Cruel Summer Season 2 Made the Same Big Mistake as Season 1
Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of Cruel Summer.
Resting at the center of all the drama and mystery of Cruel Summer Season 1 was a thoughtful analysis of the pressures put on teenage girls in our heavily media-influenced culture — until its final scene undercut those themes with a shock twist ending. Now, Season 2 has followed in its footsteps, ending with an egregious reveal that does a disservice to the material the show was working with. This time, the season was not as strong, and the twist at the end feels out of step with everything we know about Season 2's characters and central mystery.
'Cruel Summer's Endings Care Too Much About Shocking You
Season 1's finale, "Hostile Witness," spent most of its runtime walking the audience through its mystery one last time as Kate (Olivia Holt) and Jeanette (Chiara Aurelia) came together during the trial to piece things together for themselves. They determined that it wasn't Jeanette but Mallory (Harley Quinn Smith) who Kate saw inside Martin's (Blake Lee) house shortly after she disappeared. Kate and Jeanette then publicly reconciled and began to go on with their lives. But in the finale's final moments, the show cut back to 1994 to show that Jeanette heard and ignored Kate's cries from the basement of Martin's house, just not when Kate thought she had. Jeanette was guilty, and no one would ever know.
Season 2 pulls the same trick again, only more egregiously. The penultimate episode, "The Miseducation of Luke Chambers," had already shifted our perspective on the circumstances of Luke's (Griffin Gluck) murder. That episode revealed that Megan (Sadie Stanley) and Isabella (Lexi Underwood) had left him alone at the cabin overnight after drugging and shooting him. Sometime after this, Luke united himself and stumbled to a small boat dock on the lake. The finale revealed that Luke had reached out to his brother Brent (Braeden De La Garza) for help, only for the rescue attempt to dissolve into an argument that resulted in Brent shoving Luke, who hit his head and fell into the lake. The bulk of the finale is spent on Brent's father's determination to keep the accident a secret until Brent finally decides to turn himself in to the police. But the episode's final moments revealed Isabella had come to the dock later that night and found Luke washed ashore. She then pushed his face into the water to finish drowning him, then shoved his body back into the lake. Isabella was the murderer all along.
The Shock Endings Undercut the Show's Themes
The central idea that ties both seasons of Cruel Summer together is an interrogation of the societal pressure that teenage girls face. Season 1 pitted Kate and Jeanette against each other in a legal battle that transcended the courts into the media cycle. From the moment that Kate accused Jeanette in a TV interview, everyone in the nation had an opinion about what both did and why. Their story became sensationalized, demanding that one of them be the good guy and the other the bad guy. But both Kate and Jeanette were protagonists — Cruel Summer alternated between their perspectives in all three timelines, and the show asked us to sympathize with both of them as the revelations brought forth by the legal battle slowly destroy their families and friendships. It was cathartic to see them come together outside the spotlight and put the matter to bed. But the final reveal undercut that moment of solidarity. Not only did Jeanette lie, but she also got away with it. It completely went against everything the season set up — there was a good guy and a bad guy, and we were right to have suspected Jeanette. Cruel Summer became the thing it was trying to critique.
In much the same way, Season 2 positioned Megan and Isabella as best friends driven apart by the way the people around them respond to their supposed misdeeds. Isabella pretended to have been the girl on the sex tape with Luke so Megan didn't lose her scholarship. But being perceived as having cheated with her best friend's boyfriend caused the whole town to turn on her, and that slowly drove a wedge between them.
But Season 2 didn't just examine the pressures on Megan and Isabella, it also interrogated how the pressures and expectations placed on Luke hurt him and everyone around him. As the season progressed it became clear that Luke's father Steve (Paul Adelstein) was more obsessed with their family's image than he was with raising his sons to be good people. Steve covered up Brent's collection of secretly recorded sex tapes. He was mad at Luke not because he thought Luke cheated on Megan but because the situation reflected badly on their family. Steve constantly berated and belittled his sons whenever they did anything he didn't like, such as when he refused to even consider Luke's dreams of joining the Coast Guard.
The show made it clear this behavior from Steve is what shaped Luke into the kind of teenager who would secretly record himself having sex with his girlfriend to seem cool, who would try and embarrass his brother publicly in front of all their friends and family, who would lie to his girlfriend about kissing her best friend. And almost no one called Luke on it (except for Debbie (KaDee Strickland), Megan's mother). While Megan and Isabella were insulted and vilified after the tape was played, Luke was celebrated by his friends for managing to sleep with them both. The reveal that Brent accidentally killed Luke is perfectly in line with all of this. Every suspicion placed on Megan and Isabella, the torment they went through not knowing what happened to Luke, all the social ostracization since the sex tape was played at the Christmas party, that was all the fault of Brent and Steve covering up the accident. Steve openly admitted that he was trying to get one of the girls convicted so that Brent would be safe. Season 2 did have a bad guy, and it was Steve Chambers.
But the final reveal messes all this up. Everyone was right to suspect Isabella, and Megan was wrong to trust the only real female friend she's ever had. It threatens to undo the real progress that Brent seemed to be making by turning himself in — if he finds out that Isabella murdered his brother and that gets him off the hook for the accident, might he backpedal from that first step he's made toward being a better, more responsible person? And worse, it means that Luke's desperate ramblings trying to convince Megan that Isabella was trying to drive them apart were correct, and he wasn't just mimicking the bad behavior taught to him by his father and older brother. It doesn't change the fact that Luke's actions are reprehensible, but it softens the edge of his misdeeds if Isabella was manipulating them both to keep Megan all to herself.
The Season 2 Finale Breaks Its Already Flimsy Story
Even without considering that all, the reveal that Isabella was a murderer still fell flat on a narrative level. The reveal at the end of Season 1 was at least consistent with Jeanette's characterization throughout the show. Jeanette was always obsessed with Kate and Kate's life, she had access to the key to Martin's house the whole time, and it makes sense given the lengths she was willing to go to cover up her habit of sneaking into the house. But Isabella's murderous turn did not make sense with the facts as the show presented them.
To kill Luke, Isabella would've had to return after Brent accidentally pushed him into the Lake without bumping into Brent on the way. She would've had to track Luke through the woods and get lucky enough to find him washed up on the shore. And even if she managed that, it makes no sense that no one checked the camera focused on the dock that allowed Megan to learn the truth. Ned's (Ben Cotton) cameras cover enough of the space around the cabin that they should've been investigated by the police as soon as it became clear Luke had been in the area. Furthermore, that specific camera should have been found as soon as it was clear Luke fell into the lake in that area. Even if this was consistent with Isabella's past behavior, it's absurd to think that everything could've gone down the way it did.
Cruel Summer undermined itself again, and this time it didn't even do it in a way that makes sense for its story. Season 2 had fascinating and important things to say about the teenage experience and about the disparities between how girls and boys are expected to behave. But all that was thrown out the window when Isabella turned out to be a murderer. Cruel Summer traded its timely and thought-provoking themes for a cheap shock, once again reinforcing the very messages it supposedly wanted to interrogate.
The Big Picture
- The shocking twist endings in both seasons of Cruel Summer undermine the show's themes and message, going against everything that was set up.
- Season 1 explored the pressures faced by teenage girls and the complex dynamic between Kate and Jeanette, but the final reveal of Jeanette's guilt contradicted the show's emphasis on empathy and destroyed the unity between the characters.
- Season 2 delves into the impact of societal expectations on Luke and the strained friendship between Megan and Isabella, but the final reveal of Isabella being the murderer feels forced and doesn't align with the established narrative. It jeopardizes the progress made by other characters and weakens the show's exploration of gender disparities.
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