The Summer I Turned Pretty recap: Party in the U.S.A.

Sara Netzley
·10 min read

How does a group of teens say goodbye to their beloved beach house? With an epic party funded by Papa Fisher's secret emergency Amex, of course.

First Skye (Elsie Fisher) sends Aunt Julia (Kyra Sedgwick) away with some stern words: Julia may not have been happy at Cousins Beach, but Skye is, and Julia kept that from them.

And here we have the one flashback of the episode: It's Sh-tsmas, and Susannah's (Rachel Blanchard) decorating is as gloriously over-the-top as you'd think. (That tree came directly from Santa's North Pole workshop, right?)

The sisters are friendly at first, but things get tense when Julia points out how unkind Susannah's mom was to her and Susannah defends her mama's actions. Two notable things here: Susannah says Julia's acting like her mom was ice queen Meredith Blake from The Parent Trap remake, and Julia's rocking truly terrible flashback bangs.

In the present, wise-beyond-her-years Skye says that selling the house isn't about money or closure for Julia; it's confirmation that she could never belong even if she tried. Skye begs their mother to back out of the sale and open her big heart to the family she has left. Julia merely drives away.

Inside the house, Belly (Lola Tung) remembers Laurel and Susannah throwing a Gatsby-style party after Susannah's dad died, which is the origin of their own plans. As the gang heads to power nap (Where? On the bare floors?), Steven (Sean Kaufman) suggests that Conrad (Christopher Briney) try to avoid riding the highest of highs and the lowest of lows but instead shoot for the zen of middle ground.

Another Taylor Swift song plays as Belly interrupts Jeremiah's (Gavin Casalegno) somber moment at the pool by pushing him in. (The song is "Delicate," which Jenny Han has ID'd as her favorite, so it was a choice to play it over a Jelly scene.) They frolic and are close to kissing until Taylor (Rain Spencer) sends them to gather party supplies.

Taylor then takes a video call from her terrible boyfriend Milo. Steven acts up in the background, all but shouting, "Hey, I'm here with your girlfriend! Be threatened by me!" It's a plan that will work out for him by the end of the night because Steven is a genius.

Conrad joins his brother and Belly on the supply run, and his fake ID is shut down hard by convenience store Jumper. ("Dude I know you're not Fritz Herbertson, and I know you're definitely not from Guam.")

Jeremiah brags this his close personal relationship with Jumper will do the trick, but the man does not want to get fired for selling beer to someone underage today. Then Belly saunters in to straight-up ask him, and moments later Jumper's wheeling out epic amounts of booze on a cart. I guess he does want to get fired today.

Belly also grabs her specialty beverage — half cherry, half Coke — for her and Jeremiah. Conrad's miffed she didn't get him one, despite him thinking the beverage is too sugary, and he murmurs, "I thought cocoa was your specialty."

Reader, I gasped. Also, that shopper in the store for the fake ID hijinks was our lady of words Jenny Han in a cute cameo.

Now the trio's off to play Supermarket Sweep at Party City, where they grab super fun supplies like blow-up furniture, strobe lights, bubble machines, and, if you're Conrad, glitter plates.

Here's where Belly starts to wildly bounce between the two brothers in a way that makes me want to introduce her to some new cute boy who doesn't share their DNA because boy howdy is somebody going to get even more hurt than he already has been by the end of all of this.

Jere's got his arm casually draped around her shoulder, but before long she's wrapping a feather boa around Conrad's neck and apologizing for what happened at the funeral.

Conrad says Aubrey was the one who found him when he had a panic attack, but he wishes it had been Belly. She says she didn't have any right to get mad about it, and he immediately replies, "Of course you did."

Jeremiah then interrupts what he clearly understand is A Moment, and Belly whirls away to grab cameras for the traditional summertime group photo.

The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2 - Christopher Briney (Conrad), Gavin Casalegno (Jeremiah), Sean Kaufman (Steven), Rain Spencer (Taylor), Lola Tung (Belly)
The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2 - Christopher Briney (Conrad), Gavin Casalegno (Jeremiah), Sean Kaufman (Steven), Rain Spencer (Taylor), Lola Tung (Belly)

Erika Doss/Prime Video Christopher Briney (Conrad), Gavin Casalegno (Jeremiah), Sean Kaufman (Steven), Rain Spencer (Taylor), and Lola Tung (Belly) on 'The Summer I Turned Pretty'

The rest of the group has also paired off for flirty party prep. Taylor accuses Steven of putting "Party in the U.S.A." on the playlist because she and Belly used to do a choreographed routine to it, and it ends with the two of them dancing up on each other.

Skye, meanwhile, hangs out in Cam Cameron's (David Iacono) room, the walls of which are covered in whale merch, and realizes he didn't take that job on the whaling boat in order to stay close to his mom. In fact, his mom doesn't even know that he had the opportunity. Skye encourages him to actually get on the whaling boat when it docks in town next week.

Afterward, she asks Taylor and then Belly for kissing advice, and it's adorable: "So do I immediately put my tongue in their mouth?" (Taylor's answer: "If the spirit moves you.")

At Skye's request that she spare no details — even if those details involve two of Skye's biological relatives — Belly describes her first kiss with Cameron as sweet, her first kiss with Conrad as so intense she blacked out, and her first kiss with Jeremiah as really, really hot. She has no comment about which one she'd like to kiss again.

In the garage, the brothers try to smooth things over as they flip through their old summertime group photos. It's not great, but it's a start.

Then Belly intercepts Jere, and he busts her for mooning over Conrad in those long-ago pics as well as earlier in Party City. Ughhhh this love triangle's awkwardness is growing. And as the girls get '70s fabulous, Queen Taylor tells Belly to be careful with this messy, messy brother situation.

The party's in full swing as Belly rollerskates through the crowd, pausing so Steven can take her picture with Conrad, then tripping into Jere's arms as he murmurs, "You don't need to hurt yourself to get my attention."

Girl, you are skating too close to the sun.

Steven tells Connie he's rooting for him as long as he doesn't break Belly's heart again. Steven also cheerfully agrees with Connie's accusation that he's following Taylor around despite her having a boyfriend.

A boyfriend who was goaded into driving 300 miles to the party, bringing along his toxic stew of masculinity masquerading as burning love, as Skye eloquently puts it. Skye and Cam Cameron head out to warn Taylor that Water Gun Milo's in the house but end up kissing by the pool instead, the cuties.

Milo finds his girl at the worst possible time — or maybe the best possible time. She and Steven have just given a gleeful performance of the "Party in the U.S.A." dance, after which Steven tells her that she wins the "first person to admit they caught feelings loses" game.

"I like you," he says. "I don't know how it happened or when it happened, but now you're my favorite person."

Before she can respond to this incredible declaration of feelings, Milo tries to start a fight with Steven, which interrupts Belly and Jere as they're about to kiss on the blow-up couch.

Taylor shouts, "I literally don't even want this!" and the brawl ends with Milo failing to land a sad roundhouse kick, then demanding Taylor leave the party with him. She asks if he knows her middle name, and when he can't produce it, she ends things in front of the assembled crowd. Steven gets the last word in by announcing, "It's Madison. Her middle name is Madison." Tell me you didn't swoon!

Afterward, Steven tells Taylor it's her move, and she kisses him. Cuties everywhere!

But the night's not going as well for Belly. Skye finds the love triangle trio to say Aunt Julia got the buyers to add an agreement that the Fishers can rent the house for one week each summer. Belly and Jeremiah are elated, but Conrad refuses to even consider it.

And here Jeremiah unloads on Conrad. When things aren't perfect, his brother throws them away instead of fixing them, like he did with Belly even though he begged for Jere's blessing to be with her.

Skye and Belly slip away so the Fishers can have it out. Jeremiah tells Conrad just how hard it was to be the one there every day as Susannah slipped away while Connie was off at college or hanging with Belly, concluding, "You're not even somebody I want to know."

Meanwhile Belly grabs a bottle of booze and heads to the ocean to cope with the revelation about Conrad asking Jere for permission to be with her. Conrad follows her and has another overdue confrontation.

Belly says if she'd known he cared so much, she'd have fought harder for them. But Conrad thought that they both understood how serious this was from the moment they kissed on the beach.

"I thought that we loved each other," Belly chokes out. "We did," Conrad replies, leaving her to say the quiet part out loud: "I guess not enough." And now the soundtrack kicks up "Snow on the Beach" despite there no longer being literal snow on the beach.

By now the party's become Belly's nightmare, with people spray painting the walls, vomiting inside, and breaking windows. Aware that she's lost the magic Susannah charged her with protecting, Belly wanders through the crowd and locks eyes with Jeremiah across the room. Then she turns her head and spots a broody Conrad. Jere sees her seeing his brother and turns away in disgust and disappointment.

It's too much, and Belly staggers upstairs to collapse in an empty bedroom, where she leaves Laurel a drunken voicemail telling her that the beach house is all wrong and the boys may never speak to each other again.

"Mommy, I need you," she sobs as we go to credits.

Kissin' cousins corner

  • Oh geez, how many land-speed records do you think Laurel's going to break to get to Cousins Beach? Fingers crossed this jolts her out of her grief and into action because these kids are crying out for parental guidance.

  • Book girlies, didja catch Taylor calling Jeremiah "Jeremy" this week?

  • For those wondering, Jere's first kiss was with Christy Turnduck — aka the Turducken — and his second was with Clay Bartolet — the neighbor boy with skillz — and they happened on the same night.

  • Volleyball watch: Taylor's distressed to hear Belly's off the team, but Killa Bee lies that it's all fine.

  • Comedy highlight of the episode: Skye shutting down a plea for German house music by pointing to the sign that reads "F--- your request."

  • Raise your hand if A) you're too old for a party with only blow-up furniture and B) you actually though the one-week rental solution might be the best all the way around. I'm worried 'bout those boys trying to raid their trust funds for real estate.

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