Surprise, surprise, Belly and Jeremiah’s engagement announcement doesn’t go as planned.
Photo: Erika Doss/Prime

No one found in fiction, reality, or even on the internet has more main character energy than Belly, and that is why, usually, she is the main character in The Summer I Turned Pretty. But sometimes, such as in “Last Supper,” The Summer I Turned Pretty is about a beautiful and sharp-witted girl named Taylor, who was raised by a young single mom and masks her emotional vulnerability with sarcasm and avoidance. Between pseudoparenting her mother, Lorelai Gilmore — sorry, Lucinda —  trying to make it right with Steven, her on-and-off-again boyfriend and probable love of her life, and fielding batshit confessions from her immature but very pretty best friend, Belly, Taylor is just trying to figure out life as your average college junior.

At the top of the episode, Taylor is literally starving to death as she waits for Belly to meet her at the coffee shop, because of course Belly — busy canoodling with Jeremiah in his Pottery Barn Teen “Surfer Dude” bedroom — is late. Which must be particularly irksome since the whole reason for the bestie meetup is Taylor’s most recent breakup with Steven. Nobody wants to be assaulted with other people’s love while they’re heartbroken, but Taylor barely has time to moan that “love is a lie” before Belly whallops her in the face with her engagement news. “What the fuck did you say?” And, “Oh my God, are you pregnant?” are patently reasonable questions to ask in response to this kind of news, but Belly is offended. So now, Taylor has to add keeping this secret and Belly being mad at her to her current psychological burden.

Meanwhile, the other half of this will-they-or-won’t-they, Steven, is convalescing from his MEDICALLY INDUCED COMA at home with his mom, who is about to put a Parental Lock on his Slack. Parents just don’t understand that in the VC world, you rise-and-grind even while recovering from your MEDICALLY INDUCED COMA. I really cannot overstate how much Steven was just put into a MEDICALLY INDUCED COMA but is now completely fine. He thinks everyone is way overreacting to the whole MEDICALLY INDUCED COMA, except for Taylor, from whom he was expecting a lot more.

Steven should know by now that the best he’s going to get from Taylor (while he’s conscious anyway) is the flirtatiously snide remark she tosses him on her way out the door after apologizing to Belly. And Taylor should know that all it’s going to take to get Steven back is a little consistency. Look at the man. He is weak. Alas, they are both being dumb, so Taylor’s 17-year-old mom, Lucinda (Just kidding, Kristen Connolly is actually 45 years old, so she very plausibly could have a 20-year-old daughter. She’s just leaning into a Teen Mom vibe), feels the need to take matters into her own hands. Taylor may be the founding member of Team Jellyfish, but Lucinda is the CEO and President of Staylor Inc. She decides the best course of action is to call Steven personally and ask him casually to come over and review her books for her nail salon business, given his background as a business professional. But Steven’s like, you ain’t slick and asks her to email the accounts to him instead.

It’s a real stroke of luck that Lucinda is so committed to the bit that she actually does email her books to Steven, because he discovers that she’s a month away from financial ruin. Turns out Lucinda’s deadbeat ex-boyfriend ran her business into the ground, and now they are basically destitute. Steven offers to set Lucinda up with a loan, but Taylor slams that solution down because it is wildly inappropriate. Lucinda eventually suggests going to Meemaw, which Taylor is against because — wait, hold up. There’s a Meemaw? And Taylor doesn’t want to ask Meemaw for money because it will come with strings attached? Guys, if you’re gonna crib from Gilmore Girls this blatantly, you really shouldn’t include a Gilmore Girls reference at the beginning of the episode, which is what happened. I’m looking forward to seeing Taylor eventually relent and let Steven help them get a loan and thus learn to let herself be loved, but in the meantime, we do have to check in with our Official Main Characters.

Mostly, Belly and Jeremiah are agonizing over when and how to tell their families they’re engaged and also preparing for Mother Susannah’s 987th memorial service. They decide the memorial is the best time for the big announcement, since that’s when everyone will be together. Shockingly, it does not go as planned. I was all ready to blame Belly for misreading the room and causing all the drama, but Dick Dad is there. And Dick Dad is such a dick that he uses up all the animosity in the room, leaving none to spare for Belly, Jeremiah, or even Conrad. (California has done wonders for Conrad’s personality, by the way. He’s not even bitter about Agnes keeping the job he was fired from.)

Like, first, Laurel announces that she’s going to pay for dinner, so Dick Dad orders the $75 surf n’ turf, plus the seafood tower, when Belly tries to offset his decadent dickishness by ordering a tomato bisque. And then the toasts. Oh my God, the toasts. We kick off with a passive-aggressive toast to Laurel, which she parries with a boasting toast to Steven, the MEDICALLY INDUCED COMA survivor who also scammed a full semester from Princeton. Dick Dad responds with a toast to his favorite son Conrad, then Laurel toasts to Belly for being the girl who goes to Paris, then Dick Dad just shits all over Jeremiah for fun. And this leaves Belly no choice but to announce that Jeremiah also has big things in his future. “He’s marrying me in August!” she exclaims. This solves nothing, of course, but at least Belly is standing by her man.

Instead, bedlam erupts. Dick Dad becomes the second person to assume Belly is pregnant, but more dickishly. Laurel wants to know why they can’t just foster a cat or something if they’re so desperate to take the next step in their relationship. Belly is confused because isn’t this what Susannah always wanted? Laurel’s like fuck no, dinner’s canceled, Belly, get in the car. Now, can you really ground your 20-year-old kid? I mean, if she’s a legal adult, isn’t this technically kidnapping? I agree with Laurel arm-wrestling Belly into her station-wagon on principle, because Belly has a flower-printed Band-Aid on her leg right now; she’s not old enough to be someone’s wife. On the other hand, now we’re just fueling a Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet fantasy, and good luck dislodging that from Belly’s heart while you’ve got her locked in her bedroom.

Of all the reactions to Belly and Jeremiah’s engagement, Conrad’s is the most melodramatic. He says nothing at all, stands in the parking lot, staring into the middle distance while we hear “No Surprises” by Radiohead. Because, of course, we do.

• I love a Golden-Boy-gets-humbled-by-the-real-world plotline as much as the next girl boss, but I feel like we need more humbling than just, “slightly unsatisfying entry-level job that is still adjacent to the career I actually want.” I am talking about Steven and Conrad.

• To assure Jeremiah that she’s very “loud and proud” about their engagement, Belly keeps shouting about it into open windows where nobody is near enough actually to hear her.

• Belly and Laurel are making Susannah a “remembrance board.” Guys, when I die, I want just one funeral. And instead of a eulogy or speeches, I want a recitation of all of my funniest bits from these recaps.

• There’s something perfect about Belly roasting Laurel for her 2003 side-bangs and then immediately giving herself the most 2003 hairstyle ever devised.

• Steven’s 10 Things I Hate About You poster is so confounding to me. I don’t know why, but I just had to note it.

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