After a mediocre third season of the successful summer love story in “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” I think we all know that there is only one correct team to be on. If you are still team Jere or one of the new side teams like Benito, you are simply insane. To be fair if you only watched this season to watch Taylor and Steven get back together, I can understand. Team Staylor is an acceptable answer for the correct team.

As purely a show watcher who has never opened any of the books, I was team Jeremiah from episode one. He was the objectively supreme brother with consistent love and support for Belly from the beginning, while Conrad was weird and distant. It felt like Conrad was just there to play with Belly’s feelings.

Jeremiah seemed like the sad brother always living in Conrad’s shadow, and maybe it was finally time for him to have something before Conrad. Unfortunately, this is exactly Jere’s line of thought. 

However, beginning in the third season, there was a tragic shift in Jeremiah’s character. As mentioned in the second to last episode of season three, Jeremiah jumped at the first chance to date Belly despite his own brother clearly being heartbroken. He made Belly’s love a competition, even though he prioritized himself for the entire relationship. If he actually loved her, it should never have been about beating Conrad. 

As much as it was denied, Conrad was definitely struggling. He faced intense anxiety and frustration, which Belly and Jeremiah brushed away like he couldn’t matter less. He was so selfless for letting them be together without complaint, even while it destroyed him inside. After bearing the weight of his family pressures and after losing his own mother, who I believe was his biggest supporter, he still held it together and grew as a person.

Honestly, Susannah forced Conrad and Belly together by giving Conrad her wedding ring and guilting Belly into needing to date “one of her special boys.” By causing drama by writing in Conrad’s letter that she had “only seen him in love once,” she managed to manipulate her sons even from the grave.

Susannah saw Conrad as her perfect son. He was hardworking, on his way to becoming a doctor at Stanford. Being a doctor is a real job unlike her other son who was finally cut off and crashing on a friends couch. While she loved Jeremiah he simply wasn’t as responsible in either Adam or Susannah’s eyes.

As much as this sounds like a blast, this caused him to need to fake perfection even when he was struggling just to match his mother’s perfect vision of him. This facade he used forced him to build up his emotions and then react irrationally when he hit a breaking point. While this sounds manipulative and childish, it was truly just his reality. When you are raised a certain way, there is not a lot you can do until you face your trauma and talk to a therapist. Thankfully, Conrad did, which showed his growth and maturity in the third season. 

Conrad is the more responsible, caring brother. Even though his little rant at the beach was one of the weakest love declarations I’ve ever seen, he still has consistently loved Belly. Despite her going no contact once he confessed his love, he still wrote her letters, AKA the most romantic gesture ever. He bared his soul, she still ghosted him, and yet he managed to still grovel after her. I realize he’s not perfect, no one is, but he’s the best she’s got, so he needs to be her choice. 

As I patiently await for this finale, I pray Jenny Han manages to wrap this up without putting Denise and Jeremiah together and finally gives us our endgame, Bonrad forever.