Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3, episode 5, “Last Dance.”
Belly (Lola Tung) is keeping a huge, life-changing secret from her fiancé Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) on The Summer I Turned Pretty.
No, we’re not talking about how she’s clearly still in love with his older brother/her ex Conrad (Christopher Briney) … although that’s pretty big too.
But this secret is actually about Conrad and Jeremiah’s father, Adam (Tom Everett Scott), and the affair he had with his secretary Kayleigh (Emma Ishta) when Susannah (Rachel Blanchard) got cancer the first time. Susannah told Laurel (Jackie Chung) about Adam’s affair when she was still alive in the first season, and in season 2, Conrad told Belly when they were dating about how he found out about his father’s affair, believing that no one else knew about it.
Prime Video
Gavin Casalegno as Jeremiah on ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’
At the time, Belly promised not to say anything to Jeremiah. And The Summer I Turned Pretty creator Jenny Han confirms to Entertainment Weekly that Belly is still keeping that promise and hasn’t told Jeremiah about the affair, even though she’s now engaged to him.
“Looking at it from Belly’s point of view, Conrad told that to her in confidence, and it was something that she knew that nobody else knew,” Han tells EW. “That’s why she’s not saying it in that moment, because it was something private that she told him that she will honor.”
At the end of this week’s episode, Belly made a subtle face when Jeremiah told her that Kayleigh was going to help plan their wedding, but he didn’t notice, and she didn’t say anything. Jeremiah has also been shown acting friendly toward Kayleigh in the office, which definitely wouldn’t happen if he knew about the affair.
“Even though Jeremiah’s her fiancé and they don’t really keep secrets between them, this is not her secret,” Han explains. “She wants to be respectful of that confidence that she had with Conrad. As far as she knows, Jeremiah doesn’t know about it because Conrad told her he was the only one that knew. And understanding Conrad, he wouldn’t want Jere to know that because the whole point was him protecting Jere from information that would hurt him. I don’t know what good she thinks that would do, to tell him that at this point, as he’s trying to repair his relationship with his dad as well.”
Prime Studios
Christopher Briney as Conrad on ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’
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Now that Kayleigh is going to play a bigger role in planning Belly and Jere’s wedding, there’s definitely a chance the secret will finally come out. And there’s no telling just how badly Jeremiah will take being left in the dark again — especially by Belly and Conrad. But for now, Han intentionally included that moment to show that Conrad and Belly haven’t told Jeremiah about Adam’s affair.
“We see that pattern with Conrad doing what he thinks is best for other people, and trying to protect Belly from information that he thinks is going to not just make her unhappy, but change the essence of who she is and dim her light and her joy,” Han says. “And I don’t think he wants that for his brother either, who he knows wants to be good with his dad. I’ve loved getting to dig deeper into that and having Adam be a bigger part of the season.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty debuts new episodes on Wednesdays on Prime Video.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
