Well, Bonrad shippers. We did it. The finale of The Summer I Turned Pretty is here, and just like the episode title “At Last” suggests, the end of the road led back to Conrad. But before we get to their happily ever after, we have to pick up where the penultimate episode left off—with Conrad showing up unannounced in Paris.
His arrival isn’t met immediately with enthusiasm. He waits around for a while for Belly to get home, and when she does, it’s on the back of a man’s motorcycle (whether it was Benito’s was unclear in the moment). She unleashes her new bob haircut, her French-inspired eye makeup, and new sophisticated wardrobe on an unprepared Conrad, and he can only somewhat explain why he’s standing there on her doorstep. He stammers over an explanation about his conference in Brussels and acknowledges that she might already have plans for her birthday. She does, but she says she can spend the day with him until then. Belly is mostly keeping her cool in front of him, but when she goes inside to drop off her bag, she walks around aimlessly and unnecessarily reapplies her red lipstick, unsure of what to make of this situation.
They head off on a Parisian adventure with Belly playing tour guide at the most famous landmarks. But after they check off the must-see items and sensing distance from Belly, Conrad says that he’s spent so much time wondering what her life was like in Paris. Now that he’s here, he wants to see the city through her eyes. Immediately, Belly knows where to take him—the rooftop of a nondescript office building where she found respite during some of her most trying moments. She remembers something he told her once about how seeing the sunrise on the Pacific was a reminder that anything is possible. For her, this rooftop provides that same feeling.
These moments of tender connection are softening Belly to his presence enough to invite him to her birthday plans that evening. She’s happy to have an old friend join, she says, and is excited for him to meet the new friends she’s made in the city. Conrad is more than happy to join. While she’s showering, he looks around her apartment, getting a sense of who this new version of Belly is. He picks up books, admires her art, and picks up Junior Mint, the teddy bear that carries much of their relationship lore. Then he spots photos of Benito on the wall, and Christopher Briney’s facial expressions reveal that Conrad didn’t quite consider the fact that she might be seeing someone, and is unsure of what role this mystery man plays in her Parisian life.
But he doesn’t have a ton of time to dwell on that. Belly emerges in an elegant black mini dress that takes Conrad’s breath away, and fastens the clasp of her bracelet on her wrist as a final touch. They stare longingly at one another before Belly breaks eye contact, the energy between them charged. Dinner isn’t much better—despite sitting across the table from one another and Conrad getting the third degree from some of Belly’s friends, the pair keep catching each other’s eyes throughout the evening. It helps that her friend Celine reveals that Belly dumped Benito six weeks ago after he asked her to come to Mexico to meet his family, and you can tell he’s still butt hurt about it by the way he calls Conrad “the villain” of their story.
With the door to Belly slightly ajar, Conrad begins to test the waters. They flirt as she smokes a joint and he recalls her previous feelings about marijuana. Belly somewhat dismissively asks if he’s memorized every tiny thing she’s ever said, but when he says yes, there’s no doubt she’s thrilled. She’s even more thrilled by the present he gives her: a vial of sand from Cousins Beach. He explains that he had originally collected this for himself to remind him of home when he’s far away, giving the gift even more significance to their story. Then Belly’s birthday cake arrives. Every year she wishes for Conrad, but we don’t get a voiceover to reveal what this year’s wish is; perhaps it already came true.
After dinner, they walk home and Conrad asks her a very important question. Should he call her Isabel now? She laughs and says no, and the conversation expands to Conrad confessing that he initially thought she moved to Paris to hide out in exile—kind of like he did by moving to California. But now that he’s seen her life there, he understands that she’s built something real. He’s happy he got to see this version of her life. Belly concedes that he’s not entirely wrong: her initial move was out of desperation as she really did feel like the villain who broke apart the Fisher family. Conrad disagrees, saying it wasn’t on her to keep the family together. And in any case, Jeremiah knows that he’s in Paris to see her; they’ve mostly patched things up.
With this news in mind, Belly takes Conrad to a riverside view as the last stop on her tour. Conrad asks her to dance and she obliges, though the act stirs up memories of the last time they danced together at the fateful Prom. But it provides a platform for them to finally talk about what happened in their relationship and acknowledge both Belly and Conrad’s immaturity and shortcomings.
Belly admits that Conrad’s letters are some of the only things that got her through the tough early days of Paris, and when he asks why it took her so long to write back, she says that she needed to let go of the past—of him. Those aren’t exactly the words he wanted to hear, so he asks her point blank. “Have you moved on?” She hesitates and then answers with her lips on his, a sudden, furious makeout that extends from that cobblestone street to the taxi home to the stairwell of her building and finally into the privacy of her apartment. Taylor Swift’s sultry “Dress” plays in full as Conrad and Belly rediscover each other’s bodies, both drinking in the sight of one another while also eager to skip to the main event.
Post-coital, he tells her that he’s dreamed of this moment, of her, for a long time. She replies by revealing that he’s her birthday wish every single year. But when he responds, “now you’re stuck with me forever,” something about the assumption of that phrase is offputting for Belly. She begins to pick a fight, asking him when he needs to be in Brussels, unhappy with his response about skipping the first day of the conference to spend more time with her. She reiterates that he shouldn’t change his plans for her, just as she won’t for him, and suggests that he get on the 5am train (which is one hour from now).
But Conrad didn’t fly all the way to Paris to be thrown out of her bed in the middle of the night. He asks her if he did something wrong, which opens a can of worms. Combative Belly reappears and asks what he’s doing there and what he thinks is happening between them. Conrad, ever the lover boy, admits that he didn’t necessarily have a plan, but came to Paris because he loved her and wanted to know whether she still loved him.
This strikes a nerve. Exasperated, Belly says, “I’ve always loved you. That’s the problem!” But she’s not confident in their love. She wonders whether they actually love each other, or whether they were just “told” to by Susannah. Recounting their history, Belly pokes at how their love story began and ended in relation to Susannah’s health, and she worries that his mother’s dying wish was the only thing that held them together. Conrad is steadfast. He’s tried everything to not love her, he says, citing his brother and his grief as reasons for trying to let go. But he couldn’t. He’s tried to change everything about himself, yet the one thing that won’t change are his feelings for Belly.
Still, Belly isn’t convinced and she lets him walk out of her apartment tearfully. Unsettled, Belly begins reading her birthday wishes. A photo of a young Belly enclosed in her mother’s birthday text makes her realize that despite all she’s done to change, the old Belly wasn’t that bad. And that girl deserves a happy ending.
She runs to the balcony to stop Conrad but he’s already gone. So she hails a cab, runs through the train station, and boards a train in search of her one true love. (She doesn’t pay for any of these things, but that’s not exactly cinematic.) At first, her attempt seems futile. But then, she spots him. “Is this seat taken?” she asks him breathlessly, and when Conrad looks up, the tears are still in his eyes. It’s Belly’s turn for a big love declaration, and she delivers. “I choose you of my own free will,” she says, telling him that she’d choose him in every universe. They admit their love for each other and kiss out of genuine feeling instead of passion. Finally!
“At Last” also checks in with the rest of the cast at—where else—Cousins Beach. It’s Jeremiah’s first time back at the house since everything went down with Belly and he’s not happy about it, but he’s backed into a corner. He’s become a local chef with a modest following, thanks to Taylor’s PR skills, and is hosting a private dinner. When the original venue fell through, Denise suggested they utilize the beautiful family beach house.
Speaking of Denise, she’s still roommates with Jeremiah, but not for long. She and Steven have an opportunity to level up their business, but they have to move to San Francisco in order to cash in on it. Denise and Jeremiah are both sad, but he recognizes that he’s not good at being alone, even acknowledging that he held Belly back from Paris simply because he was afraid. After a flirtatious pep talk, Jere kisses Denise, implying her as his end game. The Summer I Turned Pretty has tried hard to redeem Jere over these last two episodes, and while he is certainly ascending, I’m not sure they succeeded entirely.
Still, they keep trying. Jere’s cooking enterprise is still in its early days, but it’s enough to finally get recognition from Adam. The father and son haven’t been on speaking terms since Adam cut Jere off at Thanksgiving, but seeing him at work made Adam proud. He finally says those words to Jere, and even jokes about the fact that he wasn’t initially invited to the dinner at all. (Laurel invited him and he showed up, again, with a crate of champagne from Jere’s wedding. If there’s one thing he will do, it’s remind his son of his failures.)
The San Francisco news briefly threatens the show’s other ship-worthy couple, Steven and Taylor. At first, Taylor is pissed off that she heard the news via Denise instead of Steven, but Steven explains that he didn’t want to ask her to give up anything for him—he already watched her sacrifice for her mom, and didn’t want to be another person that holds her back. Both of them have matured significantly since the beginning of the season, and Taylor agrees to move to California. But she clarifies: she’s moving with him, not for him.
With all of that settled, the series ends with Belly and Conrad finally returning to Cousins. “Nothing beats coming home after you’ve been gone a long time,” her voiceover narrates as she sticks her head out of the window to enjoy the salty breeze. She and Conrad pull into the beach house driveway and walk through the beautiful house to the backyard hand-in-hand, as the camera pulls away to reveal the New England scenery one last time.
As the credits roll, a scrapbook of pictures of “Christmas in Paris” appear, though the pictures are all variations of the same: Belly and Conrad on Christmas morning, cuddled and happy as they open presents. Fans online have noted that this was a missed opportunity to show scenes depicted in the book’s epilogue, like Belly and Conrad’s wedding, their first dance, or a Valentine’s Day flashback.
But the scrapbook ends with a letter thanking fans from creator Jenny Han, and the letter’s text might explain why those images are missing. Before signing off, she writes, “maybe we’ll meet again one summer in Cousins,” keeping the door open for a check-in down the line. Until then, we’ll keep blasting Taylor Swift and reliving the Bonrad happily ever after.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, Vulture and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.