As someone who has watched both The Summer I Turned Pretty and My Life With The Walter Boys, I have strong opinions on both shows. Most watchers focus on the competition between each set of brothers, but I want to examine the overall pros and cons of each set of brothers from my perspective. Compare your own thoughts and opinions to decide which brothers are best!
Starting off with Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher:
Both of these brothers have good characteristics and bad ones. Conrad is thoughtful, loyal, and has a protective nature. On the other hand, he is closed off and lashes out with words and bad behavior when he is struggling with something emotionally. Jeremiah is easygoing, supportive, and an overall joyful character. Although, he struggles with jealousy, immaturity, and at times can be very self-centered. They both went through the trauma of losing their mom, so people tend to give them a little grace when it comes to their situation. I believe that Conrad and Jeremiah could have made better decisions in many of the scenarios that they were put in.
For example, Jeremiah used his mom’s cancer to make Belly feel bad about starting a relationship with Conrad. Although Belly did not make quite the best decision by having relationships with both brothers in a really close timeline, Jeremiah should not have used his mother to make her feel guilty. This is where his jealousy and self-centeredness are most noticeable. He is jealous that his brother “won” Belly. Part of this jealousy comes from his childhood growing up in Conrad’s shadow. The brothers’ father always praised Conrad and had a tendency to favor him as well. As Jeremiah was growing up, he had to live with trying to get his dad to be proud of him, just like he was proud of Conrad. This competition for Belly was just another thing that Jeremiah felt like he had “lost” to Conrad.
His self-centeredness also contributes to this part of the show because he is so obsessed with beating Conrad that he makes it seem like that is all he cares about. Some people will say that Jeremiah only liked Belly because Conrad did and their constant competition. I don’t believe this is true because of the content in Season 3. I believe that Jeremiah and Belly started off as best friends and their romantic relationship sprouted from there. Overall, Jeremiah should have taken the news of Conrad and Belly’s relationship better even though it was not right for Belly to be testing out possible relationships with both of them at the same time.
One example of where Conrad should have handled something better was when he was developing deeper feelings for Belly. Conrad had this hot and cold attitude toward Belly in the first season. There were many times when he would seem like he was 100% into Belly, but then the next second, he would shut down and turn her away. Conrad’s closed-off personality was represented a lot during the first season. He had just found out about his mom’s cancer and was not himself because he did not know whether to tell someone or not. Because he didn’t want to share his feelings, he kept them buried and refused to talk to anyone. He was unkind to many people, including Belly, because of his built-up emotions. Conrad should have talked to at least one person to get his feelings off his chest. This would have changed many of his actions and words to avoid all of the conflicts he had in the first season.
Overall, I think the Fisher brothers have many positives to their personalities, but they both have big negatives when it comes to how they respond to certain situations.
Next, the Walter brothers. The Walter brothers’ personalities are similar and different in some ways compared to the Fisher brothers. There have only been two seasons of the show so far so it is a little bit harder to pick out all of their personality traits.
Cole Walter is a very loyal, charming, and has good intentions behind his actions. Although he can be arrogant, hot-headed, and selfish sometimes. For example, Cole has repeatedly ignored his responsibilities and sometimes even other peoples feelings. After his injury, he shut down and had no concern for things happening if they didn’t concern him. Unless a situation or action directly affected him, he ignored it. He was having a hard time dealing with his injury because he could no longer play football. Football was everything to him and he seemed lost because he could no longer do what he loved. Although, this does not give him an excuse to ignore other peoples feelings regarding his actions.
Similarly, he ignored Alex’s feelings at the end of the first season when he kissed Jackie. He knew that Jackie and Alex were dating but still ignored it. I am not saying that Jackie didn’t have anything to do with it but Cole should not have betrayed his brother. Cole does have a lot of good traits but still needs to learn how to handle his own feelings without hurting others.
Finally, Alex Walter. Alex is caring, intelligent, and always supportive. Although he can be insecure, he often plays the victim and is constantly competing with Cole. At the beginning of season two, Alex was still angry at Jackie for kissing Cole while they were dating. I totally understand why he was angry but felt that at times, he was taking it too far. Additionally, Alex abandoned his friendship with Kiley and when she confronted him about it, he insulted her. Alex started getting attention from more girls during season two and his ego rose to the point that he didn’t try to keep up his friendship with Kiley. This really hurt Kiley. Eventually, Alex notices that she was angry with him and tries to hang out with her again. He expected Kiley to just let things go back to the way they were, but Kiley did not forgive him. I think this is very reasonable on Kiley’s part because Alex truly pushed their friendship to the side and ignored her feelings. Alex should have noticed he was hurting Kiley and should not have abandoned their long-term friendship. Alex has many good personality traits, but also has often acted childish.
Overall, both the Walter brothers have pros and cons to their personalities. Cole needs to work on handling his feelings correctly and Alex needs to act more like an adult when he is having conflicts.
When choosing which set of brothers I like better, I am pretty torn. I see positives in both and negatives in both. Again, these are my opinions, but I hope this can help you choose who you think the better brothers are!