‘Cruel Summer’ Episode 2 Recap: In Your Head, In Your Head

When Cruel Summer last left off, we finally learned exactly how Jeanette Turner went from a geeky, wide-eyed teen to the “most hated person in America.” According to her popular classmate Kate Wallis, Jeanette knew she was being held captive by their assistant principal, Martin, but did nothing to help. But this mystery is a two-hander, and in the pilot, viewers only caught glimpses of Kate through Jeanette’s perspective: As an unattainable golden girl in 1993, and as her vindictive accuser in 1994.

So while the first episode belonged to Jeanette, Episode 2 (titled “A Smashing Good Time”) begins to tease Kate’s side of the story. Once again, it opens on the same date, spread across those three fateful summers: In 1993, she’s a sunny 16-year-old being stage-managed by her overbearing Southern Belle mother, Joy (Andrea Anders), who affectionately calls her “Katie Cat.” A year later, she sits shell-shocked in her bedroom, as Joy’s only idea of comfort is re-piercing her ears. And by 1995, a decidedly grungier Kate dances in front of car headlights… fittingly, to the Cranberries song “Zombie.” And like Jeanette’s birthday was the major event anchoring each timeline in the pilot, “A Smashing Good Time” unfolds around three iterations of the Wallis family’s exclusive Garden Club party.

It remains to be seen if Cruel Summer can sustain its precarious non-linear narrative, but so far, it’s a surprisingly effective way of showcasing how Jeanette and Kate’s dramatic transformations could’ve occurred even without such gratuitous trauma. Unlike some of her high school queen bee counterparts, Kate doesn’t seem to have much interest in flagrantly breaking the rules or trampling people like ‘93 Jeanette, who are already so much lower in the social hierarchy. In fact, when Kate comes across 15-year-old Jeanette in this episode, she seems almost envious of her adolescent awkwardness.

As a Wallis, Kate isn’t allowed such moments. We learn that her father died of cancer when she was a little girl, leaving her and Joy very little. But that all changed when Joy remarried Kate’s stepfather, a charming football coach named Roy (Benjamin J. Cain Jr.) who helped them reclaim their family’s picture-perfect reputation once and for all. So it’s an unspoken imperative that Kate uphold the Wallis name, and as the pressure of acting as an extension of Joy’s own ego builds, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume 1995 Kate might have resorted to petty acts like getting a belly button piercing to spite her mother even if she hadn’t been kidnapped. Cruel Summer wouldn’t work as well as it does without its very capable leads, and watching Holt’s prim sweetness sour into lost bitterness makes for one of the show’s more captivating performances.

But even before Kate and Jeanette’s bitter rivalry forms, this episode takes pains to set up an intergenerational conflict between the Turner and Wallis women. After Kate and Joy coincidentally end up at the same step class as Jeanette and Cindy back in ‘93, Cindy eagerly pulls them aside with an embarrassed Jeanette in tow, grasping for a conversation starter by guessing at the exact shade of boxed hair dye Joy uses. “A Smashing Good Time” fleshes out more of Cruel Summer’s emerging class dynamics, as Joy rebuffs Cindy by cooly mentioning that she wouldn’t know, because she gets her hair done at a salon. When Kate tries to cover for her mother’s remarks by complimenting the “You Go Girl” necklace that Jeanette’s friends cobbled together $7 to buy, it’s clear Jeanette’s shyness isn’t the only factor holding her back from the exclusivity of the popular crowd.

It would be easy to assume that Joy looks down on the Turners for their earnest desperation to fit in. And since their lower middle class background resembles the life Joy would’ve had if Rod hadn’t come along, maybe there’s some internalized classism there. But she seems genuinely bothered by Cindy’s overzealous friendship attempts, suggesting a longstanding resentment that viewers already know will eventually form between their daughters.

Cruel Summer leans into its mystery by slowly turning teen drama tropes on their heads, including one of the most tried and true of them all: A love triangle. After Kate returns and Jamie impulsively punches poor Jeanette, he promises he’s still Kate’s boyfriend… but not before admitting he and Jeanette officially met while he was putting up missing person posters. Yikes! While ‘94 Kate is hesitant to talk to the police about her kidnapping, she changes her mind after catching Jamie sneaking off to speak to Jeanette after the ‘94 Garden Club party. Jeanette claims Kate only blames her because of trauma — apparently she saw Martin gunned down in front of her — and pulls Jamie in for a kiss, only enforcing Kate’s conviction that Jeanette took her place. So a heartbroken Kate finally agrees to speak to the detectives on her case, and as proof that Jeanette saw her in Martin’s house, she slides her classmate’s beloved “You Go Girl” necklace across the table.

But things are never as they seem in a twisty drama like this, and toward the end of the episode, we get our first hint that Kate’s account might not be totally reliable. In ‘95, she logs into a private chat room with a user called Berenice4 to ask what would happen if people found out she hadn’t been completely honest. The Wallis family’s meager attempts to move on from the shadow of their trauma are obliterated once a newscaster announces Jeanette has decided to sue Kate for defamation. We catch a glimpse of Kate in a red homecoming dress, pounding on Martin’s basement door at the beginning of her kidnapping. It’s a flashback that finally envelopes Kate too, as she finally lets out a guttural scream.

While the first two episodes filled us in on how Jeanette and Kate changed so dramatically, Episode 2 also gave the background characters just enough texture to engulf the entire town in their case. Kate becomes convinced Rod is having an affair with his fellow council member Candace, only to learn that Joy is cheating on him with her old flame Scott (Joshua Colson). After she drunkenly catches them in the kitchen, a horrified Kate runs out the door… only to encounter a too-friendly Martin for the first time. Jamie’s best friend Ben, who mainly served as Jamie’s wingman in the pilot, is also emerging as a suspicious figure. After convincing Jamie to hear Jeanette out in ‘94, he meets with ‘95 Jeanette’s lawyer Denise and admits he does blame her for what happened to him… whatever that is. Cruel Summer may be Jeanette and Kate’s story, but in order to get at the heart of their conflict, the mystery will have to spiral out further and further.

READ NEXT: Cruel Summer Episode 3 Recap: “Off With A Bang”

Abby Monteil is a New York-based writer. Her work has also appeared in The Daily Beast, Insider, Elite Daily, Thrillist, and others.

Watch Cruel Summer Episode 2 on Freeform

Watch Cruel Summer Episode 2 on Hulu