Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2.

The Big Picture

The death of Susannah has had a significant impact on her sons, Conrad and Jeremiah, in The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2. Season 2 explores Belly’s relationships with both Conrad and Jeremiah and how she deals with grief and teenage emotions. Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno discuss their characters’ reactions to Susannah’s death and their evolving relationships with Belly in the season.

With the summer nearly over, The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2 is also at its end. Season 2 kicked off by showing the impact of the death of Susannah (Rachel Blanchard) and how her death affected the people around her, but specifically on how it affected her sons Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). When they learn that their childhood home at Cousins Beach is going to be sold by their estranged Aunt Julia (Kyra Sedgwick), the group must band together to try and save the one place Susannah treasured. While Season 1 toyed around with Belly (Lola Tung) and her crush on Conrad and her developing romance with Jeremiah, Season 2 dives in full bore. Caught between the two brothers, Belly is struggling both with the grief of losing someone close to her and the torrid teenage emotions that come with falling in love.

We spoke with Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno about the massive impact Susannah left on the boys and how that affects them in this season. We talked with Casalegno about working more closely with Lola Tung considering Belly and Jeremiah’s changing dynamics. While we asked Briney just what he thought about Conrad’s decisions this season, the good ones and the bad ones. Finally, we asked the two actors the impossible question, who should Belly be with? Conrad or Jeremiah? Their answer might surprise you.

Check it all out in the video interview at the top of this article or read the conversation in transcript form below.

This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Image via Prime Video

COLLIDER: There’s a lot to discuss. This season deals with the aftermath of Susannah’s (Rachel Blanchard) death, obviously, and the two people it impacted most are your two characters, Conrad and Jeremiah. The two brothers process things really differently. What do you think was going through your character’s head in the time following the death? Because we don’t get to see that much of the immediate after-effect.

CHRISTOPHER BRINEY: I think it’s something that is very confusing for both of them. I think something like that leaves them maybe just lost a little bit and sort of grasping onto something that feels real and tangible and palpable. They’re just sort of grasping for things, but in their individual ways because they are different people. They’re desperate, I think, whether they know it or not.

GAVIN CASALEGNO: I don’t know if I can speak on Conrad, but Jeremiah’s kind of alone in all of this. He is alone. And it makes that really apparent throughout the season. I think being alone is a wonderful gift, but also doing life and experiencing hardship with community is always so much easier. So I think Jeremiah’s really just going through the thick of it with his mom and everything, doing it alone.

Last season we sort of got to see Conrad in the spotlight with Belly (Lola Tung), so to speak, but this season focused a little bit more on Jeremiah and his relationship with Belly. Gavin, what was your favorite part about developing that relationship with Lola and working on bringing them closer than we saw them?

CASALEGNO: With the script and the seasons and all of that, it’s kind of really led to their relationship growing in a beautiful way. So to really be able to put that on a screen was a lot of fun. Plus, Lola’s so talented and so it was really easy. It was really, really easy to work with her and to do those scenes because we feel like the scenes in this season have been building up to it for so long.

And Chris, Conrad—oh man—he was making some silly choices this season.

BRINEY: [Laughs] Yeah, Connie, baby!

CASALEGNO: Connie, baby!

Image via Prime Video

I like that he’s the kind of character who always shoulders burdens on his own. I feel like that’s an interesting aspect of his character, but do you ever have moments where you just want to shake him and be like, “Get out of your own way?” How did you react to his journey this season with Belly, with Brown, and this drama with the house ownership? What was that like for you?

BRINEY: Constantly. I want to shake him and yell at him constantly. It’s funny because starting to try and learn about this character was hard in a lot of ways. Because, like the first season, he was making all these bad decisions and being mean to people and blah, blah, blah. Then we come back for Season 2, and I’m like, “All right, what’s he gonna do now?” [Laughs] Then he’s doing worse stuff and being less considerate and less thoughtful! But I don’t know, that’s sort of what I enjoy about it and about playing him is he’s young, and he’s learning a lot, and he’s making mistakes, and he’s malleable, you know? He’s, I think, nothing but honest. I think he’s very clear about what he wants and how he wants to go about life, and he does it in the wrong way often. But I think that’s kind of beautiful.

Yeah, it’s very “his age.” Those decisions that he makes, I’m like, “Yeah, that makes sense.”

CASALEGNO: [Laughs] Definitely.

Image via Prime Video

I’m asking this question to everybody, and I kind of know what you guys are going to answer, I’m gonna guess, but who do you guys personally, not your characters, think should end up with Belly?

BRINEY: I think it’s hard to say. I think that at the end of Season 2, Belly and Jeremiah should be together. I think that in the same way, at the end of Season 1, I think that Belly and Conrad were meant to be together.

CASALEGNO: Yeah, me too.

BRINEY: At both times, at different points in their lives, it’s what these two characters want and what their hearts desire. And who is anyone to tell them not to?

CASALEGNO: Yeah, I think with the growth that all the characters are experiencing, for a heart to just kind of go back and forth, it just really shows how much we can change as human beings on a day-to-day basis, basically. But yeah, I agree. I think at the end of Season 1 it just made sense with Conrad, and now I think for Season 2 there’s a little time for Jeremiah to shine. But who knows?

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