What is it about brooding boys?

The summer I turn everyone against Conrad Fisher

Author’s Note: This post discusses my recent re-hyperfixation: the TV show The Summer I Turned Pretty. If you haven’t seen the show or read the books and you want to, consider yourself warned of the spoilers ahead. If you have, or you haven’t and want to join me on this journey, welcome.

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Like any self-respecting thirty-something-year-old woman, I’m rewatching The Summer I Turned Pretty, a teen romance TV show set in a fictional version of Nantucket, before the third season comes out next week. I was inspired by a recent cold that kept me on the couch for a solid three days and allowed me to cruise through most of the first season. I hadn’t seen it since it came out almost three years ago, which made for an excellent rewatch, and I’m pleased to report that my initial impressions still hold up.

It’s based on a book series of the same name that I haven’t read. I do know what happens (I was curious and asked the friends of mine who have read it), though, it really doesn’t take a spoiler to clue you in on how it ends. Here’s the equation for you to do the math:

There’s a Girl, a Brooding Boy, and a Happy Boy.

Who do you think she ends up with?

The Summer I Turned Pretty is no different than any other love triangle trope with these same variables. Even though the third and final season has yet to air, we know she ends up with Conrad, the Brooding Boy. What I don’t understand is why.

In the first season, we’re introduced to Conrad Fisher as the family friend and childhood crush of our heroine, Isabel “Belly”¹ Conklin. He’s the older brother of Jeremiah Fisher, son of Susannah Fisher, Belly’s mom’s best friend, and is headed off to college (Brown) in the fall. We learn he was supposed to play college football, but decided against it for some unknown reason he refuses to talk about. Belly has been in love with Conrad since she was ten years old. He was always nice to her, helping her learn the moves to dances she wanted to try and sticking up for her against their brothers (Belly has an older brother, Steven, the same age as Jeremiah), but he always seemed out of reach, a fantasy. But this summer, Belly has *~turned pretty~*. She’s about to enter her junior year of high school and is suddenly catching the eye of Conrad. Conrad, however, doesn’t seem like himself. He’s more, well, broody than usual. It’s confusing for Belly and pretty much everyone else, but not enough for them to ask him what the hell his problem is (at least in a way that gets through to him).

All the while, our newly-pretty Belly is catching the attention of Jeremiah as well. (It wouldn’t be a teen romance show worth rewatching if there weren’t a love triangle, am I right?) Though we don’t really know what to make of it because Jeremiah flirts with literally everyone, girl or boy. He’s just a blue-eyed ball of charm with bronzed abs who kisses pretty much anyone he talks to, and we love that about him. Jeremiah brings the energy and good vibes, making Conrad’s brooding all the more broody in comparison. He calls Belly his “best friend” which feels like a bit of a stretch because he’s always hanging out with Steven, but we’ll give it to him because he’s sweet and seems sincere albeit delusional. (Also, need I remind you about the abs.)

Ultimately, we learn that Conrad knows his mom’s cancer has returned. He found out somehow in the spring and has told exactly no one because suffering in silence is what a Brooding Boy does best. It’s confusing because despite knowing she’s sick and supposedly being upset about it, he’s been a pretty big dick to his mom. Like when she just wanted to paint his portrait because he’s such a handsome little price and he all but rolled his eyes at her. You’d think if your mom was actively dying and you knew about it – and she didn’t know you knew about it – you’d, I don’t know, be a little nicer to her?

Conrad, however, is the oldest child, and as oldest children do, we feel we have to carry the world on our backs, paving the way for our siblings and parenting our parents. I can forgive that chip on his shoulder, but his martyrdom doesn’t strike me as heroic, especially when it results in borderline verbal abuse for anyone else around him. The sheer number of times he spits “grow up” at one of the other three teens who are just trying to talk to him while he is throwing a tantrum is as comical as it is infuriating. We eventually learn he has anxiety (poor guy) and is doing pretty much nothing to manage it (classic Conrad).

As if his attitude in season one isn’t bad enough, it only gets worse in season two when the summer house falls into Susannah’s estranged sister’s hands after her death. Aunt Julia has painful memories of the house and just wants to put it on the market. Conrad, ever the tortured and now motherless hero, skips out on his college finals to try to stop her. Of course, he again tells no one and instead turns off his phone, leaving a worried Jeremiah and Belly to go searching for him. When they find him, he’s thrilled, as you can imagine. He again tells them to “grow up” in his usual hostile tone everyone finds so endearing.

It’s true, Conrad is only nineteen, and at nineteen there’s a lot you don’t know about yourself and the world. His frontal lobe isn’t fully developed yet. He’s also been through a lot. I don’t by any means expect him to have everything figured out or to have fully healed from his mother’s death. I do, however, expect him to be a halfway decent human being if he’s supposedly the apple of Belly’s eye.

But we already know the answer to our equation. In theory, Brooding Boy seems ideal. He seems so complex and in touch with his feelings. He’s tortured and maybe she can fix him. A smile means more when it comes from him, given he rarely does it, even if it often means weathering his emotional turmoil to get there. Plus, he always has great hair. But if Twilight and The Summer I Turned Pretty have taught me anything, it’s that Happy Boy has really great abs and a great attitude to match.

While Conrad is pouting throughout both seasons one and two, Jeremiah is busy making Belly laugh (see what I did there?) and being an overall pleasant person to be around. He steps in when she needs him, like when she doesn’t have a date to the debutante ball or a partner to dance with during the rehearsal. Sure, his feelings for her seem to come out of left field, but he’s at least honest about them, unlike Conrad who keeps sending mixed signals from the shadows.

Conrad fans, I know you are going to say that Jeremiah does his fair amount of pouting in season two, and to that I say you’re right, but only to a degree. Compared to Conrad, his pouting feels justified. Aside from the trauma of his mother’s death, Conrad is frustrated with a mess of his own making. Jeremiah, however, is understandably pouting because Belly chose his shitty brother over him, all in the midst of their mother’s battle with cancer. In fact, while Conrad was off at Brown and talking to Belly on the phone at all hours of the night, Jeremiah was watching his mother wither away while trying to balance the medical bills² and his senior year of high school. Yet despite all of that, he’s still willing to search for Conrad and enlist Belly to help. I don’t know about you, but that’s what I would call being the bigger person.

In season two, it’s clear to me how much better of a match Jeremiah is for Belly. Like the true Happy Boy he is, it doesn’t take him long to warm back up to her and accept her apologies for rubbing her relationship with Conrad in his face. It doesn’t, however, mean he doesn’t still have self respect. He’s honest about the wall he still has up, the worries he still has about her running back to Conrad. He does what no Brooding Boy has done before: he communicates.

From where I sit, the Happy Boy is always the healthier choice. They’re the one who lifts up the Girl, who always does what he says he’s going to do, who is honest about his feelings, who – god forbid – makes her smile instead of cry. Yet, without fail, she chooses the Brooding Boy. She, like many in the audience, mistake his brooding for emotional intelligence and her tears as a soul connection rather than a straight-up trigger. She doesn’t see how insecure she is, how she chases love under the guise that it’s worth more than the love that’s given freely to her. She doesn’t see how she settles for less – less consistency, less confidence – by accepting what she thinks she deserves.

Season three will undoubtedly reveal some sort of fatal flaw in Jeremiah. I’m vaguely aware of what the copout will be and I rue the day I have to watch it play out on screen. I can, however, take solace in the fact that this is not a fantasy series and can therefore say rather confidently that Jeremiah will not be falling in love with a baby à la Jacob in Twilight. Still, I know the equation: Girl (Belly) plus Brooding Boy (Conrad) equals Happily Ever After. It’s just the way these things work. I know that along with the Happy Boy Copout comes the Brooding Boy Copout, the reveal that says “See, he wasn’t being mean to Girl, he was protecting Girl.” His terrible demeanor and poor communication was just him sparing her (because what can she realistically do to help anyway?). It was a front for the darker side he thinks he’s keeping so slyly tucked inside. In the case of Conrad, I’m sure he will do something annoyingly productive like go to therapy and suddenly become tolerable. It will make him look much better than Happy Boy in light of his respective copout, and the choice will be clear to both Belly and the audience.

Well, clear to everyone except for me.

Unless I see solid evidence that proves Happy Boy to be more cold and cruel than his counterpart Brooding Boy, this is unfortunately the hill I’m willing to die on.

Until then, I’ll be #TeamJellyfish.³

1. Yes, “Belly,” and spelled exactly like “belly,” as in “stomach.” I know, I couldn’t believe it either. It almost made me stop watching the first time around because I couldn’t take it seriously. But it’s okay, we get used to it.

2. The family is supposed to be rich, so can someone tell me why 1. a teenager is handling the medical bills instead of, say, a financial advisor – or, I don’t know, any other actual adult – and 2. why paying said bills is so difficult if they theoretically have the funds for it?

3. American Eagle is currently selling these shirts, and let me tell you, they really missed the mark. No jellyfish?! 🪼