If you’ve been waiting with bated breath to find out whether Belly got on the plane to Paris, “Last Call” (Season 3, Episode 9) answers that immediately. Though she considers walking over to Conrad instead of boarding her flight, The Summer I Turned Pretty seems determined not to make the same mistakes as Belly’s millennial predecessors. She gets on the plane with more of a plan than anyone expected—the study abroad program told her late last night that there actually is a spot left for her, if she’d like to take it. Prior to landing, she puts her engagement ring in a pouch in her backpack for safe keeping, ready to embark on a new journey.
Unfortunately, things don’t start off smoothly. At immigration, she drops the AirTag (not her ring, as I initially suspected) from the pouch and is incredibly distracted when answering questions about her reason for appearing in France. And when she gets to the school to complete her registration, she’s informed that the spot she was promised never existed. The employee seems incredulous that she flew all the way from the U.S. to Paris for this program, as if study abroad was just some extracurricular activity she’d be fine without.
Dejected, Belly finally makes contact with someone back home. She calls Laurel, crying to her mom about how she’s messed everything up. Laurel listens and as much as she had encouraged Belly to spread her wings and see the world, she’s worried about her daughter’s state of mind. Laurel persuades her to come home—even if she doesn’t go back to Finch or see people right away, she’d rather Belly be nearby in the immediate aftermath. Taylor Swift’s “You’re On Your Own Kid” plays throughout this sequence, pointing to both Belly’s isolation and her impending resilience.
As instructed, Belly uses Laurel’s credit card to book herself on the next flight home. She sits at a cafe, contemplating her life, and finally gets up to pay the bill. But when she turns around, her backpack is gone. I’d be freaking out about my passport and other important documents being stolen, but Belly is most upset at the thought of losing her “priceless” engagement ring.
Luckily, she has an AirTag to follow and she traverses the city to track down the stolen backpack. She lands up at an underground club that requires a password, and for a moment it seems like she’s SOL. But when she helps a British girl named Gemma escape a predatory man, Gemma invites her in to party with her friends. Belly has a one-track mind once inside, and when she finally spots her backpack, she pounces—literally. The thief initially tries to paint her as crazy and claim the bag is his, but she’s quick and knows exactly what’s inside. Pulling out her wedding dress, she proves that he stole it to the crowd that has gathered, and he slithers off into the throng of people before she can threaten legal action.
Gemma’s friends are impressed by Belly and invite her for drinks. She spills her life story to them and instead of judging her, they think she’s a badass and encourage her to stay in Paris. She says no, as she has the return flight a few hours later, but she lingers with them until it’s time for her departure. The sole male friend in the group seems to really be taking her in, and as we’ve seen from the new trailer, Belly stays in Paris—hopefully he (or another Parisian man) will provide her with some new romantic and sexual experiences.
In Cousins, Jeremiah is on a bender, and you can’t really blame him for it initially. He’s surrounded by his groomsmen and Denise, and Redbird is adhering to the “to get over someone, get under someone else” theory for dealing with a breakup. He points out that there are many hot women and men—because let’s not forget, Jeremiah is bisexual…is there a Redbird/Jeremiah romance in the future?—and even suggests they hit up Lacey to soothe Jeremiah’s broken heart. Steven, who at this point is still in the dark about Jere’s actions in Cabo, doesn’t pick up on what Redbird is insinuating because he’s too distracted by the arrival of Taylor.
After so many starts and stops, it seems like Steven and Taylor are finally going to lay their feelings out once and for all…but the arrival of Conrad at the bar makes them stop once again. Steven calls Conrad a “vulture” and tells him to leave, while Taylor gives him a bit more grace saying that 50% of the failed wedding is his fault, but the other half is on Belly and Jeremiah. When he asks about Belly, Taylor says that Belly asked for space from everyone and doesn’t know where she is.
Jeremiah’s bad attitude extends to the following day when he wakes up hungover. Steven and Taylor split up babysitting duties—she goes to find him some food, while he heads to the beach house to get fresh clothes. But while they’re gone, Laurel comes over to check on Jeremiah, and he all but slams the door in her face. Jeremiah believes that Laurel never wanted Belly to marry him, which is true, but for different reasons than Jere is projecting.
Steven confronts Conrad again at the beach house, telling him that what Jeremiah really needs from him is space. He yanks the care package that Conrad prepared for Jeremiah out of his hands and tells him to leave town. Conrad knows exactly what Jere needs to cure his hangover, packing a red Gatorade specifically, as it’s the only flavor that will work for him, but when Jere finds out that it’s from Conrad, he hands the beverage back. He’d rather be miserable than accept help from Conrad.
Steven is a one-man army fighting Jere’s battle with Conrad, which has been tough to watch knowing that he’s still in the dark about what happened in Cabo. Finally in “Last Call,” Taylor tells him about both Belly’s reconnection with Conrad at Christmas (because Steven was trying to write off Conrad and Belly’s love as a high school relationship) and Jere’s indiscretions in Cabo, and Steven is rightfully incredulous.
He can’t believe he’s been sticking up for Jeremiah after he cheated on his sister, but he doesn’t linger there long; the conversation quickly moves to Taylor and Steven’s relationship. They tout their ability to communicate, but instead of talking, they kiss. But before things get too far, Taylor stops him to lay her cards out on the table. She tells him that what he said to her in the hospital broke her, while Steven asks her to try to be the same loyal and fiercely loving person that she is for her friends, for him. Before hooking up for real, they tell each other they love each other. At least The Summer I Turned Pretty has one happy ending to lean on!
Amidst Jere’s anger, he has a few moments of vulnerability. He expresses his desire to hear from Belly and tells Taylor that she’s his whole life and he doesn’t know what to do without her. Taylor tells him the words he needs to sit with: she shouldn’t be your whole world. But the moment is fleeting before Jeremiah goes back to feeling his anger, this time cynically telling Taylor he hopes she has better luck with Steven than he had with Belly.
When Belly finally makes contact with Jere on the bus to the airport, she gets both versions of him. She tells him that she’s in Paris, and he begs her to come home and for them to work things out. They don’t have to get married, but he wants things to go back to the way they were before all of this. But Belly realizes that something has shifted and she tells him that she needs to figure out who she is. It’s at that moment that she realizes she has to do it in Paris, but when she tells Jere she’s not coming home, he retaliates and tells her to never contact him again.
Jere goes to the beach house to continue lashing out at everyone in his life. This time, it’s Conrad. Conrad apologizes again but Jere doesn’t want to hear it. He tells Conrad that Belly is in Paris, and relishes in the fact that she called him instead of his brother, even if that doesn’t change the fact that Belly didn’t pick either of them. The conversation ends the way it always does: he tells Conrad to get out and never come back (as if he is the only one who owns the Cousins house).
Before leaving, Conrad turns to an unlikely source: his dad. He opens up to Adam, who was oblivious about his son’s feelings for Belly, though he’s not as useless as we’d think. Adam tells Conrad to give Jeremiah space, just like he gave his sons when Susannah died. He knew that Conrad felt like Adam just made everything worse during their grief, so he gave him space knowing that Conrad had other people to lean on. Jeremiah, he says, also has people to lean on. Following the conversation, Adam realizes that he’s one of those people and goes to console Jere, who finally allows himself to cry on his dad’s shoulder.
In the final scene in Paris, Belly’s voiceover states that the pillars in her life are all gone. It’s a bit fatalistic, as she still has the support of Taylor and her family, but it’s understandable for her to feel like the ground beneath her feet is unsteady. But she hasn’t lost all faith. “I have no idea where I’m headed, what my future is, or who it’s with,” her voiceover says, with another Taylor Swift song (“How Did It End?”) playing in the background. “But I know this: rebuilding is always possible.”
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.