Every Main Character Ending On The Summer I Turned Pretty, Ranked

On some level, "The Summer I Turned Pretty" is about the desperate lengths that our protagonist, Isabel "Belly" Conklin (a stunningly good Lola Tung), will go to hold on to a genuinely spectacular beach house. (It has a private dock, a pool, and is close to the beach, if that helps.) On a much bigger level, "The Summer I Turned Pretty" is an over-the-top, often silly, and eminently enjoyable story about a young girl's coming-of-age at said genuinely spectacular beach house alongside her two lifelong friends, brothers Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher (Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno), and their respective moms Laurel Park (Jackie Chung) and Susannah Fisher (Rachel Blanchard). Even though Belly has spent every summer of her life platonically with Conrad and Jeremiah — despite the huge torch she's been carrying for Conrad since she was just a little kid — once she grows into her looks, both boys take notice, sparking a love triangle between the three of them.

This love triangle is really the basis of the entirety of "The Summer I Turned Pretty," which ran for three seasons on Amazon Prime Video under the direction of showrunner Jenny Han, who wrote the original series of novels (as well as "To All the Boys I've Loved Before, which got its own adaptation on Netflix). So, how does "The Summer I Turned Pretty come to an end? Well, because this show is all about vulnerable, raw, and naked emotions, viewers do get rewarded with a truly happy and fulfilling ending once Belly makes her presumably final choice and picks a Fisher brother. Besides the journeys of Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah, though, we also have to look at major supporting characters Steven Conklin (Sean Kaufman) and Taylor Jewel (Rain Spencer), Belly's brother and best friend, respectively.

With all that said, which characters get the very best endings on "The Summer I Turned Pretty?" Here are Jeremiah, Conrad, Belly, Taylor, and Steven's "happy" endings, ranked from worst to best.

I wouldn't say that, after all of the irritating stuff Jeremiah Fisher does throughout "The Summer I Turned Pretty," he truly deserves a great ending; he's not a supervillain by any means, but he is a petulant and often whiny kid who's used to being pampered and throws a fit when he doesn't get his way. (Consider his mini-tantrum over his dream wedding cake, a two-tier dark chocolate cake with raspberry coulis filling and a mirror glaze on top that's made with at least 60% cacao, even after Belly, his fiancée at the time, tells him it'll cost them $750.) In the last few episodes of "The Summer I Turned Pretty," Jeremiah gets his comeuppance. The night before his wedding to Belly, she confesses that, over Christmas, she and Conrad were alone at the beach house. Nothing physical happened, but this makes Jeremiah spiral and skip out on the wedding entirely; when he finally shows up, he basically tells Belly he knows that she still loves Conrad, and they call off their wedding hours after it was supposed to take place.

Jeremiah then spends an episode or two drinking heavily and moping around, but by the series finale "At Last," he inexplicably has his act together. After Belly runs away to Paris in the wake of their canceled wedding, Jeremiah stops going to Finch College, at which point his father, Adam Fisher (Tom Everett Scott), cuts him off financially. As a result, Jeremiah, lover of fancy cakes, decides to pivot to something he loves: fine dining. In that series finale, he's suddenly one of Boston's hottest young chefs and is hosting a cooking showcase that, naturally, ends up at the beach house; he even shares a brief kiss with his dad's former work colleague Denise (Isabella Briggs), even as she prepares to move across the country for a job opportunity. Jeremiah's ending is pretty half-baked — pun intended — but it's happy for him, I guess.

"The Summer I Turned Pretty" is about the summer Belly turned pretty, not the summer her brother Steven turned pretty, so, understandably, he's not always the center of attention (his season 1 plotline, where he loses a bunch of money during a poker game at a country club and dates a super-rich girl, is so forgettable that I just had to look that up to make sure I was even right). Still, as the show progresses, Jenny Han and her writers and directors do an admirable job of building up Steven's character, and by the time we get to the end of season 3 and start wrapping up plots, he's in a pretty good place! (To be clear, basically nobody has a bad ending on "The Summer I Turned Pretty" except for Susannah, who dies before the beginning of season 2 — and even her death is presented as strangely peaceful.)

After the briefest of dalliances in season 1, Steven finds himself well and truly smitten with Taylor, and after they dance around one another in season 2, they finally get together in season 3 ... sort of. (They're actually cheating on their other, extremely boring partners with each other.) Still, after the two fight and Steven gets into a devastating car accident as a result, he and Taylor split. When Steven first meets Denise while they're both working for Adam Fisher's vaguely defined business, it seems like there might be a spark between them, but when they kiss during Jeremiah and Belly's bachelor and bachelorette parties, they feel nothing, confirming that the two are just friends.

This finally leaves the door open for Steven and Taylor, who embark on a real relationship together. Steven, at the end of the day, gets everything he wants: his dream girl and a job opportunity in San Francisco alongside Denise, with whom he's launching a new company. (Doing what? Unclear. That's not what this show is about.) So what about Taylor?

With all due respect to Steven, Taylor Jewel is a pretty fascinating character right from the jump (especially because Rain Spencer really gives this role 150%). As Belly's best friend, Taylor is unfailingly loyal to Belly, even after her kiss with Steven divides the two girls ever so briefly during season 1; she remains steadfastly by Belly's side throughout season 2, and the two besties go to Finch College along with Jeremiah in season 3.

When she's not sneaking around with Steven or supporting Belly, Taylor is stuck dealing with her mom, Lucinda (Kristin Connolly), who is such an obvious knockoff of the young, witty mom Lorelai Gilmore from "Gilmore Girls" that I did a double take when Lucinda referenced that beloved show in passing. Lucinda, who dates terrible men and runs a hair salon, is on the verge of bankruptcy after an ex-boyfriend robbed her blind, so Taylor sacrifices her hopes and dreams of moving to New York City for a public relations internship to support Lucinda. When Belly runs away to Paris and unexpectedly stays there, Taylor makes lemonade out of lemons and visits her best friend there, and helps her throw a party to celebrate New Year's Eve, encouraging Belly to kiss her handsome new friend Benito (Fernando Cattori).

By the time we see Taylor in "At Last," she seems genuinely happy working as a PR professional, helping plan Jeremiah's cooking showcase, and living with Steven in Boston. Naturally, she's shocked when someone who isn't Steven — specifically, Denise, who doesn't know that Taylor can overhear her — shares his plans about San Francisco. Taylor is initially and understandably quite upset, but after talking to Steven, she decides that now that she's found her true love, she needs to hang onto it and decides to head out west with Steven. Even though this ending is a little bit more about Steven than Taylor, it's still nice to see her settled after everything.

Poor Conrad Fisher! When we first meet him in season 1 of "The Summer I Turned Pretty," he's a brooding young man prepared to leave his friends and family behind to attend Brown University, but after realizing that Belly is, in fact, pretty, he strikes up a romance with her at the end of the season after coming to the rescue during her botched first dance at the Cousins Beach debutante ball. Unfortunately, Conrad falls from grace in season 2 when, after his beloved mother Susannah dies from cancer, he isolates himself and pulls away from Belly, ruining her senior prom and breaking up with her to add insult to injury. By the time we get to season 3, Conrad, who's still undeniably in love with Belly, is hiding at Stanford University and training to be a doctor, enjoying the distance from his family.

After Belly and Jeremiah hastily get engaged — practically by the side of Steven's hospital bed, point in fact — Conrad is forced to deal with his feelings for Belly while serving as Jeremiah's best man, until the whole thing spirals out of control. Conrad learns, shortly before the intended wedding, that Jeremiah cheated on Belly and tells her, begging her to run away with him; all this gets the man often referred to as "Connie" is a sound rejection from Belly and a punch in the face from Jeremiah. Isolated from his family once again, Conrad quietly writes letters to Belly while she's in Paris, and when she sends her new address, he takes that as a clear invitation.

Conrad impulsively shows up in Paris to sweep Belly off her feet, and incredibly, this gambit works — especially because Benito is out of the picture by then. Ultimately, despite one last argument, Conrad gets the girl of his dreams — and he gets a trip to Paris out of the bargain, which isn't bad at all.

How could anyone on "The Summer I Turned Pretty" get a better conclusion than Belly Conklin, the very girl who "turned pretty" and thereby kicked off the entire series? (I'd argue that this title is insane because Lola Tung is beautiful even when they slap fake braces and ugly hats on her in flashbacks, but whatever.) Still, with that said, Belly starts season 3 in a pretty rough place after finding out that, during a "Friends" style "break" in their relationship that happened to take place over spring break, Jeremiah cheated on her with a girl named Lacie Barone (Lily Donoghue). Things somehow get even worse when Steven almost dies in his car accident, but despite all of that, Belly believes she finds happiness when Jeremiah proposes with the world's smallest ring. (A truly funny moment in season 3 is when an incensed Laurel protests the engagement and Belly shoves her ring finger in her mom's face, only for Laurel to squint to see it.)

After Jeremiah and Belly thankfully call off their totally ill-advised wedding, Belly, who was set to study abroad in Paris before Jeremiah and wedding planning both took over her life, heads there anyway. Despite not technically having a place in the academic program, Belly manages to make a nice little life for herself in the City of Lights, and by the time Conrad shows up, she's got a great apartment, a kicky new haircut, and a really good group of friends. Still, the enduring allure of Conrad Fisher is too strong to withstand; as she says to herself in voiceover, "I have brown hair and brown eyes, and I will always love Conrad Fisher." After the traditional rom-com last-minute chase — this time, to a train station where Conrad is grabbing a ride to Brussels for a conference — we fast forward, and see Conrad and Belly, now happy together, returning to Cousins Beach. It's as perfect an ending as anybody could want, truly.

"The Summer I Turned Pretty" is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now.