Editor’s Note: The following contains full spoilers for Cruel Summer Season 2.
In Freeform’sCruel SummerSeason 2, wild child Isabella LaRue (Lexi Underwood) arrives for a year abroad in Chatham, Washington, and her near-instant friendship with Megan Landry (Sadie Stanley) becomes the center of their lives. Inthe three timelines, we watch how this friendship helps the girls to grow — particularly Megan, who lived a life with no fun and responsibilities before Isabella arrived — and then how it falls apart when Megan’s boyfriend and childhood best friend Luke (Griffin Gluck), who Isabella dates first, comes between them. The big question of the season is what happened to Luke and who killed him, and Megan and Isabella are the prime suspects. Ultimately, while the finale of the anthology series leaves off in an interesting place to potentially continue exploring Megan and Isabella’s story (should they so choose to do so), the identity of Luke’s killer is kind of a letdown and rather predictable.
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Who Murdered Luke in ‘Cruel Summer’ Season 2?
TheCruel SummerSeason 2 finale begins with a drugged and wounded Luke (after being drugged by Megan and Isabella and clipped in the ear by a gun) resting on the dock when his brother Brent (Braeden De La Garza) arrives. After a fight, Brent pushes Luke, who hits his head on the metal ladder on the side of the dock and falls into the water. Brent jumps in but is unable to find Luke in the darkness, and Luke doesn’t resurface. So, thinking he killed his brother, Brent runs to their father Steve (Paul Adelstein). Steve helps to clean it up, and it isn’t until Megan is framed — by Isabella, using doctored footage of their interrogation of Luke — for the murder that Brent confesses, ending with both he and his father being arrested.
But, at the end of the episode, Megan goes to the dock to say goodbye to her first love and notices the sun glaring off of a camera pointing directly at the dock. She gets the footage, turning it on at home to watchIsabella stumbling upon Luke gasping for breathand unable to move on the shoreline. Using her foot, Isabella holds his head underwater until he stops struggling before pushing him back out into the water. Then, as Megan’s sobs turn to pure rage, the episode fades to black.
This So-Called Twist Is Rather Predictable
From the moment of her arrival, it was clear there was something off about Isabella. Her persistence while trying to get close to Megan in the summer of ‘99 was unsettling, especially with Megan’s blatantly bad treatment and disrespect of Isabella early on. In the winter timeline, Isabella’s willingness to take the fall for Megan’s mistakes andher strong emotions over their friendshipfelt a bit like overkill too about how devoted Isabella was to this friendship. Additionally, the entire Lisa situation also made it clear there was something up with Isabella. Learning her former best friend had died suspiciously during their time together immediately created a major red flag, as it was obvious all along that Isabella had played a role in what had happened. And, she was writing letters to her dead best friend as if she was still around to read them, which could have been grief, but it’s clear it was meant to show — as we took it initially — her pattern of unstable behavior.
All the while, Isabella is the person being wronged by the behaviors of the Chambers men the most, as she isn’t given the same mild respect or consideration that Megan is. Brent makes a pass at her, while Luke uses her until Megan’s available. Then, Luke talks poorly about her, slut-shaming her (while she’s taking the blame for the sex tape), and trying to convince Megan to drop her entirely until she leaves Chatham. So, really, it’s no surprise whatsoever that Isabella is his murderer. She became rather wild in the last few episodes of the season, coming up with that plan to interrogate Luke and “accidentally” shooting him. It all comes together and makes sense as a cohesive, well-written story.
It Fails to Live Up to ‘Cruel Summer’ Season 1’s Big Twist
However, it feels like theCruel Summerwriters tried too hard to replicate thejaw-dropping twist at the end of the first season. The reveal that Jeanette (Chiara Aurelia) had known Martin (Blake Lee) kidnapped Kate (Olivia Holt) worked so well because the season kept us on our toes about Jeanette and Kate throughout every episode. We didn’t know who to trust or believe, and earlier in the same episodeJeanette and Katehad figured out that Jeanette didn’t actuallyseeKate. Learning this about Jeanette made everything fall into place afterward, which is what made it so shocking. But, with Isabella, her behavior was too obvious all along. The twist might’ve worked a little better, too, if we hadn’t seen Isabella beginning her strategy all over again with that new girl on the plane to Ibiza earlier in the finale.
So, while the twist was obvious, it also feels kind of cheap and even more lackluster because it failed so spectacularly to live up to that of the previous season. Truthfully, it was more surprising and felt like a complete tale to learn that Brent accidentally killed Luke. It was the culmination of everything the Chambers family had ever done wrong and ended with them finally being held responsible for their wrongdoings. The powerful message of taking down these wealthy men was an interesting avenue to bring the entire season together, showcasing how they ruined everything including Megan and Isabella’s friendship — which, of course, began with Luke’s interference. It would have been a more interesting and impactful story if Isabella had come to Chatham and eagerly befriended Megan to try to grieve her best friend and been sucked into this mess that was already well in the making (due to the darkness in town and the Chambers family). In that way, Isabella’s involvement kind of taints every aspect of the story.
