TV Romance
Were Belly & Jeremiah on a Break? What the ‘Friends’ Cheating Debate Tells Us
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3.]
Ross Geller walked so that Jeremiah Fisher could run. At least, that’s all we could think while watching the Season 3 premiere of The Summer I Turned Pretty.
At the end of The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 Episode 1, Belly (Lola Tung) overhears Lacie (Lily Donoghue) telling her friends that she hooked up with Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) during their spring break trip to Cabo, even though he and Belly had been together for nearly four years.
When Belly approaches her boyfriend, she asks him flat out, “Did you hook up with Lacie Barone during spring break?” Jeremiah’s response, “I can explain,” told Belly everything she needed to know. However, once she does give him a moment to explain Lacie’s story, he confesses, “It happened when we were on a break. When we were broken up.” The catch? Belly doesn’t remember breaking up with Jeremiah. Not before he left for Cabo. Not ever.
For anyone who has even watched a second of Friends, hearing the phrase “we were on a break” is quite a throwback. Honestly, Friends’ iconic “break” argument is one of the most fiercely debated television moments to this day. As the story goes, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) tells Ross (David Schwimmer) that she needs “a break from us,” leading the two lovebirds to take some time apart. During that period, Ross believes they have broken up and ends up having a one-night stand with someone else.
Whether they were broken up or on a break (big difference), the real trouble starts after they get back together, when Rachel learns that he was with someone else. Ultimately, Ross and Rachel’s argument boils down to a simple question: Does it count as cheating if you’re on a break?
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Similar to Rachel, Belly believes that a break does not entail a full-on breakup. Before Jeremiah goes to Cabo, he has a spat with Belly over not telling her that he was going to Mexico. The argument quickly spirals when Jeremiah admits that he feels judged by Belly because he thinks she’ll never see him in the same light as his “perfect” brother Conrad (Christopher Briney). It’s clear in this moment that Jeremiah attributes his “inferiority complex” to the show’s main love triangle. The argument ends with Jeremiah storming out, yelling, “Let’s just end it,” and ghosting Belly until he returns from his trip.
In another flashback, we see Jeremiah ask Belly if she wants to get back together. Laughing, she tells him that they “never stopped being together.” While Jeremiah almost admits to Belly that he slept with Lacie in Cabo, he chooses to keep his lips shut, signing on to Belly’s interpretation of their break. That’s why Jeremiah shouldn’t have been surprised by Belly’s response to his alleged infidelity: “You knew that we weren’t really broken up, that that wasn’t real.”
Jeremiah and Ross are right, a lack of clear definitions on what counts as a “real” split can be rather confusing. However, an unclear relationship status does not give you a free pass towards hurting someone you love. Watching The Summer I Turned Pretty from this perspective, it’s clear that it doesn’t matter if either couple was on a break or not. Nor does the action of having sex with someone else. What matters is that both guys did something they knew would hurt the other person, even though they still intended on getting back together with them down the line.
Rachel puts this very clearly during one of her many arguments with Ross on the subject. Much like Jeremiah, Ross is convinced that what he did was okay. “She meant nothing to me,” he says. However, even if Ross’ one-night stand meant nothing to him, Rachel argues, “She meant enough to jeopardize our relationship.”
During Belly’s argument with Jeremiah, we can see the same sentiment. Jeremiah literally says, “It didn’t mean anything to me.” Conversely, Belly explains that it means a lot to her, since she has only slept with one other person. Seeing as that person was Jeremiah’s brother, this may not have been the best thing to bring up. Even so, for Belly, whether they were on a break or not, this is a massive betrayal from a man she trusted. Because he did not tell her that he thought they had broken up when he had the chance, for her, his Cabo hookup equals cheating in her eyes.
If Friends can teach us anything, it’s that Jeremiah and Belly are in for a world of hurt, all because they did not clearly define their separation when it occurred. However, that’s only if you’re looking at semantics. When it comes to the “we were on a break” argument, it’s clear that both men should have held themselves accountable for their girlfriend’s feelings, even if they thought that they were fully broken up, because both men wanted their breakup to be temporary.
Do you think that Jeremiah cheated on Belly? Or does he get a free pass because they were on a break? Vote in our poll below, and sound off in the comments.
The Summer I Turned Pretty, Season 3, Wednesdays, Prime Video
