Megan & Isabella’s story should continue after season 2

Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Cruel Summer Season 2.

A harsh summer Season 2 takes us to the seaside town of Chatham, Washington, where good girl Megan Landry (Sadie Stanley) is her life changed forever when Isabel (Lexi Underwood) – the well-travelled, troubled daughter of a diplomat – arrives to live with her for a year. The first season of the Freeform anthology series featured the conflict between Jeanette (Chiara Aurelia) and Kate (Olivia Holt). Season 2, however, is a story about friendship. At least, until Megan’s boyfriend, Luke (Griffin Gluck) ends up getting murdered and the girls’ fast friendship is torn apart by the brief events before, during, and after his last night alive. However, unlike where we leave Kate and Jeanette behind, the twist at the end of the second season is far too open-ended, meaning that this is not the end of Megan and Isabelle’s story or it will be a complete disappointment .

How does ‘Cruel Summer’ season 2 end?

Finally, in the A harsh summer At the end of season 2, we know the truth. No, it wasn’t Brent (Braden de La Garza) who killed Lucas, as he believes. It was really Isabel. In the closing moments of the finale, Megan found a camera pointed directly at the dock where Luke spent his final moments. Strangely, she watches the tape. In short order, Isabel found Luke dying on the beach after his confrontation with Brent – sometime after Megan and Brent returned home. After a moment of consideration, Isabella held Luke’s head under the water with her foot and drowned; he was too weak to move after everything his body had been through that night. Then, she pushed the body back out into the water, where it was found months later. Megan starts to cry upon learning the truth, but her sadness quickly turns to anger, and she gives the camera a stern look.

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Of course, we learn this after already officially that there is no hope for Isabel and Megan’s relationship. After a fight between the girls, Isabelle changes the tape of their “interrogation” of Luke when he was tied to the bed, so it looks like Megan was the one who shot him, giving a weapon to enough for the police to charge him with murder before Brent admitted his version of events. After selling out her best friend, we then catch up with Isabel on a flight to Ibiza, starting a new life. The girl next door, Michelle, talks to Isabella, who promises to be a partner in crime and party leader before introducing herself as Lisa – yes, her ex-friend’s name ‘ before Isabella who died of suspicion before Isabella arrived at Chatham. .

We need more than Megan and Isabelle

While we understand that this popular anthology series ends every season with a shock like this (and hopefully there are many more to come), this cannot be the end of Megan and Isabella’s story . In A harsh summer Season 1, Kate and Jeanette’s stories came to satisfying conclusions where, at the end of the day, it was possible to move on and live their lives with the new normal. Yes, it was surprising that Jeanette knew Martin (Blake Lee) had kidnapped Kate, but that twist worked because it didn’t change anything except our understanding of Jeanette. Kate didn’t find out, meaning it would never affect her, and we could leave the character behind with some closure – although given the chance, we’d love to see Kate bring Jeanette down.

In comparison, the end of season 2 is too open-ended. Megan knowing the truth changes everything, because it would have been the same as the previous season’s twist if the audience had just learned that Isabel was Luke’s murderer. Instead, knowing Megan, she is willing to get justice for the boy she loved. For the fourth time in a 10-episode season, Megan’s life has been rocked – first when Isabella arrived, then when Lucas went missing, then when his body was found, and now the revelation this. She lost almost everything because of Isabel. At this point, there is no peace with this ending because it provides no closure for Megan. Are we supposed to believe that she just forgets about this and flies to California to start her new coding job? Fat opportunity.

We barely got to know Isabella in ‘Cruel Summer’ season 2

Also, unlike Jeanette, Kate, and Megan, we still don’t know who Isabel is. Is that even her real name, if she’s passing herself off as Lisa now? Maybe, but there is still a question. We never learned what happened to Lisa, although we can suspect that Isabella played a major role in her death. The twist in Jeanette’s story made perfect sense because, in the previous episodes, we saw Jeanette’s dark side rise to the surface as she became desperate for popularity. If we had really gotten to know Isabel and found out why she acted the way she did – trying to get close to Megan, her anger at the Chambers men – this twist would be even more satisfying. to watch Really, at this point, who even is Isabella? It’s clear that we’ve only ever seen the cautious side of the character she’s made herself, but we haven’t even discussed who she’s really into until she “accidentally” shoots Luke.

In short, A harsh summer Season 2 doesn’t leave viewers with enough satisfaction or closure with this story or these two young women to move on. It was hard to move on from Kate and Jeanette, but it made sense; there was no more to the story than that required to be told. What Jeanette did was horrible, yes, and it would be a different story if Kate had been killed by Martin, but she wasn’t. Kate escaped and got a second chance at life. Isabel’s crime is even worse, and it is strengthened by the fact that this is not the first time she has done something like this, and it will not be the last. How can we make peace with that?

All series of A harsh summer now streaming on Hulu.