got some glassy-eyed angst going on for poor Con, who's probably wishing he never left California.
Sickest burn of ep 3 goes out from Steven to Laurel: 'You know what Slack is?'
Shoutout to roommate Anika (Sofia Bryant), who tells Belly to trust her own judgment and worry less about what other people think. To be fair, Anika doesn't know about the engagement yet, but it's an even-keel counterpoint to Taylor's… Tayloring.
Shoutout pt. II goes to coworker Denise (Isabella Briggs). She was in the episode for approximately six seconds, but she packed a snarky punch.
Belly makes a cat eye look easy. Teach me your ways, child.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
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