‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Season 1 Episode 2 Recap: “It’s Not Just for Dog S***”

By the events of I Know What You Did Last Summer Episode 2, Alison Grant is actively living her life inside the ruse that resulted from the pivotal, tragic accident of the pilot episode. It’s enough of a mindblower that Alison would accept that she caused the violent death of her twin sister Lennon one minute, assume her identity the next, and then actively help her friends dump the body in an oceanside cave, where they hope it will be carried out to sea. But it’s a mind blower inside a mind blower that her widower father Bruce (Bill Heck) is totally on board with the whole charade. “I lost one daughter today,” he tells Alison in a flashback from the night of the accident. “I’m not gonna lose you, too.” And the two proceed to write out Alison’s embittered farewell letter, blaming her dad for driving the twins’ mother to suicide and for always having loved Lennon more.

“You’re Lennon now. Alison ran away. You made it up — we both gotta live with it.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Do you think her friends would protect you if they knew the truth?”

Heck delivers this last line of Bruce’s with a steeliness that could just be a glimmer of the murkier, more sordid bigger picture in this Hawaiian town, where secrets existed long before Alison, Dylan, Riley, Margo, and Johnny killed somebody during a bout of reckless partying and impaired driving. I know what you did last summer? More like everyone around here has probably been doing bad shit for quite some time. Alison’s dad himself is one example. Bruce is the affable proprietor of Ohana Restaurant & Lodging, sort of a roadhouse/motel for the island hopper set. But he’s also in a hush-hush situationship with local police honcho Lyla (Fiona Rene) that comes complete with a pronounced bondage fetish. And what about Riley’s mother Courtney (Cassie Beck), who works at Ohana? She’s brassy, to say the least, with nothing but hard looks and harsh words for the college kids home for the summer.

And once Alison, as Lennon, meets up with the O.G. crew to discuss that accusing scrawl on her bedroom mirror and the bloody goat’s head hanging in her closet, the group seems casually assimilated to their cover-up. Alison compliments Margo’s new close-cropped ‘do (“Glow-up alert! So K-Stew from Twilight…”) Johnny introduces his fiance Eric, who happens to be their alma mater’s football coach, and soon the pals have moved on from catching up to looking down their noses at somebody to finger. What about Dylan, the emo guy who has shunned the group since that fateful night? When Alison/Lennon finally confronts him, he accepts the caprine warning with a rueful shrug. “We’re gonna get what we deserve. There are no accidents, there’s only karma.” Riley, meanwhile, is her typically nonchalant, sarcastic self. She meets up with Lennon (who is actually Alison, remember) to help dispose of said goat cabeza, packing a jug of Nature’s Miracle. “It’s not just for dog shit, dude.”

But that nonchalance is fleeting. Alison lets slip a tell — she smokes Menthols; Lennon never touched cigs — and she’s being aggressively tailed by a blacked-out Toyota Tacoma. (For someone who’s desperately trying to outrun charges of vehicular manslaughter, Alison spends a lot of time peering into her Jeep’s rear view mirror. Watch the road, homegirl!) Then, a mysterious woman who was seen near the oceanside cave the night of the accident suddenly resurfaces. And finally, when two murders that are absolutely no accident pop off with grisly immediacy (gore alert!), the entire crew receives a threatening group chat from “Alison.” Not the real-life Alison, mind you, who is pretending to be her sister Lennon. This “I’m coming 4 u” complete with a scary clown face would seem to mean somebody was texting the O.G. ‘s from beyond her watery grave. Crazy, if true! And the secrets and whispers of I Know What You Did Last Summer just keep getting bloodier, louder, and harder to keep.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges

Watch I Know What You Did Last Summer Episode 2 on Amazon Prime