Teens Weigh in on The Summer I Turned Pretty's Conrad vs Jeremiah Debate & There's a Clear Side
Since The Summer I Turned Pretty premiered in 2022, and before that for readers of the book series, there has been a central debate that occupies fans’ minds: are you Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah?
Love triangles and teen TV dramas have always gone hand in hand. Dawson and Joey vied for Pacey’s love in Dawson’s Creek in the late 90s, Rory flip-flopped from Dean to Jess in Gilmore Girls in the early 2000s, and Gossip Girl’s Serena chose between Dan and Nate in the 2010s.
But The Summer I Turned Pretty ups the stakes with one key component: the competing sides are brothers. Belly (Lola Tung) is caught in a love triangle with the Fisher brothers, Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and older brother Conrad (Christopher Briney), the sons of her mom’s best friend, with whom she spends her summers in a Massachusetts beach town.
The question of who Belly should end up with has carried through to the show’s third and final season, which is airing on Prime Video now. So, in the video above, we posed that question to teen girls, The Summer I Turned Pretty’s most dedicated demographic, and there was a clear winner.
17-year-old friends Greta and Olivia are vehemently Team Conrad. “It was Conrad first, and it’s always been Conrad,” says Greta. “I think that it’s the most real.”
“He is the only one of the brothers [who] actually thinks of Belly as a person,” Olivia adds. “Whereas Jeremiah is projecting his idea of her onto her, and their relationship is basically all about what Jeremiah thinks she needs and what Jeremiah thinks she wants.”
Conrad, the brooding older brother, certainly has jerk tendencies (hence why Belly entered season three engaged to Jeremiah), but fans will tell you that their connection is deeper and more intimate than Belly’s relationship with Jeremiah, whose people-pleaser tendencies keeps their romance more surface level.
To put it in Gilmore Girls terms, Conrad is Jess while Jeremiah is Dean. Conrad can hurt Belly the most, but loves her the deepest. Jeremiah is great to take home to the family, but will he ever truly understand her?
“Conrad sacrificing himself and being like ‘Jeremiah will make you more happy’ is proof that he actually cares about her,” Olivia says. “Jeremiah would never do that and acknowledge that another person can actually make her happy. He does not realize when he’s hurting her.”
Olivia and 16-year-old Anais both read Jenny Han’s book series of the same name and came away strongly Team Conrad, but according to Anais, the show puts a different spin on things. “In the books, I like Conrad better, but in the show, I like Jeremiah,” she says. “But I think Belly has a lot that she has to figure out on her own before she can be with either of them.”
Olivia, however, insists that the show’s spin on Jeremiah is “all propaganda.” She says, “People who don’t read the book are Team Jeremiah.”
16-year-old Kaya was willing to throw a vote in Jeremiah’s direction, but even she says she’s “not like crazy, strongly” on his side. “I just think that he genuinely likes Belly, and that they just have more fun together,” she explains. “There [are] so many problems with Conrad.”
But like the many teen shows that paved the way for The Summer I Turned Pretty, nothing keeps fans engaged quite like a good love triangle, and even Team Conrad has to admit that following to see who she chooses is half the fun. “It’s fun that it’s so 50/50,” says Greta. “I really go back and forth between Jeremiah and Conrad… That’s fun to discuss.”
Before you go, click here to see a parent’s guide to all the biggest teen shows of the summer.
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