photo credit: Sophia Robinson
Shows or movies tend to have a popular topic involving more than one love interest, whether it’s “Gilmore Girls” or “The Vampire Diaries”, there has always been a debate on what “team” someone is on. For example, when the “Twilight Saga” movies were released, many people started to debate on whether Jacob or Edward was a better choice for Bella. This debate led to creating merchandise about each character and starting online discussions on social media.
This should be two different paragraphs
This is exactly what has been occurring with the show, “The Summer I Turned Pretty”. The story follows Belly Conklin, a teenage girl who navigates her feelings of love and friendship during summers spent at a beach house with her family and the Fisher brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah. For the past three years, there has been a huge debate on whether Conrad or Jeremiah is a better love interest for Belly.
After watching the show, it’s clear that Conrad is the best love interest for Belly. Their relationship has a deeper and emotionally complex bond that’s rooted in understanding each other.
If you are on social media, the saying “to be loved is to be known” has been going around to describe that true love is knowing someone through their actions and words, as well as their favorite things. This has been related to this show especially.
The show expresses a constant theme of Conrad knowing Belly better than Jermiah does. This mainly starts with the scene in season two, when Jeremiah doesn’t know Belly’s favorite candy is Sour Patch Kids while Conrad did.
But, this is just a small example of the differences. For instance, in season three, Belly would hide the fact that she is upset about her mom refusing to come to her wedding. But Conrad could tell she was upset by the way she behaved.
He kept checking to see if she was eating after noticing that she wasn’t. In an attempt to make Belly happy, he then went as far as to convince her mom to come to Jermiah and Belly’s wedding. However, when Belly told Jeremiah, he pushed it to the side and implied they could do the wedding without Belly’s mom.
I’m not saying that Jeremiah is meant to read Belly’s mind, but I am saying that if Conrad could just understand what was happening because of her behavior, then he knows her on a much deeper level than Jeremiah.
It’s important to look at how Jeremiah and Conrad are as a person and where their morals lie. A major difference between Conrad and Jeremiah is their overall maturity as a person.
For example, Jeremiah reacts to situations with pettiness. In season three, he found out that Belly spent a week with Conrad and instead of communicating with her, he chose to cheat on her twice in another country.
They also have a difference in respect, which ties in with maturity. Conrad is respectful and convinces Belly’s mom, Laurel, to attend the wedding, even if it’s making him or Belly upset. However, the second that Jeremiah had something hurtful happen to him, he reacted in a petty way and disrespected Laurel. Their overall character on how they react to things shows how emotionally mature they are, which is important to have in a relationship.
The last thing that should be noted is the difference of how Belly acted in each relationship. Jeremiah was Belly’s best friend first, while Conrad was her first love. This creates a major difference in a relationship.
When Belly dated Conrad in high school, Jeremiah wasn’t even on her radar; she was just happy to be with her crush since she was little. Sure, she was upset that her best friend, Jermiah, was upset with her, but she had no desire to be with him.
However, when Jeremiah and Belly got together, it was sudden. In season three, Belly was constantly defensive over Conrad and second guessing herself. For example, during her bridal party, she told her best friend that “she only ever pictured Conrad”.
Clearly, Conrad is always going to have a part of her heart. She even admits that, saying that “a part of me will always love Conrad”.
With all said, Belly’s situation is messy. However, the difference between the relationships with the two brothers is drastically different. It’s clear that the better relationship is Conrad and Belly. Neither of them are perfect, of course, but Conrad has proven his love and loyalty for Belly.
