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\n Surprise, surprise, Belly and Jeremiah\u2019s engagement announcement doesn\u2019t go as planned.
\n Photo: Erika Doss\/Prime\n <\/p>\n
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 \u201cLast Supper,\u201d 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 \u2014\u00a0sorry, Lucinda \u2014\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 busy canoodling with Jeremiah in his Pottery Barn Teen \u201cSurfer Dude\u201d bedroom \u2014 is late. Which must be particularly irksome since the whole reason for the bestie meetup is Taylor\u2019s most recent breakup with Steven. Nobody wants to be assaulted with other people\u2019s love while they\u2019re heartbroken, but Taylor barely has time to moan that \u201clove is a lie\u201d before Belly whallops her in the face with her engagement news. \u201cWhat the fuck did you say?\u201d And, \u201cOh my God, are you pregnant?\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the other half of this will-they-or-won\u2019t-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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Steven should know by now that the best he\u2019s going to get from Taylor (while he\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s like, you ain\u2019t slick and asks her to email the accounts to him instead.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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\u2019s a month away from financial ruin. Turns out Lucinda\u2019s 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 \u2014 wait, hold up. There\u2019s a Meemaw? And Taylor doesn\u2019t want to ask Meemaw for money because it will come with strings attached? Guys, if you\u2019re gonna crib from Gilmore Girls this blatantly, you really shouldn\u2019t include a Gilmore Girls reference at the beginning of the episode, which is what happened. I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n
Mostly, Belly and Jeremiah are agonizing over when and how to tell their families they\u2019re engaged and also preparing for Mother Susannah\u2019s 987th memorial service. They decide the memorial is the best time for the big announcement, since that\u2019s 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\u2019s personality, by the way. He\u2019s not even bitter about Agnes keeping the job he was fired from.)<\/p>\n
Like, first, Laurel announces that she\u2019s going to pay for dinner, so Dick Dad orders the $75 surf n\u2019 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. \u201cHe\u2019s marrying me in August!\u201d she exclaims. This solves nothing, of course, but at least Belly is standing by her man.<\/p>\n
Instead, bedlam erupts. Dick Dad becomes the second person to assume Belly is pregnant, but more dickishly. Laurel wants to know why they can\u2019t just foster a cat or something if they\u2019re so desperate to take the next step in their relationship. Belly is confused because isn\u2019t this what Susannah always wanted? Laurel\u2019s like fuck no, dinner\u2019s canceled, Belly, get in the car. Now, can you really ground your 20-year-old kid? I mean, if she\u2019s a legal adult, isn\u2019t 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\u2019s not old enough to be someone\u2019s wife. On the other hand, now we\u2019re just fueling a Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet fantasy, and good luck dislodging that from Belly\u2019s heart while you\u2019ve got her locked in her bedroom.<\/p>\n
Of all the reactions to Belly and Jeremiah\u2019s engagement, Conrad\u2019s is the most melodramatic. He says nothing at all, stands in the parking lot, staring into the middle distance while we hear \u201cNo Surprises\u201d by Radiohead. Because, of course, we do.<\/p>\n
\u2022 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, \u201cslightly unsatisfying entry-level job that is still adjacent to the career I actually want.\u201d I am talking about Steven and Conrad.<\/p>\n
\u2022 To assure Jeremiah that she\u2019s very \u201cloud and proud\u201d about their engagement, Belly keeps shouting about it into open windows where nobody is near enough actually to hear her.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Belly and Laurel are making Susannah a \u201cremembrance board.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\u2022 There\u2019s something perfect about Belly roasting Laurel for her 2003 side-bangs and then immediately giving herself the most 2003 hairstyle ever devised.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Steven\u2019s 10 Things I Hate About You poster is so confounding to me. I don\u2019t know why, but I just had to note it.<\/p>\n
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