#‘Cruel Summer’ Season 2 Showrunner on Fan Theories and That Midseason Cliffhanger

[This story contains spoilers for Cruel Summer season two, episode five.]

Halfway through its second season, Cruel Summer’s murder mystery is heating up.

“It’s a huge bomb that’s dropped,” says showrunner Elle Triedman about the recently released episode five cliffhanger. “It just makes the characters — and I hope the audience — reexamine everything they thought they knew.”

Coming off the heels of a successful debut season, the Freeform anthology series reset itself for season two, introducing new characters (and a new cast), a new story and new setting to its audiences.

“There’s a lot of pressure,” Triedman tells The Hollywood Reporter of joining the series for its sophomore run. “The fans are fierce. They spend a lot of time; it’s kind of amazing, just reading their theories. They look at everything.”

With producer credits on shows like Revenge and Devious Maids, Triedman stepped in as showrunner and executive producer after the Freeform hit was overhauled following a breakout first season, replacing Tia Napolitano as showrunner. Set in a Y2k-era Pacific Northwest beach town, season two follows the complicated friendship between Megan (Sadie Stanley), her best friend Luke (Griffin Gluck) and new girl in town Isabella (Lexi Underwood), and the love triangle between them that ends in a mysterious tragedy.

At the close of episode five, Megan learns shocking news about Isabella that could change the course of their friendship — and the murder mystery — forever.

“We always looked at her as being this meteorite that hits this town,” Triedman says about Isabella. “She’s a catalyst for all of this change. And yet at the same time, despite the fact that she’s very sophisticated and worldly, she is a very vulnerable teen girl who desperately wants a family and a friend group.”

In conversation below, Triedman dishes on the midseason twist, reading those fan theories on Twitter and her thoughts on the season finale.

How did this show come to you?

I had actually watched season one as a fan, as a viewer. Shows like this are really hard to pull off, and I thought they did a beautiful job and really stuck the landing. So when I came in, I knew that I wanted to really look at that intense friendship between two high school girls, and sort of build a friendship out of nothing; and then make it crash and burn and see what comes out of the ashes. I also knew I wanted a murder to really center the story and give it some narrative drive. And, I love a good murder.

I saw an article before the show dropped that the season two trailer was on track to become Freeform’s most-watched trailer ever. After the success of the first season, what was it like heading into those expectations?

It was very important to me to not repeat anything from season one. At one point in the writers room, we talked about tracking a bracelet or a piece of jewelry, and it was like, “No, the necklace was a big thing in season one, right?” So really, it was just trying to honor the anthology and make it feel of itself. But there’s a lot of pressure. The fans are fierce. I was just reading theories a little while ago about the logic and meaning behind the fake IDs between which mystery writer each character gets, so that’s kind of fun.

The show is nostalgic in so many ways. Did you pull inspiration from anywhere in particular?

Real life and film, and just trying to really look at the small town of at all. The idea that it’s very hard to keep secrets in a place like that, where you walk down the street and someone drives past and sees you. But it’s also fun to play in the sandbox pre-internet and social media. You can miss a phone call; that’s actually a thing. It gives you a lot more opportunity with that. I really wanted to make a fun summer show. I wanted that kind of guilty pleasure fun. Our actors went above and beyond — it was a record cold in Vancouver and they were out there in their bathing suits, acting away. They were incredible.

The show consistently bounces between the three timelines. What is the biggest challenge in taking on a format like that?

The biggest challenge is really tracking it within itself. In a perfect world, you would write all of the scripts, lay them out on the floor and then sort of shuffle the deck, and cut and paste. Production time doesn’t allow for that. But I actually liked the compression of the time that we looked at. Especially in senior year of high school, everything changes. So it’s the summer before senior year, it’s winter break, and then it’s the summer after. It’s also a time when everyone’s trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be. It’s a time of reinvention. For Megan, she’s grown up in this town where everyone saw her in this one little box. And then she sort of branches out; and then she branches way out. Isabella comes and has this very clean slate. No one knows anything about her, so she’s really putting her best foot forward, offering her best self and trying to break into this kind of insular community.

The twist at the end of episode five leaves us on a cliffhanger when we learn that Isabella’s friend from home Lisa also drowned, similarly to Luke. Isabella was already a complicated character, but now, the audience is left to wonder if she was behind Luke’s murder. What went into crafting her journey?

We always looked at her as being this meteorite that hits this town, and it hits Megan. She’s a catalyst for all of this change. And yet at the same time, despite the fact that she’s very sophisticated and worldly, she is a very vulnerable teen girl who desperately wants a family and a friend group. It’s very exotic to move all around the world, but you don’t have any real roots. So she comes really wanting roots and meets Megan, who just wants to sort of shed her roots and get out of the small town. So it’s a nice contrast, you know, and then they get to the point where they find each other. But, you know, Isabella was always sort of an agent of change coming in.

There are so many foreshadowing moments, hints and ironic lines throughout the show. From a writing perspective, is that fun to pepper in all of those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments?

Yes, and also, some things are just conversational. You would say, “I’d help you bury a body.” Well, will she?

Amid the twists and turns, is there an episode, perhaps its episode five, that you feel changes everything for these characters?

Episode eight is interesting, because it’s the end of summer ‘99. It starts on New Year’s Eve, the last day of 99, so that’s sort of interesting. But I don’t know that there’s any one episode that kind of spins everything. Because once you get to the end, when you look back, there are things that were in place early, and [if you] blink, you’ll miss it. Certainly episode five. It’s halfway through the season. It’s a huge bomb that’s dropped, and it just makes the characters — and I hope the audience — reexamine everything they thought they knew. And rightly or wrongly, it also makes you look back at the truths that were told and the lies that were told or the information that was left out, and it sort of shakes all of that up.

There’s also so much nostalgic, early 2000s music in the show. Did you have a hand in curating some of those selections?

That was so much fun. We did not have a big music budget, so every song had to pack a real punch. There were certain songs in my first draft of the first episode, I had “Every Morning” by Sugar Ray, certain songs like “Steal My Sunshine.” and “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” When I was writing and going through post for the last seven months of last year, I listened to best hits of ‘99 and 2000. So there are songs that I loved then that I still really like hearing. And then there are the songs that are like “Oof.” It’s those songs that would play in the summer, a car would drive by and you hear them blasting it. Or you go to the beach, and everyone back in ’99 was playing it on their stereo.

And the cast has such great chemistry together. What was the energy like on set?

They were great. You never know, especially now; we did Zoom casting. I remember we did a chemistry test for Sadie and Griffin, who play Megan and Luke. And serendipitously, we did it on a Sunday morning, and they’d been at the same party together that weekend. They actually had met each other and it was just electric. But all of the kids were great. They hung out, they were good friends off set and on. They were really supportive of each other. It’s funny because most of them weren’t even born in 1999. They’ve probably never seen a fax machine or anything like that.

You mentioned looking at fan theories. Do you ever find yourself checking social media after an episode drops to see what people are saying?

I lurk. I lurk on east coast Twitter sometimes. I love how engaged everyone is. I love seeing people’s reactions in real time. I also have friends and people texting me while they’re watching saying, “I think this person did it!” I’m like, “I’m not gonna say anything.”

My theories change every episode.

That’s the fun of the show.

Knowing that this is an anthology series, and that Megan and Isabella’s story might be at its end with this season, how do you feel about where the show concludes?

I’m very happy with our ending. I think we have a very strong season finale and I was thrilled with it.

What do you hope audiences take away from this story?

I hope they’re surprised. I hope they’re well-satisfied. And because it’s the nature of our audience, I hope they have lots of their own theories, as well.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

New episodes of Cruel Summer debut every Monday on Freeform