‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Season 2 Episode 1 Recap: “Love Lost”

Almost all of The Summer I Turned Pretty’s first season took place at the legendary beach house on Cousins Beach belonging to main character Belly’s mom Laurel’s best friend Susannah, and its picturesque locale made it easy for a love story to unfold. Sure, Belly (Lola Tung) spent most of the time juggling her feelings for Susannah’s son Conrad (Christopher Briney) alongside understanding how to receive attention and affection from others, but her love triangle with Conrad’s brother Jeremiah (Gaving Casalegno) didn’t feel like it had heavy stakes beyond that of a high schooler who has just hit puberty and is figuring out what romantic feelings are. And even though her love triangle was between two brothers, Susannah (Rachel Blanchard) herself had always hoped Belly would end up with one of her sons. What was the harm?

Well, The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2 opens with the bleak announcement that Susannah is dead and everything about their idyllic lives is about to change. Last season we found out that Susannah was battling cancer for a second time and she was planning to enroll in a clinical trial to give her one last shot at remission. Immediately in the sophomore season premiere, Belly’s voiceover tells us that nothing worked and her secondary mother figure was gone. 

Belly’s grief drives much of the plot in the first episode, which unfolds across two timelines. “Escaping into your dreams is easier than living with your memories,” she says, though one timeline is spent diving into her memories from the end of last summer, filling in the blanks of what happened directly after the events of the first season finale, and another timeline is in present-day where she is trying to piece it all together. 

After she and Conrad kissed at the end of summer, her first instinct is to tell Jeremiah that she can’t be with him anymore. To her, the break-up shouldn’t come as a shock; everyone knew she had a crush on Conrad. But when Jeremiah doesn’t take it well and chooses to end the friendship entirely, Belly decides that now isn’t the time to drive a rift between the two mourning brothers — even though Conrad finally gives her the infinity necklace he bought last season and is interested in pursuing their relationship after he goes to college. Through the various flashbacks in the episode, we see Conrad initiate contact between them, calling her and showing up on her doorstep to rekindle their romance.

It’s clear that season two will show us the unraveling of their relationship for a second time, because present-day Belly isn’t dating let alone speaking to Conrad. (One of her voiceovers mentions that she ruined Susannah’s funeral, which no doubt played a role in her continued estrangement from the brothers.) The beach house setting is gone and we’re back in the real world where Belly is juggling her grief over losing Susannah with her lovesickness over Conrad. 

It’s a big deal for the show to acknowledge her depression and the lack of control over her life, though Belly is mostly keeping it together. But her grades are slipping, she’s lashing out at her brother, and she’s constantly thinking about everything she’s lost in the past year. Luckily her friend Taylor is there to make sure she gets out of the house and they head over to Belly’s brother Steven’s graduation party where Taylor’s new boyfriend Milo’s band is playing. Belly decides to be sober at the party (probably for the best) but still gathers the courage to make a move on a classmate. Unfortunately he swerves her and admits he’s actually into her friend Marcy, which is just the cherry on a very bad cake for Belly. 

Meanwhile, her brother Steven is putting on a strong front but it’s clear that he’s also not entirely okay. He’s mad that Belly’s dalliances with the brothers forced them to skip his graduation, he’s sad about Susannah’s death, and he’s even a little bit jealous that Taylor is dating a new guy who lied to her about writing Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” about her. Steven is off to Princeton in the fall but I have a feeling he’s going to have a lot more to say before he leaves for college. 

We also briefly check in with Laurel, who has turned her grief into a new book about losing her best friend. But Laurel is dreading the book tour that will be attached to its release because she’s uninterested in rehashing her feelings into soundbites and pull quotes (her estranged husband gets in a jab about her avoiding therapy). Laurel’s scenes with Susannah were a highlight in season one as the adult friendship felt like the anchor for the series, so it will be vital to see how the show navigates Laurel’s loss as well.

The episode ends with Belly finally getting a call from Jeremiah — the first contact they’ve had since she broke his heart last summer. But it’s not a reconciliatory call. He asks her if she’s with Conrad and when she says no, he tells her that Conrad is gone. We haven’t yet seen the events leading up to and directly after Susannah’s death but given what we’ve experienced via Belly’s eyes, it’s quite likely that Conrad’s leave of absence is tied to his grief. 

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.