The Summer season I Turned Fairly’s Season 2 Finale, Defined

Spoilers under.

Jenny Han has seen your memes and TikToks about The Summer season I Turned Fairly. In reality, she’s reposted some on her Instagram Story. To anybody who has feedback about Stomach Conklin’s questionable decision-making and romantic flip-flopping, the writer and govt producer has a really affordable response: “She’s 16 and she or he’s been by a very exhausting yr. And, I imply, who amongst us?” she laughs over Zoom.

“I’ve a lot love in my coronary heart for Stomach, and sure, she is a chaos demon, however I feel that she is a 16-year-old lady who has been by a very large loss and she or he’s nonetheless looking for her means,” Han provides. Stomach is simply “on her personal journey” and Han has “a number of empathy for her.”

As season 2 has proven, that journey has concerned falling out and in of affection with two brothers, grieving their late mom Susannah, and attempting to avoid wasting the seashore home she liked—all whereas being a teen.

“I feel it was vital to point out the totally different ways in which individuals grieve and course of loss and the way far aside they have been from one another,” Han says. Conrad and Laurel, for instance, are likely to go inward and never ask for assist, whereas Steven feels too responsible to let himself be completely happy. “However I feel one of many themes of the season is you can maintain each of these feelings [happiness and grief] on the identical time. Two issues may be occurring without delay,” Han says. “And for Stomach, a lot of her grief is within the lack of Susannah, the lack of Conrad and Jeremiah, and actually, the lack of innocence.”

By the point we attain the season 2 finale, we see how Stomach has grappled with—and even began to maneuver on from—these losses. She assures herself she’s over her past love, Conrad, and is prepared for one thing new with Jeremiah. It’s not a simple choice, and it’s definitely messy, however it’s absolutely hers. Let’s break down that ending.

The Motel

“Anytime it’s an iconic scene from the e-book, it’s one thing I feel everyone looks like they need to actually fulfill the followers and do proper by it,” Han says of the evening on the motel. “And so I feel that was on everybody’s minds.”

Whereas driving dwelling from Brown, Conrad, Stomach, and Jeremiah are compelled to spend the evening at a motel when a storm breaks and the freeway shuts down. The trip was extraordinarily awkward contemplating what occurred earlier that day: Conrad caught Jeremiah and Stomach kissing and accused Stomach of doing it simply to get his consideration. Whereas cleansing up his dorm later, Conrad got here throughout the necklace he as soon as gave her. Conrad takes his feelings out on the opposite two and turns into a menace throughout the drive, citing the individuals Jeremiah connected with and asking Stomach which of the 2 is a greater kisser. Issues are understandably uncomfortable by the point they examine in. And what are the percentages—there’s just one obtainable room, with one mattress.

Jeremiah stays cautious. First, he tells Stomach that he thinks Conrad continues to be in love together with her. He doesn’t need to get damage once more, so she has to speak with Conrad to see if she nonetheless feels the identical means. Second, he calls Conrad out on his habits (“You’re performing like a dick so everybody can see how unhealthy you’re hurting.”) Conrad tells Jeremiah that he nonetheless loves Stomach, and Jeremiah urges him to inform her. If she picks Conrad, Jeremiah will let her go. He simply needs them each to be completely happy.

The boys let Stomach sleep on the mattress whereas they take the ground on both facet of her. Later that evening, when Conrad and Stomach are nonetheless awake, he tells her, “I nonetheless need you, after all I do.” He doesn’t let her reply. “I simply needed you to know that.”

“The entire scenes within the motel, they’re so wealthy,” episode director Megan Griffiths says. “There’s the brother dynamics and the person dynamics with Stomach, her personal private experiences that she’s having exterior of the brothers, like her dialog together with her mother and her personal moments of reflection exterior of different individuals being round.”

Stomach and Jeremiah

The subsequent morning, Jeremiah is gone, however it seems he simply grabbed breakfast. Stomach tells him he was proper; Conrad advised her final evening that he nonetheless had emotions for her. Jeremiah appears able to shut down once more, however Stomach gained’t let him. She chooses Jeremiah they usually kiss whereas Beyoncé’s “XO” performs.

“I feel it’s sophisticated for each of them,” Griffiths says, “however there’s additionally such a consolation that they’ve in one another that there’s such a shorthand. After which this relationship that they’ve with one another is a lot simpler than each of their relationships with Conrad.”

Nonetheless, Griffiths provides, “They’re not strolling into this blindly. They know that Conrad has emotions about it, they usually each are letting that occur as effectively.”

Ultimately, Jeremiah drives Stomach the remainder of the way in which dwelling and holds her hand within the automobile. “You don’t have any concept how lengthy I’ve needed to do that,” he says. He takes her to volleyball camp, the place he stays to look at her play and cheer her on.

“I feel that’s clear, he’s completely happy,” Han says of Jeremiah’s ending. “To me, I’m most centered on [the fact] that they’ve all been by this actually large loss and trauma. And as we come into the tip of the season, it looks like a return to innocence in a means, the place they’re capable of come out of that grief and have moments of pleasure.

“Even with the way in which issues finish, I’d say that, in a means, Conrad and Jeremiah are speaking greater than they’ve in a very long time. And each of them are, I feel, doing their greatest to be there for one another by having these actually trustworthy conversations. So I feel Jeremiah has grown rather a lot from season 1 to season 2. He needed to develop up in a number of methods.” And he ends “in a contented place.”

Conrad

After Stomach kisses Jeremiah, she talks with Conrad within the motel room. He doesn’t need to get in her means once more, so he takes again what he stated the evening earlier than: “No matter I stated, I didn’t imply it.” Stomach is so surprised she will be able to’t even be mad; he’s at all times been like this, she says within the voiceover. He offers her again the infinity necklace.

Conrad takes a bus again to Cousins Seashore and lets Jeremiah take his automobile to drive Stomach dwelling. He tells Jeremiah to verify Stomach “will get dwelling protected.” He takes a second alone exterior, his eyes tearing up.

“I feel for Conrad, he’s actually been so centered on saving the home and being accountable for that and taking cost of that, that I feel he hasn’t actually realized what was occurring with Stomach and Jeremiah,” says Han. “And so that is all fairly sudden and stunning for him to course of. So I feel he has a really chaotic 24 hours—he’s nonetheless within the midst of that.”

“I feel he feels on this episode he’s doing the proper factor by Stomach and giving her house, however I feel we even have a possibility to see that it’s painful for him to make that alternative and that it’s not a simple factor for him to stroll away from that room,” says Griffiths. She provides that Christopher Briney, who performs Conrad, “actually understood the place Conrad was for these beats, and he was able to be susceptible.”

However not all is misplaced for Conrad. Within the ultimate moments of the episode, the older Fisher brother is again on the seashore home, fixing it up for his or her official move-in.

“I feel to me, the season ends in a really hopeful place, actually for all the characters, even Conrad, as a result of we get to see him placing the home again collectively,” says Han. “Within the season, what he needed was that home and he obtained it. So I feel there’s one thing actually hopeful in that too.”

Laurel

With a little bit encouragement from Steven, Laurel attends an intimidating writer meetup in Fishtown. (It seems at the very least one of many writers there may be intimidated by her too.) However earlier than she steps in, Stomach calls her for some relationship recommendation. “What did it really feel like once you weren’t in love with [dad] anymore?” she asks, alluding to her personal emotions about Conrad. Laurel says it’s sophisticated, however she asks Stomach, “Is what you’re feeling remembering what you had collectively, or trying ahead to what you would have?” It’s a candy, intimate second that exhibits their mended mother-daughter relationship, after they spent a lot of the season closed off from one another.

On the writer assembly, Laurel reads from her e-book, It’s Not Summer season With out You, a memoir about her life with Susannah—her greatest good friend and “actual soul mate.” She chooses an excerpt about her giving start to Stomach and Susannah being there when her husband wasn’t.

“To me, one of many actually attention-grabbing components of the story is that Laurel is actually mad,” explains Han. “She’s mad on the unfairness of all of it, of Susannah not being there. However she additionally was mad at Stomach and she or he didn’t know easy methods to course of that anger both.” As she and her daughter mentioned within the earlier episode, Laurel held all her feelings in, fearing that “when you loosen the tap on any type of emotion, then every thing comes pouring out and also you don’t know if you happen to can stand up to that stage of emotion and rawness,” Han says.

“And Stomach might sense Laurel’s emotions,” she continues. “I feel that Laurel and Steven have a a lot simpler relationship. I feel she sees Steven in some methods like a neater little one. It’s like her boy who’s valedictorian, he’s going to Princeton, and she will be able to take a look at him and really feel like she did a very good job. And I feel with Stomach, it’s more durable to attach in some methods, and particularly the way in which that Stomach has at all times felt so linked to Susannah and Susannah was capable of be a little bit of a bridge. However I additionally assume that, for Laurel, a part of it’s Stomach and occupied with Susannah, and it’s all actually interwoven collectively.”

Susannah

A flashback brings us again to one of many final occasions Stomach noticed Susannah. It was after her promenade breakup with Conrad, when Susannah had fallen unwell once more however her well being was worsening. Now bedridden, Susannah tells Stomach that Conrad loves her, and asks her to take care of him. They embrace on the mattress figuring out the tip is nearing. Jeremiah finds them collectively however rapidly leaves. Susannah can sense the stress and tells Stomach it gained’t at all times be this fashion; the three of them will all come again to one another. She tells Stomach she loves her.

“I cried watching it on the monitor after we have been capturing it,” Griffiths remembers. “The connection between the actors and the characters, I feel, is so obvious within the scene.”

“I feel that there at all times is one thing actually heartbreaking about once you as a toddler lose any individual who noticed you as vital and particular, and it feels such as you’re not that anymore,” says Han.

Witnessing that interplay is vital for Jeremiah too. On the time, he’s struggling seeing his mom endure her sickness, and he and Stomach nonetheless have a strained relationship from the earlier summer time.

“He’s seeing her reckoning with the identical factor he’s been witnessing all yr, and so I feel that he’s not prepared to affix in and have this susceptible beat with them, however I feel he sees and acknowledges what she’s experiencing,” Griffiths explains.

Taylor and Steven

Let’s not overlook the opposite key couple within the TSITP universe! Within the finale, Taylor and Steven meet for an ungainly first date. It begins off as a bunch outing after which ends with them bickering over whether or not Stomach ought to find yourself with Jeremiah (in line with Taylor) or Conrad (per Steven). The evening will get worse when Steven hears the terrible diss album Taylor’s ex-boyfriend Milo made about him. The subsequent morning, when Steven meets Taylor earlier than she leaves for volleyball camp, they naked their hearts to one another.

Taylor reveals she’s had a giant, embarrassing crush on Steven for years, however with him leaving for Princeton quickly, she’s apprehensive she’ll get damage. However he guarantees that gained’t occur. They make out on the hood of his automobile.

“I feel that Taylor has simply been in love with Steven her complete total life, so it’s a type of scary factor to confess that, out of worry of rejection,” says Rain Spencer, who performs Taylor.

Spencer says one in every of her favourite elements of portraying the Taylor-Steven romance was their limitless banter. (Their love language, if you’ll.) “It’s like neither of them need to present how they actually really feel, so they only make enjoyable of one another the entire time. And that was actually, actually enjoyable, as a result of I feel it brings a number of nuanced moments,” she says.

“We simply ended up improv-ing, and I’m fairly positive there are some moments the place we truly did, and it ended up within the present,” says Sean Kaufman, who performs Steven.

At volleyball camp, Steven and Taylor are shocked to seek out Jeremiah and Stomach arriving collectively. Steven, who had been encouraging Conrad to “shoot his shot” with Stomach, is greatly surprised.

“Steven sees a number of Stomach and Conrad in him and Taylor,” Kaufman explains. “He’s Crew Conrad as a result of he’s Crew Taylor, and I feel there’s a transparent resemblance of past love, first spark. Who’s been there by your facet by all of this, and never identical to latest stuff? So he is aware of that Conrad was that for [Belly], and he is aware of that he was that for Taylor, so I feel he’s type of rooting for that.”

Taylor, alternatively, is enjoying the protecting good friend. “I feel that Taylor’s actually Stomach from an out of doors perspective, and I feel anybody that hurts her good friend that a lot goes to be x-ed out, in Taylor’s eyes,” Spencer says.

Subsequent season, Spencer hopes to discover Steven and Taylor’s relationship even additional. “I hope that they will proceed to study from one another, that it’s okay to create a protected house for one another, that it’s okay to be susceptible,” she says. “It’s okay to speak the way you’re truly feeling in any given second, and actually simply be there for one another. I imply, they grew up collectively, so it will make sense that they need to really feel protected in one another’s firm.”

Stomach’s Journey

Stomach ends the season not simply with Jeremiah, but in addition again at volleyball camp together with her mates. “The longer term is unclear, however it’s nonetheless mine,” she narrates earlier than the credit roll.

“I like that it ends on a scene the place Stomach is pursuing one thing that she loves, and that we are able to have a second that’s about Stomach and her personal journey. As a result of on the finish of the day, I feel we’re all Crew Stomach,” Griffiths says.

The sequence is, in the long run, centered on Stomach’s development, and all these Starvation Video games references you may need noticed all through the season level to that, not simply the love triangle trope. “It’s a very nice coming-of-age story: a lady rising up within the midst of warfare and chaos,” Han says of the hit sci-fi sequence, “And I feel so is The Summer season I Turned Fairly.”

Of Stomach’s selections, Han says:

“I feel that no matter choices Stomach is making, they’re her personal and she or he’s deciding what she needs to do. I really feel, on the finish, actually eager for her and completely happy to see her be capable to come out from underneath the cloud that she’s been underneath the entire season, and really feel that she actually needs one thing, and really feel her drive and dedication in direction of her personal happiness—I feel that’s vital. It’s very satisfying for me simply to be on that journey of grief after which really feel like she’s permitting herself to dwell and wish issues and simply be a part of the world once more.”

Interviews with Sean Kaufman and Rain Spencer have been carried out earlier than the SAG-AFTRA strike.