Who doesn’t love a good teen drama? Especially ones with a twist as fascinating and as controversial as this.

Cruel Summer looks at three separate years 1993, 1994 and 1995 that involve a small town where a popular girl called Kate disappears. However we do not follow the story of Kate originally, instead we look at a girl called Jeanette, a girl who was an outcast but with a good group of friends who once Kate disappeared somehow ended up in her shoes as the new popular girl, dating her boyfriend and being friends with her friends.

So when Kate suddenly reappears after being rescued from the assistant principal’s house and says that Jeanette saw her in his basement but didn’t raise the alarm things get turned on their head as a battle between the two young girls reaches heights, not only at school but in the courtroom as well.

This story is absolutely fantastic because you’re constantly being pushed back and forth throughout these three years and so with each episode something else is being revealed to you, and it’s not until the last episode that you actually find out exactly what happened and how messed up it really was beyond what you could originally think. I found the cast of characters really interesting, Jeanette was very polarising and also a great main character to follow, Kate seemed to have it all when she actually had a very rocky home life and a lot of expectation on her, and I really enjoyed Jeanette’s friends Mallory and Vince. Vince definitely more because he had a lot more depth to him and I did find Mallory’s actress, Harley Quinn Smith, quite hard to watch sometimes because her acting was underwhelming compared to the rest of the cast.

What was really interesting was the twist at the end that I did not see coming. Of course throughout the whole show you believe that Jeanette saw Kate in Martin Harris’ house, and when you actually find out how Kate ended up in his house in the first place, everything changes, and it completely changes what you thought as well based on what these characters have presented so far and what you thought their personalities were like and their morals.

I won’t give away everything in this review because I really think you have to go in blind to enjoy it but I didn’t see the twist coming and while it has been quite polarising online as to whether it was a good twist or not, especially as there are a few in the final episodes, I believe that everything that is shown makes sense to the characters and it shows that no character is truly good or evil and the world isn’t black or white. Sometimes your own prejudice against certain people can affect how you see them and and it’s only when they show their true colours do you actually realise who they are.

But as a great teen drama with a lot of depth to it I think this show is one that everyone should put on at their raiders if you haven’t already seen it because it’s really enjoyable and brings something new to the genre, as well as flipping expectations and making you constantly second guess what people are saying and what you are seeing on screen.

What do you think of Cruel Summer?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding