Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 7 Review: It’s the End of the World
Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 7, “It’s the End of the World,” raises the stakes between Megan, Luke, and Isabella but loses momentum when the ball finally drops on Y2K.
The episode bridges some necessary gaps in Megan and Luke’s relationship as well as Ned’s involvement in their lives. But where Cruel Summer succeeds with the former, “It’s the End of the World” never finds the sinister motive it needs in the latter — even as a red herring.
Similarly, New Year’s Eve’s events complicate Luke’s dynamics with Megan and Isabella enough to stir up negative feelings. However, the thriller has yet to incentivize the girls to solidify their spots in the mystery’s suspect pool.
“It’s the End of the World” plays with its title best in the subtle directions it takes divorced from the direct events leading up to Luke’s death — and Y2K.
The one-two punch of Megan and Luke running through the woods like kids in Summer 1999 and Megan realizing her pregnancy test is positive in Winter 1999 works as an engaging juxtaposition of the evolution of innocence and, ultimately, the loss of it by Summer 2000. Those themes are the sharpest tools in Season 2’s arsenal.
That sequence of events compounds Megan’s heartbreak overhearing Luke at the party and the very adult fallout of Luke’s death in Summer 2000. For instance, Sadie Stanley brings gravity to the scene where Megan learns that having a misdemeanor permanently alters her higher education goals at the University of Washington.
Moreover, Megan’s disappointment at the party plays well because the show finally gives her and Luke the space to recognize their feelings in Summer 1999. Similarly, the scene where Luke boasts to his friends roots its believability in Luke’s new pattern of lying on Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 6, “The Plunge.”
As exciting as it is to see them come to the forefront, it’s frustrating that Cruel Summer spends less time exploring Megan and Jeff or Isabella and Luke. The plot wants those beginnings and endings to have an impact, but “It’s the End of the World” makes the show’s case for why they don’t in the same way Luke and Megan do.
Megan and Luke’s relationship needs clarity for it all to come together and fall apart.
To get to that cliffhanger that presumably leads to the domino effect of Luke’s death, Megan has to fall in and out of love with Luke. The issue is that the same must also be true for Isabella — to some degree — because Megan says, “I think we should get some serious payback. I want to make Luke wish he never met us.”
The first-person pronouns inspire a unity between Megan and Isabella that aligns with the show’s prioritization of their complicated friendship but clashes with their motivations because of the unbalanced depictions of their relationships with Luke.
“It’s the End of the World” finds its saving grace in Isabella’s loyalty to Megan.
The past six episodes prove that she would do anything for Megan regardless of how little Cruel Summer sells that Luke hurt Isabella enough for her to want to do anything drastic.
So even this far into the season, it’s still unreasonable to believe either girl is capable of murder, let alone consider that a next step.
The end of the episode wants to play as a scathing prologue of a deadly night, but the cliffhanger finds a more enticing angle in the promise of more significant answers than any intrigue in how far Megan and Isabella will go.
“It’s the End of the World” plays a similar chord with Ned.
His dynamic with Megan is inappropriate and strange, which Luke points out during their physical confrontation in Winter 1999, and Steve ironically notes, considering Brent’s behavior, in Summer 2000.
Cruel Summer depicts the character as someone who is unpredictable and exists — literally — on the outskirts of Chatham. He touts an aggressive or negative demeanor and a gun for much of the episode.
Alternatively, the episode also represents Ned as paranoid and scared. Though none of Ned’s characterization excuses the problematic nature of his relationship with Megan, it doesn’t make him a prime suspect in Luke’s murder either.
If anything, there is more contention between Ned and Luke’s father, who is a far more suitable suspect in the season’s mystery so far.
Though an unreliable source, Brent admits that he doesn’t believe Megan killed his brother, but Brent hasn’t looked closer to home. Frankly, neither have the authorities, which aligns with Steve’s reach as represented on Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 3, “Bloody Knuckles.”
The point is Cruel Summer has yet to narrow down its suspect list with irrefutable evidence, and — in the story — it’s running out of time.
With three episodes left and this cliffhanger leaving no additional room for the season to avoid answers, there’s hope that Cruel Summer Season 2 will turn its tide after “It’s the End of the World.”
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Cruel Summer airs Mondays at 10/9c on Freeform.
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Shelby Elpers
Shelby is a TV enthusiast and pop culture writer. She's an avid podcast listener, green tea drinker, and soccer fan. Her brand can be summarized in rom-coms, superheroes, teen dramas, and workplace comedies.