Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 4 Springing A Leak Review And Recap- Sex, Lies, And Videotapes-All The Important Details

As usual, everything we thought we knew about Isabella, Megan, and Luke was smoke and mirrors. There is so much going under just below the surface that it’s hard to know who we can trust. Is it the good girl gone wild with everything to lose or her seemingly devoted boyfriend from a wealthy, connected family? Is it the new girl blown in from overseas with a questionable past and parents who ship her away rather than deal with any problems? Maybe it’s any number of ancillary characters that have shown a propensity for vicious or outright criminal behavior? Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 4 peeled back the layers and, in the closing moments, revealed a shocker that puts everything in question. Here are all the critical details from each timeline.

July 23rd, 1999

Luke, Jeff, Isabella, and Megan are going to go to the only bar nearby if they can make convincing fake IDs. Prior to about fifteen years ago, it was relatively easy to create fake IDs. Before the 2000s, you didn’t need a computer or photo shot, just a pen, glue, and a scrap of paper. Jeff’s photography skills and Megan’s hacking make it a walk in the park for the pair. The important takeaway from these early scenes is Isabella telling Megan to put all bad things in her rearview. Denial is Isabella’s favorite pastime, and with a mysterious friend she never seems to communicate with and something terrible that happened in St. Barts, I wonder what else she is denying?

The other important detail is fleeting. Megan gets a message from someone offering her help with C++, a computer language. We know Megan is a gifted coder, but why is she hiding this conversation from Jeff and the others? Was she, not such a good girl even in July 1999?

At the bar, the girls get in but not the boys. Megan begins drinking rum and cokes and later does tequila shots before they see the Sheriff and leave in a hurry. We think he also sees them, which, coupled with the sex tape, makes it reasonable that he wouldn’t trust Megan. The boys wait in the car for them and discuss Luke’s inability to follow directions. Did he fail to follow directions on the day he was killed?

The party continues at Luke’s house, and Jeff and Megan kiss, as do Luke and Isabella. Did something more serious happen that night between Luke and Isabella, and Brent caught it on tape? Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 4 is stingy with the answers.

December 23rd, 1999

Megan wants to be a white hat hacker and thinks she can put herself through school and send money home doing it. She has shown some skills, but I wonder if the mysterious messenger is the one who is telling her about this. However, before she can pursue that further, the plumbing springs a significant leak in the kitchen ceiling. Unfortunately, they have no money to fix it as the emergency fund was used last year. Debbie thinks Steve would help, but Megan doesn’t want to ask him for help. Isabella tries to give them the 5K she claims her parents gave her for Christmas, but they refuse to take her money. Later Megan tells Isabella that money complicates everything, making me wonder if, at some point, Megan takes money from Isabella.

They go to Steve’s house with no money to fix the plumbing and nowhere else to go. It is awkward from the beginning, and not all is Brent’s fault. Isabella looks uncomfortable about Megan and Luke kissing, and Megan becomes jealous when Luke remembers Isabella’s favorite potatoes. It’s a messy love triangle that only gets messier when Megan finds Isabella’s bikini top in Luke’s bathroom. Megan is jealous and frustrated by Isabella and Luke because she thinks they don’t have any problems. She struggles daily just to pay the bills, and everything monetarily comes easy to the two of them. We know both Luke and Isabella have things going on that are troublesome.

A tense dinner ends in disaster when Brent acts like an entitled monster, and Debbis demands an apology. When she discovers that Steve knows about the tapes(plural), she is disgusted and lets him know. The argument ends with Steve slut shaming Debbie for getting pregnant twice by a man that wouldn’t marry her and Debbie telling Steve that reputation isn’t as important as doing the right thing.

It’s ugly, and Brent acts terribly. Luke brags to Megan that he handled Brent and he was being punished by having to work for his father, but that isn’t exactly how things went. Brent is basically getting off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist from Steve, and Luke isn’t happy about it. The next day, Steve does pay for a plumber for Debbie as a way of apologizing. I’m sure he won’t punish Brent anymore, though. Likely he is doing this favor for Debbie to buy her silence.

The three essential details from this timeline in Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 4 are Isabella searching for something in Luke’s bedroom. She may have been in Brent’s as well. She claims she was looking for more tapes but is that the truth? Megan accuses her of sleeping with Luke because of the suit discovery, which Isabella denies. She pushes back hard and says I’m letting the entire town think I’m a slut for you. “Do you need me to kill for you?” she says. That seems like an extreme response considering I’m unsure who the girls would want dead. Brent is an awful person, but they do not know how horrifically he would behave at dinner or that he was getting away with everything yet. Has Isabella killed before?

Secondly, the Northland Deal is dying, thanks to the sex tape. Investors are concerned that Steve’s morals do not align with their values. Reputation is everything to Steve, and this could destroy not only this deal but every deal after. Is it possible Luke found out something about his father that Steve killed him for? I don’t trust Steve any further than I could throw him.

Someone that sounds like Jeff is calling Megan’s house and slut shaming Isabella. Debbie asks Megan if this is all worth it to keep a scholarship. Megan is desperate to get out of her small town and go to college, so she is willing to endure whatever she has to. Her resolve obviously gets tested in the months to come as additional secrets and lies come out. In just five short months, Megan went from a straight-A student who never did anything wrong to a girl with many secrets. She got a C+ on her report card. All of her other grades were A’s. Is there something else to this grade? Was something happening with this teacher that we haven’t seen yet?

July 23rd, 2000

There are several details in this timeline that bear remembering. Megan put what appeared to be a bloody dress in the trash can, and Isabella saw it. We have no idea what happened or if it is related to Luke’s disappearance, but Megan wants it gone. Why she kept it all this time, I can’t imagine. In the final moments of Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 4, we learn Megan was pregnant in December of 1999. The Sheriff thinks that gives her motive because he asks her if Luke rejected her. We know he was deeply committed to gaining his father’s approval, so I’m not entirely sure I don’t believe that. To date, Luke has been a sweet, well-meaning, if clueless, guy with a terrible brother and father.

If Megan’s account of the last night that she saw him can be trusted, he was terrified of something and needed to leave town. She claims she left him at the cabin with a plan to take him to the train station after work the next day. She would then deliver the letter he wrote for his father and stay quiet. When Luke wasn’t at the cabin the next day, she assumed he left without her and delivered the note anyway. Her behavior in the previous three episodes in her private moments makes it appear she didn’t know he was dead. If she didn’t kill him, who did?

The police took Megan’s laptop, but she had a kill switch coded on it, and when they tried to access her files, they destroyed themselves. She was panicked that there were things on the computer that couldn’t get out and spoke to someone on the phone about the code. Is this the same person who was messaging her in July of 1999? I wonder if it is something unrelated but damaging, like Megan changing her grade from a C+ to an A using her skills? That would be bad but probably unrelated to Luke’s death.

Megan’s pregnancy is a shocker. I think the bloody dress is a red herring. I think she was wearing this dress and had a miscarriage, and the blood is from that and not from whatever happened to Luke. There is still so much we don’t know, and Cruel Summer loves to zig when we think it will zag. For the first time, Season 2 has had some of the urgency of Season 1.

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