This post contains spoilers from The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 episode 1 from this point forward.
Welcome back to Cousins Beach! Well, we don't actually return to The Summer I Turned Pretty's iconic location in the season 3 premiere episode, but it's exciting to be reunited with the show's characters nonetheless. Not only are we reunited with the characters, but we're fast forwarded in time to three years into the future, and there's a lot of catching up to do.
Before flashing forward, The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 opens with Belly's parents and Steven dropping her off at Finch College, where she quickly meets up with Jeremiah. They're still together and happily in love. Belly and Taylor opted out of rooming together so they could forge their own paths, and Laurel wants Belly to make sure she continues to do just that.
Three years later, now nearing the end of her junior year and Jeremiah's senior year, Belly has confidently come into her own. Their relationship seems stronger than ever, but the looming end of the school year and what comes next, including a trip back to Cousins for Susannah's memorial looms large. That's not even the tip of the iceberg for the young couple.
Where everyone stands three years later
While Belly and Jeremiah are living in relative bliss on the East Coast, Conrad's out in the West in California. He's in therapy, but can't seem to open up about Belly to his therapist. His impending trip home to Cousins to speak at his mother's memorial with Jeremiah weighs heavily on his mind because it also means having to see Belly and Jeremiah together.
Conrad's close with Agnes (Zoé de Grand'Maison), and they both land an important new job that will unfortunately keep Conrad from being able to give a speech with Jeremiah at Susannah's memorial. He struggles with finding the time to break the news to Jeremiah, but after talking to Agnes about still being in love with Belly, Conrad finds the strength to decide not to return to Cousins out of guilt.
Steven works at Mr. Fisher's company, but he's not particularly passionate with his work, which seems to rub his coworker the wrong way. There's some friction between them that could turn into something, but Steven's dating someone we haven't met yet named Mia... and he's also still hooking up with Taylor... even though she's also in a relationship with Davis. It's complicated!
As for Belly and Jeremiah, Belly finally gets accepted into the study abroad program in Paris for the fall semester, which Taylor and Anika (Sofia Bryant) convince her to attend. However, she's feeling conflicted about going, especially after Jeremiah finds out he isn't graduating on time and will have to spend one more semester at Finch. She doesn't want to leave him behind. (Belly really needs to watch The Hills.)
Belly and Jeremiah break up because...
After Jeremiah bails on joining Belly to dinner with Steven because he's not feeling up to it after getting ripped a new one from his dad about not graduating, Belly meets him at a frat party later. She finally tells him about getting accept into study abroad in Paris, and he's supportive about her going and not staying behind because of him. Everything seems perfect.
They celebrate and have fun at the party, but when Belly overhears two girls talking about Jeremiah outside of the bathroom, she's heartbroken at the realization that Jeremiah hooked up with someone else while on spring break in Cabo. Apparently, Belly and Jeremiah were "on a break," but he took that to mean that they were broken up. It's very Ross and Rachel in Friends season 3.
Even though Jeremiah insists that they can fix whatever's broken between them, Belly breaks up with him. She leaves him behind at the party and runs away as "You're Losing Me" by Taylor Swift ends the episode. It's not just that Jeremiah cheated on Belly. It's that he also lied about it and pretended it never happened. Realistically, how could they ever come back from this?
The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 releases new episodes Wednesdays on Prime Video.
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