‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: “Love Sick”

The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s second season premiere (“Love Lost”) dropped breadcrumbs about Susannah’s funeral holding the answers about Belly and Conrad’s breakup, and that’s exactly what we get in “Love Sick” (Season 2 Episode 3). 

This episode’s flashback begins with Belly’s prom, which Conrad is supposed to escort her to. Conrad does, but he’s not the perfect date — he forgets her corsage, he’s moody and doesn’t want to dance, and when they finally go outside to talk Belly reads between the lines and breaks up with him. His heart isn’t in it, especially after learning that the doctor is switching Susannah’s meds, something he sees negatively despite not really knowing the underlying reasons. 

Belly is a bit hasty here and the writers could have filled in the blanks a little more between episodes. After all, in the previous episode, Belly and Conrad’s flashback showed us their first time sleeping together and they felt blissfully in love. That was Christmas and Prom is ostensibly in May, so there is a lot of ground in between those milestones where we could have seen Conrad slowly pulling away or being unable to deal with his mother’s declining health. (I do appreciate the hair & makeup departments doing their best Tim-Riggins-Oily-Hair-In-Face treatment of Conrad to represent how brooding and in need of therapy he is.)

But in the end, this is what we get: Belly crying in her brother’s arms on her Prom night right after she gave her infinity necklace — a symbol of their undying love — back to Conrad. Susannah’s funeral comes not long after and there is a small, tender moment between the former lovebirds as Conrad publicly sings a song for his mom at the service and his voice breaks at the moment he makes eye contact with Belly. Her voiceover tells us that she’s determined to be there for him still, even if they’re not together, but things go awry at the wake. 

Belly makes plates for both of the grieving brothers, but when she arrives to drop off Conrad’s she finds that he’s not alone. No, he’s resting his head in the lap of another woman. At his mother’s funeral! Of course, Belly is immediately hurt and runs as fast as she can away from and when he catches her at the bottom of the stairs, they have a screaming match in front of everyone. “Go to hell,” she snarls at him; he hits her back with, “I knew it was a bad idea to start something with you.” A gut punch. Hurt, Belly tells him she hates him and never wants to see him again before running out of the front door. Big yikes.

That was ostensibly the last time Belly and Conrad saw each other until now, when Belly has shown up at the beach house that Conrad is hiding out in. It turns out, Susannah’s half sister Julia (guest star Kyra Sedgwick, who will definitely have more to do in the coming episodes along with Elsie Fisher, who appears as her daughter Skye) technically owns the house now and is hellbent on selling it. Conrad and Jeremiah want to use their trust fund to buy the house but their dad shuts down that idea and tells them they’re shit out of luck on this one — the house is going to be sold and there’s nothing they can do about it. 

Feeling FOMO, Steven decides to drive up to the beach house too while Laurel is in New York for her book event, and he enlists Taylor to come with him. I had been wondering about where Steven fit within the family friend group because he doesn’t really seem that close to Jeremiah or Conrad even though he’s much closer in age to both of them, and perhaps this is his insecurities playing out. On the way up, he and Taylor have some flirty banter when she calls him an Ivy League douche and he says she’s one of the smartest people he knows, and Steven even comes close to admitting his feelings. 

Steven and Taylor get to the house just after Jeremiah and Conrad have lost all hope to save the house, and they do the only thing they know how to do: have a movie night. They pick the old school classic It Happened One Night but almost immediately, Conrad reads something on his phone that drains all of the color from his face. Swiftly excusing himself, he runs out to the beach short of breath with Steven trailing behind. 

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.