Cruel Summer’s Season 2 Finale Does Not Live Up To The Hype

Cruel Summer finally revealed Luke’s killer in “Endgame.” But is the answer worth it? Season two has struggled with its story and characters all season. There was never enough intrigue to anticipate who Luke’s killer could be, and the season’s focus on Isabella and Megan never made it seem like anyone other than them could be a legitimate suspect anyway.

What was the point of questioning if anyone other than Megan or Isabella was the killer if all of the supporting characters rarely, if ever, got the opportunity to be developed or given real time to suggest nefarious intentions toward Luke?

Cruel Summer’s single-minded stress on Megan and Isabella ended up being a negative decision by the time the answer finally rolls around. After spending the entire season unraveling the ups and downs of Megan, Isabella, and Luke’s friendship, the answer all came down to an accident, at least, at first.

Brent eventually states that he had been responsible for Luke’s death. But their confrontation is rushed at best and escalates far too quickly, even for a set of brothers who have been known to argue.

Luke and Brent’s final conversation on the dock has Luke recognize his mistakes and seemingly aware that he has hurt those he cared about through his actions. But, when Luke and Brent’s discussion turns to their late mother, Brent shoves Luke, and he hits his head and falls into the water with Brent unable to save him.

While Brent had always been a bad guy, Cruel Summer had not made him out to be a killer. He was entitled and ignored what made others comfortable, more than fine with crossing various lines. However, “Endgame” spends so much time on Brent’s concern about if he will be discovered for killing Luke, that it was only a matter of time before the finale tried to pull the rug out from underneath the audience.

The final moments of “Endgame” are a poor copycat imitation of the brilliant shocking plot twist in season one. Just like in season one, the logical resolution that the main characters come to about the main story has a dark secret behind it. But, in this case, the betrayal in season two is not a hard-hitting shocking final moment.

Luke had still been alive after Brent had left, and it was Isabella who had delivered the final blow of ending Luke’s life while Megan watches the moment in real-time from the security footage.

Cruel Summer relies on vague suggestions about Isabella’s past to pull it off, but the entire season had not done enough to back it up. Season two had far too few twists and turns to pull off a massive finale.

Season two was never able to build the momentum it needed to reach a shocking turn of events. It never developed its characters enough to turn the tide from one person to the other, which is something season one did flawlessly.

Cruel Summer’s first season made viewers question who was really telling the truth between Kate and Jeanette, especially as each episode revealed more about each of them and the events of the past. When the final moments of the final reveal that Jeanette had known of Kate’s presence in the house and had left her there and that she had gotten away with everything on a loophole of not having seen Kate, it is an act of genius.

Kate gets to walk away believing that she had misunderstood Jeanette’s role in everything, and Jeanette gets to walk away being the only person who knows what her role really was in Kate’s disappearance. Considering the season had made both characters come across as liars and suspicious at various points, audiences were on the edge of their seats until the end.

Season two never offers the same complexities in their main characters. Cruel Summer tries to offer a darker side of Megan than the local good girl but never expands on it enough other than making fake IDs and the occasional computer hacking. Megan never holds a particularly dark secret that the show tries to suggest she has.

Meanwhile, revealing that Isabella had another friend who died is only one of the factors that make her suspicious. Isabella has a seemingly unhealthy desire to be Megan’s best friend and a backstory that has so many lies attached to it that even the season finale does not find a way to reveal the truth about Isabella’s background.

Season two struggled with pacing issues in addition to the narrative and characters that were never quite developed enough to live up to the anticipation that season two had received from the conclusion of season one.