Poll
Steven & Denise in ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’: Should They or Shouldn’t They Get Together?
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3 Episode 7, “Last Hurrah.”]
A hot new businesswoman has entered the villa…
While we went into Season 3 of The Summer I Turned Pretty as ride-or-die Team Staylor fans, we have to admit that the connection Steven (Sean Kaufman) has with his coworker, Denise (Isabella Briggs), has caught his — and our — attention. After all, who doesn’t love a little workplace romance?
For the first two seasons, Taylor (Rain Spencer) and Steven’s budding relationship refreshingly juxtaposed the show’s ever-so messy central love triangle. From their adjacent childhoods to their opposites attract energy, Team Staylor felt like an obvious endgame couple. That is, until Season 3 confirmed they had also moved into a messy situationship.
Following Steven’s accident, the duo officially called things off, opening the door for a certain set of Breaker Capital colleagues to become more than friends. No, we’re not talking about Adam (Tom Everett Scott) and his secretary, Kayleigh (Emma Ishta). As of Episode 7, it appears that Taylor has even given Denise and Steven (Team Deven? Stenise?) her blessing.
As soon as Denise and Steven (almost) kissed, we knew we had to put them through Swooon‘s Should They/Shouldn’t They rubric. Be sure to look through all of the pros and cons of the couple below, and give us your input in the poll and comments!
The Summer I Turned Pretty, Season 3, Episodes 1-7, Streaming Now, Prime Video
CON: They're about to be business partners.
Nothing good ever comes from starting a business with your situationship. As soon as Steven and Denise began to cross the bridge from colleagues to friends, Denise dropped a business plan in his lap. While creating a company centered around Steven’s game is a really wonderful gesture, starting a company and falling in love are massive commitments. For that reason, it might be best if Steven and Denise pick one road to travel down together, at least for now.
PRO: They have a lot in common.
Two finance bros who lowkey hate their jobs? Sounds like the beginning of a beautiful romance to us. As Taylor put it during Episode 7, Denise is exactly the kind of person you would expect Steven to end up with — someone who is equal parts smart and humorous, just like himself. Plus, the similarities don’t stop there. Who could forget when their paths crossed on the way to the gaming convention in the city? They also both took seats at a four-person table on the train there, which any Amtrak rider knows takes a rare kind of person.
CON: They're too similar.
At the same time, there is something to be said about how similar Denise and Steven really are. From their discontent with their jobs to their nerdy hobbies, they have been given a lot to bond over. However, forming a connection with someone that similar to yourself doesn’t leave much room for growth.
PRO: Denise brings out Steven's maturity.
In the office, Denise and Stephen have a bit of a competitive streak going. If anything, at the beginning of the season, this workplace rivals’ dynamic inspired Steven to take his work seriously. This was a sharp contrast from his weekends, which he spent sneaking into Taylor’s sorority house like he was still in college. Now that he’s no longer with Taylor, Steven appears to have a newfound sense of maturity, similar to what Conrad (Christopher Briney) found in California.
CON: Many fans are hardcore Team Staylor.
At the beginning of the season, we would have argued “Don’t fix what isn’t broken” when it comes to Taylor and Steven’s relationship. Even so, the time jump revealed that both parties had used the other to cheat on their current partner. Magic: broken. Now that they’ve had their time apart, fans — and Lucinda (Kristen Connolly) — are ready to see them reunite better than ever. Sorry, Denise!
PRO: This friend group needs some new blood.
No, really. Is it healthy to have a five-person friend group consisting of two brothers fighting over one girl, whose brother is dating her best friend? Perhaps the Denises of the world are meant to breathe maturity into deeply tangled webs such as this one. In fact, we would love to know what Denise would have to say about Conrad’s history with his brother’s fiancée. Someone needs to fill her in so that she can read them to filth and solve all their issues at the same time.
