The Summer I Turned Pretty Stars Break Down 'Brutal' Belly/Conrad Scene, Big Book-To-Screen Change — Watch Video
Warning: The following contains spoilers through The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2, Episode 3. Proceed at your own risk!
The Summer I Turned Pretty's three-episode Season 2 premiere took Belly and Conrad 'shippers on a rollercoaster ride of emotions.
Things started off on a good note for the pair, who decided to try their hand at a relationship. But when Belly went to break the news to Jeremiah, who thought he and Belly were together, the younger Fisher brother's understandable anger convinced Belly that she and Conrad should hit pause on their nascent romance. After all, Conrad and Jeremiah were going to need each other during their mother Susannah's cancer crisis, so it was important that the brothers weren't at odds.
But as Belly and Conrad talked over the phone during the school year, they grew even closer, until they couldn't deny their feelings any longer. Soon, they were sharing confessions, then officially dating. Conrad even took Belly to her prom, where his emotions over Susannah's declining health led to a night neither he nor Belly would forget, and not in a good way. Instead of leaning on Belly for support, Conrad shut her out, eventually leading the couple to break up at the dance.
Despite the awkwardness and hurt feelings between them, Belly vowed to herself to be there for Conrad at Susannah's funeral in Episode 3. She went to look for him... and found her ex hanging out with another girl. As Belly rushed away, Conrad chased after her through the wake, before the two exchanged some very harsh words over the pointed lyrics of Fleetwood Mac's "Silver Springs."
When Belly reacted badly to Conrad accepting another ex-girlfriend's help but not hers, he told her to grow up. "I knew it was a bad idea starting something with you," he said, adding that it was "a huge mistake."
"I hate you. I never want to see you again," Belly replied, before tripping, all eyes at the wake falling on her.
"It was something that we worked on for a while and talked about for a while, because we knew how big of a moment it was," Lola Tung, who plays Belly, tells TVLine in the above video interview.
Being able to discuss the funeral sequence — a pivotal moment in both the second book, It's Not Summer Without You, and the TV series — with author/showrunner Jenny Han was "so important because, obviously, Jenny wrote the books and had such a specific vision for the scene," Tung continues, "and she let us sort of trust our instincts, which I really appreciate... And I think just being together on that day when we were filming, there was sort of a general, like, heavier, different tone than there had been before."
Christopher Briney, who plays Conrad, echoes the sentiment, revealing that Han "wanted it to be, in a lot of ways, close to the books, and she also rewrote it a few times to make it more brutal."
Even with its biting declarations, that Belly/Conrad fight wasn't as difficult to film as it might be for viewers to watch. "We didn't even have to do it that much because...the dialogue sort of does the work for you in a scene like that," Briney shares. "What I enjoy doing in a scene like that is, as an actor, playing against the dialogue as much as you can, because you don't need to reinforce these harsh words."
Before Belly and Conrad's relationship took that heartbreaking twist, the couple snuck away in Episode 2 to the Cousins Beach house around Christmas time and shared a romantic night together. Like something out of a teenager's fantasy, the pair made love in front of the fireplace, with Des'ree's "Kissing You" — which Romeo + Juliet movie fans will fondly recall as the song from when the ill-fated lovers first see each other — playing over the scene. Belly losing her virginity to Conrad represents a big change from the show's source material, as it's not a step the characters take together in the second novel.
"I think Jenny wanted to portray that relationship in a way that would make sense in 2023," Tung says of the tweak. "Them having that moment was really, really special and was a visual way to show how connected they were in that moment and how magical and sort of like in their own world they were in the Cousins house... It didn't change how much they loved each other from the book or anything or how important their relationship was. I think it just made sense when Jenny was taking it from book to screen."
The Summer I Turned Pretty fans, press PLAY above to also hear what Briney had to say about Conrad performing Pearl Jam's "Last Kiss" at his mom's funeral, then grade the first three episodes below!
Note: These interviews took place before SAG-AFTRA officially announced a strike on July 13.