5 Signs Belly Will End Up With This Brother In The Final Season Of ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’

We’re not even halfway through this third and final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, but fans are watching closely, looking for clues that might point to who our protagonist Belly will end up with in the end. And knowing author and show creator Jenny Han (and her love for Taylor Swift, who’s known for her easter eggs to fans), I think we can safely say that the signs are there.

So while Belly might currently be on the track to marriage with her current fiancé Jeremiah, I think there are some pretty strong indications that she’s going to end up with his brother, Conrad, instead.

1. Belly’s Lifestyle Is So Much More Compatible With Conrad’s Than Jeremiah’s

In the first episode of season three, when Belly tells her brother Steven that Jeremiah won’t be graduating on time, he brings up several complaints Belly has about her boyfriend, including his level of messiness and how he acts around his frat brothers. While Belly is quick to dismiss it and act as if it’s not a big deal, it clearly has been a problem if her brother knows about it.

However, when we see the flashback to the Christmas she spends at the beach house with Conrad, we see how comfortable the two are coexisting together, even when they don’t particularly have anything to do. I think this scene is shown very specifically not only because it’s something she doesn’t want to tell Jeremiah about (which is not a great sign in itself), but also because it shows the contrast of how she lives with Conrad vs. Jeremiah.

2. The Movie References Throughout The Show Seem To Point In The Direction Of One Specific Brother

One thing we know about Belly is that she enjoys old movies (remember how she used to watch them in the beach house with Susannah and her mom?). While the show doesn’t delve too deeply into this hobby of hers, there are plenty of references to them throughout the show, and especially in this season.

For instance, in Belly’s room, she has two posters: One for Bye Bye Birdie and another for Sabrina. Bye Bye Birdie’s main character is literally named Conrad (fans of the books might recognize this nod, as Belly mentions in We’ll Always Have Summer that she used to sing songs from the musical and picture her Conrad instead). Sabrina, on the other hand, is a movie about a woman who is torn between two brothers (sound familiar?) but ultimately leaves behind the playboy brother for the more serious one (sound familiar?).

Another movie reference that we shouldn’t overlook is Casablanca, which Conrad and Belly watch while in Cousins for Christmas. That movie includes a love triangle as well, though this one is about an American expat who must choose between his love for a woman or helping her husband during World War II—and who (spoiler alert) ultimately sacrifices his love for her own wellbeing. After the film, Conrad tells Belly that the woman was right to stay with her husband, while Belly, ever the romantic, says that the American man and the woman were the better choice. This proves that while Conrad thinks its better to be self-sacrificial in the name of other people’s happiness, ultimately, Belly wants love—and considering Conrad is the one who’s always sacrificing his happiness for her and Jeremiah’s well-being, this actually points to the fact that ultimately Belly’s more interested in the love Conrad has to offer.

3. Jeremiah Is A Lot More Similar To His Father Than He Thinks

Jeremiah doesn’t have the best relationship with his father, but it’s clear that he wants to be just like him, whether that’s to gain his father’s approval or just because that’s just the way he is. Either way, there are hints that Jeremiah is similar to Adam. Remember when they were at the restaurant after Susannah’s memorial and Laurel said she was paying for the meal? Adam chose the most expensive item on the menu, and Jeremiah quickly followed suit, unbothered about how inconsiderate it is to Laurel. Conrad, on the other hand, orders the salmon—the cheapest entre on the menu.

Another hot take: Jeremiah’s womanizing ways is very similar to his father’s. We can argue about whether or not what he did constitutes as cheating, but that doesn’t change the fact that when things got hard in his relationship, he turned to another woman for comfort. Adam did a similar thing with Susannah—when she got sick and things became more complicated, he cheated on her. Ultimately, Adam divorced Susannah and created a divide in his family, especially with Conrad, who can’t forgive his father for what happened. (Similarly, it’s hard to believe Conrad will easily forgive Jeremiah for doing the same.)

While Adam may seemingly prefer Conrad to Jeremiah, ultimately, I would actually argue that Conrad is more similar to Susannah—Susannah is often considered the glue that kept both families together, and Conrad seemed to take on that task, choosing to sacrifice his own wants and ignoring his heartbreak to make sure his family doesn’t fall apart. Laurel always said Susannah was her soulmate—so maybe it’s fitting that Conrad would be Belly’s.

4. The Taylor Swift Easter Eggs

Did I mention that Jenny Han loves Taylor Swift? It’s pretty clear that the show has a deep connection to the singer, especially since most of the soundtrack features Taylor Swift hits (and let’s not forget that in the past, Swift actually rereleased certain songs specifically for the show). So it’s no surprise that knowledge of Taylor Swift songs might actually help us crack the code of who Belly is going to end up with.

It’s clear to Swiftie TSITP fans that Jeremiah is connected to the song Daylight, which makes a lot of sense given his golden retriever attitude and his literal golden hair. The song is about finding a beautiful love after being heartbroken in the past, and there’s actually one specific lyric that fits Jeremiah and Belly’s relationship perfectly: “I thought believed love would be burning red, but it’s golden.”

Why do I say that? Because Conrad is clearly connected to the song Red. For instance, let’s look at the lyrics: “Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes / Tell myself it’s time now gotta let go / But moving on from him is impossible / When I still see it all in my head”. Most of Belly and Conrad’s relationship is literally told to us in flashbacks—while he seems moody and removed in the first season, we see how kind and thoughtful he’d been when they were younger, showing how Belly had first fallen for him. While they get together by the very end of the first season, by the second season, they’re already broken up, and we’re given the story of how it happened in pieces instead of actually seeing how their relationship played out fully.

In the second season, Belly is heartbroken over her failed relationship with Conrad, and in trying to escape how she felt, she realized she preferred how she felt around Jeremiah, who was much more lighthearted and was seemingly more open about his feelings—ultimately choosing that golden feeling over red. But season 3 seems to want to show us that the tides are changing through small easter eggs that nod to Conrad’s song.

Don’t believe me? Pay close attention to what Belly’s wearing in each scene. Around Conrad (or when she’s talking to or about Conrad), she tends to wear the color red—in fact, her whole pajama set during the Christmas flashback where she realized she still loved Conrad was red. In contrast, around Jeremiah, she tends to wear the color blue (like the dress she wore when she announced her engagement), referencing these lyrics in Red: “Losing him was blue, like I’d never known / Missing him was dark gray, all alone / Forgetting him was like trying to know / Somebody you never met / But loving him was red.” Basically, even when she’s with Jeremiah, she misses Conrad and mourns what they lost.

(The song Red also mentions a crossword, which is interestingly present in the Christmas flashback—Belly fills out one column with the word “Still” to complete the title of the book PS: I Still Love You, and if you look closely, you can see that Conrad originally filled out the same column, though erased it for some reason.)

5. The Significance Of 9:17

This one might feel like a stretch, but given the Swiftian tendency for Easter eggs in this show, I actually think there might be some merit for it. The first time we see Conrad break no contact with Belly in the show, he texts her at 9:17—which is interesting when you remember that the final episode of the season will air on September 17 (or 9/17). It wouldn’t surprise me if this is a little wink to the fans indicating that by the final episode, Conrad and Belly will be endgame.