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Well, this is something new and exciting. Instead of getting the story exclusively from Belly’s perspective as usual, “Love Fool” is narrated by emotionally mature king Jeremiah’s internal monologue. It turns out he’s literally an angel.
I mean, look at him, sitting there sorting through Susannah’s medical bills and managing her health insurance (we’re in a flashback right now, by the way) and handling the caregiving day-to-day stuff like making her green smoothies and doing movie marathons. What does Conrad do while Susannah’s dying of cancer, you ask? Mostly stomp around and shout, “I am the eldest boy!” Jeremiah, much like myself, finds all of this extremely annoying. And when he sees Conrad half-assing prom with Belly (how could he forget the corsage!), he becomes downright pissed. “If it had been me,” Jere tells us over voice-over, “I would have done it right. I wouldn’t have forgotten the corsage. I’d have given her the perfect night.” We know you would, baby boy!
But all of that is in the past. In the present, the teens have to find a place to sleep because Aunt Julia packed all of their stuff into storage while they were at the Boardwalk, remember? Everyone can agree that this is inexcusable — in fact, Skye straight up tells her so — but Conrad is the only one who reacts by telling Julia her dad never loved her. I mean, Christ, Conrad. You’re really incapable of retaining the moral high ground for longer than like 30 seconds? Jeremiah, who has never lost an inch of moral high ground in his life, merely glares and leaves the room.
Well, the teens can’t camp out in the house now that it’s been infected with Julia’s bad vibes, so they decide to break into the country club, which they do with the help of Cam Cameron (who is still tagging along, for some reason) and his mom’s employee key code. There is only one person who bothers to ask if Cam’s mom could get in trouble for this, and yes, of course, it’s Skye. Skye is also the only person who can figure out how to make an apple bong. Skye rules. Cam, the Bogey Lowenstein of the evening, says she won’t get in trouble if they stay extremely neat. So while Taylor rummages through the lost-and-found pilfering a rich person’s forgotten weed and Steven stages an elaborate seduction sequence and Jeremiah and Belly get flirty with Twizzler straws and shadow puppets, Cam Cameron spends the night making futile pleas for decorum. Which is how they eventually wind up sleeping on the golf course, where there’s no upholstery to damage with apple bong smoke.
By the way, that seduction sequence I mentioned? Perfection. I mean, it was incredibly corny, but corniness is what we’re here to see. Steven and Taylor are searching for something to use as bedding and wander into the debutante ballroom. Steven says Taylor would have enjoyed being a deb. Taylor says she absolutely would not. Steven says she definitely would, and to prove it to her, he throws on a blazer (they’re just sitting there), puts on a Frank Ocean cover of “Moon River,” and asks her to dance. This would work on me also, Taylor, so don’t feel bad. Their almost kiss is interrupted by Conrad and Jeremiah, but I’m satisfied that the real kiss is forthcoming.
But back to the golf course.
Now, through his voice-overs, we learn that Jeremiah is not at all, even a little bit over Belly (no, duh), and he’s got quite the defeatist attitude about it. He’s come to believe that Belly and Conrad are simply endgame and there’s nothing he can do about it besides pine quietly forever. To be fair, Belly doesn’t see herself becoming as consumed by Jeremiah as she was by Conrad either, but that is exactly the kind of unhealthy, obsessive relationship she has just vowed against. Still, Belly tells Taylor (who, for similar reasons, has sworn off Steven) that she thinks there might be something there with Jeremiah. But he doesn’t know any of this yet. Currently, he’s just watching her interact with Conrad and sighing.
On the golf course, the teens are doing what teens do when they need to pass the time — getting high and playing truth or dare. Belly dares Steven to eat the bong apple, which is a pretty good dare, except that now they have no more bong.
Brief interlude for Cam Cameron to share a harrowing story about mourning his sister, who died ten years ago when she was just 16.
Skye dares Belly to kiss Jeremiah. Egads. I’m choosing to believe Skye was just reading the vibes and trying to do Belly and Jere a solid. How could they possibly know that Jeremiah has spent the entire episode wistfully musing things like, “So I just keep telling myself, over and over, it’ll never be me. It’s always going to be Conrad.” Jere begs off, and Belly follows him to ask, and she literally asks this, “Why don’t you want to kiss me?” I don’t know if this was intended to be flirtatious or if she was genuinely asking, but either way, that’s very not cool, Belly! Can’t you see how sad and heartbroken he is over you? Were you not expecting him to say something like, “Because if I kiss you, I don’t know that I can ever stop”? Because I sure was.
Dramatics aside, Jeremiah isn’t sure how much of Belly’s feelings for him to attribute to her heartbreak over Conrad and her loyalty to Susannah. Very fair. He mentions the Amelia Earhart quote she used earlier, “Adventure is worthwhile in itself,” and asks if she got that from his mom — this was Susannah’s high school graduation quote, and she and Jere have just bonded over it in a flashback sequence. But Belly says no; she read it on Jeremiah’s graduation cap at his commencement ceremony, which she watched via livestream because she knew he didn’t want to see her in person then. It’s just enough to convince Jeremiah that even if he can’t change Belly’s past, maybe he can be part of her story in the future. GIANT SNIFFLE.
• Aunt Julia has already sold the house! Rendering Conrad’s master plan to sue their father for control of their trust funds DOA.
• “My dad always loved Conrad better. But I had my mom. She was the only person who ever really saw me. Her and Belly.” — Jeremiah, secret sad boy.
• Cocktail umbrellas.
• Flashback Susannah calls Jeremiah “my sunshine boy.” He’s everybody’s sunshine boy, now, Susannah.
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