<i>The Summer I Turned Pretty</i> Season 3, Episode 6 Recap: Belly Comes to Conrad’s Aid

Spoilers below.

Last week, The Summer I Turned Pretty offered an episode from Conrad’s point of view, ending with his determination to leave Belly and Jere to their happy ending. Season 3, episode 6 leaves things on a much more uncertain note. It picks up two weeks later, when Belly and Jeremiah wake on an air mattress at his dad’s house. Unfortunately, Adam walks in and is irritated to find the two lovers canoodling. He’s more irritated by Belly, it seems, and her habits of leaving hair in the shower and messing with the coffee machine. Basically, Adam wants Jere to kick his fiancée out of the apartment.

Belly actually wants Jere to take a day off to look for their own place. Adam is chill with it even if it means Jere misses an important business meeting, as long as they get the heck out of his home. Belly says she’ll return to Cousins, even though being with Jere in Boston is “easier.”

They do spend the morning looking for a nice apartment, but the real estate agent recognizes how young they are. The application is a challenge, because Jere is behind on credit cards payments—for a secret card he signed up for to get free Bruins tickets that his dad doesn’t cover. They realize it’s an uphill battle without Adam as a co-signer, but want to keep their independence somehow. (Like finding an imaginary landlord that doesn’t require a credit check.) They go on to see a series of apartments from hell. While Jere is willing to compromise, Belly is unhappy picking a less-than-perfect first home with her future husband. They end up fighting over how important Jeremiah is or isn’t to Adam’s company, but make up before she heads to Cousins. Naturally, Belly finds Conrad at the beach house, but avoids eating more grilled chicken with him.

The next morning, she meets Paige, the wedding coordinator, at the club. There’s some strain around planning as Belly hasn’t been able to confirm details with Jere. She sees a parade of young couples pass through together, perhaps thinking about being solo. She wants an ice sculpture of an anatomical heart, which Paige laughs at before realizing she’s serious. A lot of Paige’s suggestions are not really to Belly’s taste, including having her mom do a candle lighting at the ceremony.

Belly calls Jere at the office and admits she’s having second thoughts about the club and the 100 RSVPs from people she doesn’t even know. She doesn’t want to see a sea of strangers on her wedding day, but Jere tells her to just look at him during the nuptials instead. She concedes again, thinking of it as a “storm” they weathered in their relationship.

He hangs up and finds Steven and Denise, who are both now invited to the massive wedding. Jere says the dress code is “yacht formal,” and watches the other interns flirt. It comes up again that Kayleigh, Adam’s affair partner, is helping with the wedding. Later, Jere finds Adam with Kayleigh awfully close to each other in his office, and after discreetly knocking, he thanks her for her help. She reminds Jere she’s known him since he was a kid (awkward), and then suggests his fav—oysters!—for dinner when Conrad is in town. But Adam wants steak at Conrad’s favorite restaurant. Jere needs to learn to stand up to his dad at some point, but it won’t be over expensive proteins.

Belly finds Conrad doing yet another DIY project when she comes back from the club. He’s left her a lunch in the fridge. He says he’s heading to Boston the next day and then asks if Laurel has changed her mind for the wedding. Nope.

Meanwhile, Taylor complains to Lucinda about Laurel’s decision. Lucinda is all too happy to drag Laurel’s name, but she hasn’t been an all-star mother either (mention of a past DUI is a bit dark). She is now helping Taylor plan Belly’s bridal shower, so they’re in a better place. Lucinda does tease Taylor about Steven driving five hours to join the party, but Taylor seems to agree it might mean something about the state of their relationship. Is reuniting in the cards?

In Cousins, Conrad checks on the fridge, where he finds the meal he left for Belly uneaten. This seems to motivate him to reach out to Laurel. They meet in a diner to talk and he tries to feed her, too. Laurel seems salty about how much everyone else is helping Belly get to the altar, but when he tells her about Kayleigh, she realizes he’s known about Adam cheating on Susannah for years. Conrad won’t say whether Belly and Jere should get married, but he does think she needs her mother. He warns Laurel she’ll regret skipping the wedding and she seems to take his thoughts to heart.

But she has her opinions, too. She asks Conrad what his “interest in all of this” is. He says he wants both Belly and Jere to be happy, and Laurel wants to know when it’ll be Conrad’s turn. He says he’ll be happy after the wedding when he is back in California.

Denise almost asks Steven out over the weekend, but they don’t quite connect. (Though they’re both obviously thinking about it.) He has to get to Philly for Belly’s bridal shower anyways. However, Denise stills sneaks over to his place on Saturday to pitch a business idea: She wants to start a company with him and work on his video game. But if they do this, they’d be in breach of their intern contract, which Denise admits is a challenge. But she thinks they’d make a great team. He agrees.

Belly is delighted by the work Taylor has done to make her shower feel special. All her friends are there, including college roommate Anika and her old neighbors. And mom! Yes, Laurel surprises Belly by showing up and they hug, crying. While Laurel doesn’t think the wedding is right, she’s seems to understand that resisting any more will only bring pain to everyone.

During the celebration, Belly’s neighbor gives her a stack of stationary with her new name printed on it, Isabel Fisher. She is a bit shocked at the sight of it, and admits she wasn’t planning to change her last name. After that sobering gift, Lucinda gives her a naughty lingerie set just in time for Steven to walk in and be traumatized. Taylor is clearly thrilled to see him.

Conrad has finally been wrangled into getting a tailored suit. Adam and Jere watch and drink fancy scotch, then talk fabrics. Try as he might, Jere still can’t get Adam’s attention when Conrad is in the room. On the drive home, they find out Laurel has finally decided to attend the wedding. Jere tries to set up Conrad with Anika, which leads to a discussion about who Adam is seeing—Kayleigh, surprise, surprise. He wants to bring her as a plus one and the brothers seem to be united in their discomfort for once. Jere is vocally supportive, but Conrad grills his dad on when things started with his secretary. Adam lies and says they just connected, but his eldest son know better.

At the shower, Belly is in a classic ribbon hat and playing games. So are Steven and Taylor, playfully flirting, but their banter is interrupted when Steven gets a call. As he chats, Belly and Taylor catch up and debate whether Conrad or Jere found their first pet, a dog named Rosie. Belly then admits that everything is starting to sink in and feel “really real.” She has been planning a wedding, but she’s probably not as prepared to be a wife. Taylor reassures her of how lucky she is.

At lunch with the boys, tensions are high. Adam starts criticizing Conrad for being a quitter and he finally admits he was actually fired from his clinic job in California. Shockingly, both Adam and Jere are supportive of him taking some time to get his head together before deciding on what to do next.

Taylor busts Steven texting Denise in the kitchen and guesses they’ve connected. But she hasn’t given up and tries to make a move. Steven rejects her, saying he thought they could just be friends. But maybe they should cut all contact this time. She convinces him they can stay close and gives him Laurel’s last lemon square as a peace offering. But she’s not actually as okay as she tries to come off. Later, she stalks Denise’s Instagram and vents to her mom. Lucinda sees the “just friends” strategy as just a front, so it doesn’t seem like either of them have given up on Steven quite yet.

On her way out the door from the shower, Laurel gives Belly her passport and seems surprisingly fine with Belly skipping study abroad plans in Paris. But she also presents her with airline gift cards for the couple’s honeymoon, so they can at least go somewhere. Laurel is definitely going to the wedding, and Belly decides to go back to home with her mom in Philly that night instead of Adam’s house (he’ll be psyched). The Conklins are reunited.

Belly calls Jere to give him all the good news. She finds out she was wrong about Rosie, though, since Conrad was the one who found him after all. This seems to set off some doubts for her, as she realizes she didn’t know “every little detail” about her fiancé after all. She reminisces about watching movies with her mom and Steven, especially Bye Bye Birdie, which famously features a song called “We Love You Conrad.” Inevitably, this leads to thoughts of her first love. But she assures herself that her feelings for Conrad are in the past, and Jeremiah is her future.

Adam tries to get the boys to keep partying and even invites Jere to go golfing with the partners. But both boys seem to want to get away from him. Jere caves, knowing he won‘t be back to see Belly when she returns to Cousins. Instead, Belly finds Conrad there, of course. He hurts himself surfing, blood gushing from his thigh, and she jumps up to help him. She gives him some oddly erotic first aid in the bathroom and he leans against her in pain. The proximity is too much for both of them and they come very close to kissing. Thankfully, Conrad pulls up, and gets himself out of there.

Belly is disturbed by her actions, knowing she almost crossed a line. She thinks to herself, “This time, it was all me.”