'The Summer I Turned Pretty' season 2 finale ending explained (2024)

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Summer I Turned Pretty season 2 finale, "Love Triangle."

By the end of The Summer I Turned Pretty season 2 finale, Belly (Lola Tung) finally made her choice between the Fisher brothers. So did she end up on Team Conrad (Christopher Briney) or Team Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno)?

Just as she does in the second book, It's Not Summer Without You, Belly chooses to be with Jeremiah after evicting Conrad from her heart in a devastating scene. After promising to reunite on July 4, Conrad gives Belly her infinity necklace back and puts on a brave face until he leaves to break down alone. Meanwhile, Jeremiah takes Belly to her volleyball camp, where she successfully convinces her coach to let her back on the team. The season ends with Belly joyfully playing volleyball with all her friends as Jeremiah watches with pride from the sidelines.

Author/creator Jenny Han says that ending the season with Belly playing volleyball was important, since it's about more than just her romantic choice between the brothers.

"I really loved seeing her being able to come out of her grief and smile again and have lightness and joy again," Han tells EW. "Her relationship with Jeremiah has always brought her a lot of happiness — it's almost like permission to be happy again at the end of the season. She's been punishing herself for some time now, and she's forgiving herself in many ways. It's a step towards living again because she's been under a cloud for a long time. She's getting some glimmers of that carefree Belly back, because there was a fear that they'd all kind of lost that piece of themselves when they lost Susannah," she continues. "It's good to see her able to find that hope again."

Series star Tung is also satisfied with all the choices Belly made in the finale.

"I was very happy with how the season ended," she tells EW. "We see it in episode 6 at the party when Belly is drunk on the beach and she's talking to Conrad, she tells him how much she would've fought for that relationship, how much it meant to her, and he just doesn't seem to be able to articulate to her that same sense of urgency and that same idea that he would've fought for them. She wants someone who's going to fight for her, and in that moment, Jeremiah is that right choice and the choice that will allow her to be happy without the drama of it."

But aside from Belly's romantic decision, Tung's also thrilled with how the season ends with Belly back at volleyball camp with all her friends because she'll always be Team Belly first.

"It's this beautiful note of just Belly," says the actress. "Not only is it about her and Jeremiah ending the season together, but also about her moving forward out of this grief and out of this confusion with everything, so it's a really hopeful ending and a really lovely thing to see."

While Briney plays the brother who ends this season alone (sorry, Connie baby!), he also knows that "it feels like the right ending to this season."

"It feels like, at this point in their lives, the characters are doing what they all feel like they should be doing," Briney tells EW. "Even with Conrad, it's not necessarily his ideal situation, but he's making a decision himself to stop fighting and to move on with his life."

When Casalegno read the script for the finale, he felt like the past two seasons had been building up to this moment for Belly and Jeremiah.

"Season 1 was mainly Conrad and season 2 was switching over and showing Jeremiah's point of view," he tells EW. "That's just as important now that everything's on the table and you're getting to see things more from Jeremiah's perspective. I think it was the right ending."

But it was a long road to get to that ending — literally, as the love triangle got stuck in the car ride home from Conrad's school. Making things even more awkward is the fact that Conrad had just interrupted Belly and Jeremiah's big kiss, and he decided to take out his anger by going full jerk on both of them for the entire road trip.

"Those scenes were really fun," Tung recalls with a laugh. "It was really funny because Chris was crushing it during those scenes to the point where Gavin and I were actually irritated because he was just playing it so well. It was fun to explore that dynamic of the three of them being trapped in this car together after something really major just happened that completely altered their relationship. Chris killed it."

"I had a blast," Briney admits. "I actually made Gavin really mad. [He] didn't talk to me. I was trying to stay in it between takes and I was saying stuff to him and I may have taken it too far. But it's fun to be a jerk and find justification for that."

Briney pauses before turning to Casalegno and says, "But I'm so sorry."

Casalegno also laughs as he thinks back to that day on set, but he doesn't remember the specific comment Briney made that sent him over the edge.

"God, what didn't he say? There was one thing that just broke the camel's back," he shares. "I was like, 'No. Done. You're not getting talked to for the rest of the day.' I was already having a bad day."

"And I just made it worse," Briney adds.

"I was working such long days and hours, and then having someone who you're normally pretty chill with go complete goblin mode... I was done," Casalegno says.

"I just saw it," Briney says. "I felt it."

"But we're good now," Casalegno promises.

These interviews were conducted prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

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