All I want for Christmas is… the truth. I bet that’s what Megan is saying right about now after the bombshell letter from Trevor at the end of Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 5.
Christmas is supposed to be a joyous time, but it was the complete opposite in Chatham as the series continued to dig into the mystery of who killed Luke, drilling into Megan and Isabella are the prime suspects.
I’ve been going back and forth with the possibility that maybe Isabella is simply misunderstood or is framed (as she alleges to her lawyer) but after this episode, I’m convinced that wherever she goes, trouble follows.
The most significant development is the confirmation that her “best friend” Lisa is actually dead. All things seemed to point in that direction as Isabella would always mention her former bestie, but it was always in the context of the past tense. She was like a ghost haunting Isabella’s life, a ghost she was looking to replace.
Another huge red flag was when she would write her letters and postcards but never hear back from her friend. The series is set in 1999/2000 on the cusp of the internet, but I would think there’d be some way to stay in touch with Lisa if she were alive, especially since she was Isabella’s “rich friend” with plenty of resources to communicate and visit.
When Trevor, Lisa’s brother and Isabella’s former flame, blew into town, he made it very clear that Isabella was hiding something tragic from her new crop of friends. And he was shocked at how quickly she moved on after “everything that happened.” He even alluded to the fact that Isabella was trying to run away, which made her look even guiltier.
Flash-forward to the most recent timeline and Megan, who has just been outed to the town as a scorned formerly pregnant teen, receives a letter from Trevor with a newspaper clipping of what really happened to Lisa, and it’s eerily similar to what happened to Luke. It’s not uncommon for someone to drown, but it also cannot be a coincidence if Isabella is the nexus.
Megan seems genuinely shocked by this development, which means that while she allegedly knew plenty of her best friend’s secrets, she never found out about Lisa’s death prior to this moment. And I’m going to guess that her whole perception of her now-estranged friend has changed as she questions whether she ever even knew her at all.
CRUEL SUMMER – ÒAll I Want for ChristmasÓ – In Summer 1999, Isabella is rocked by a surprise visit from her past. In Winter 1999, IsabellaÕs concerns for Megan lead her to some surprising news. In Summer 2000, family loyalties are tested. (Freeform/Ricardo Hubbs)
BEN COTTON
Trevor didn’t feel it was pertinent to let Megan and her friends know about that summer when he visited, but after word spread that Isabella was now involved in another mysterious murder, he seemed to think it might help solve the case.
Plus, I seem to think he’d be eager to get some revenge, and he knew that sending that newspaper clipping would fan the flames and point the finger right at Isabella regardless if she was guilty or not.
I don’t know if Isabella is guilty of murdering Luke, per se, but she is guilty of something. Her lawyer—which I’m starting to think might just be her mom trying to protect her (they seem way too close)—reminds Isabella that she has plenty of secrets to hide, so it’s not great if anyone is snooping around her life. Isabella also reminds Megan that if the cops begin to dig into what Megan was doing the night of Luke’s death, they’ll learn all of her secrets, and that can’t happen.
It’s unclear what happened that night or how they were involved, but they definitely know far more than they are sharing with authorities.
Isabella also seems keen on stirring the pot, particularly when she got overly jealous of Megan—who she said she felt slipping away–and followed her to Ned’s place on Christmas. Instead of confronting her friend and trusting that she’d tell her the truth, Isabella ran right to Luke to inform him of Megan’s whereabouts. Why would she do that? Was she genuinely concerned or did she want to come between them? And why did she assume the worst? It’s possible that Ned and Megan were just friends.
It’s also possible that they were much more. Megan seems drawn to him likely because he’s this brilliant computer programmer that she aspires to be. He’s a lonely man who is now getting too much attention from a young and impressionable girl, which can be problematic.
Then there’s the pregnancy reveal of it all. Isabella’s lawyer went rogue with the reveal that Megan was pregnant at the time of Luke’s death to divert attention from the fact that there was tons of money planted at the cabin making Isabella a prime suspect.
The series automatically wanted us to believe it was Luke’s child, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was Ned’s?
When Megan confronted Isabella about leaking the pregnancy, it became clear that she never even confided in her best friend about the news as Isabella admitted she saw the test in the bathroom on New Year’s.
There are a lot of possibilities here, with one theory being that Isabella told Luke, who then confronted Megan and realized it wasn’t his baby. Luke could’ve then confronted Ned and a fight ensued with either Ned or Megan (as you’ll recall, she’s a good shot) shooting at Luke, which would explain the graze on his ear.
I also can’t shake the feeling that Megan didn’t want the baby as it would derail the ambitious college plans she had, so she enlisted Ned’s help in getting the child aborted, which possibly didn’t sit well with Luke and led to an altercation that resulted in an accidental death.
When Megan’s mom asks her daughter how the pregnancy was resolved, she changes the topic and doesn’t say more about it.
It almost seems as if there are two separate storylines happening in the aftermath of the sex tape, with Megan pulling away from Isabella, which didn’t sit well with her.
There’s a pattern here for Isabella that involves forming an obsessive relationship with a friend while also engaging in a relationship with said friend’s close friend/brother. It’s seemingly what happened between Isabella, Trevor, and Lisa, though with Megan and Luke it was more of a love triangle since they aren’t siblings. However, we also don’t have any confirmation that Trevor was Lisa’s brother and not just a friend that she pursued, which eventually led to Lisa’s death by drowning. They do mention feeling guilty about not telling Lisa, so maybe she stole her best friend’s boyfriend and it led to a catastrophe, which is why she’s all too happy to back down when Megan informs her she does have feelings for Luke after all.
Again, it’s clear that at the center of everything is Isabella, who happens to have an obsessive personality when it comes to her bestie and has a string of jealousy coursing through her veins when she isn’t the main character in Megan’s life.
And if she’s managed to lie to all the people around her—the people she’s claiming are her closest family at this point (she tells Lisa they’re “all I could ever want in a family,” which is petty creepy)—there’s simply no telling what she would do or how far she would go to protect them. Isabella is like a chameleon, and Trevor’s arrival proved just how much she’s changed since last summer simply to blend in with the people she was trying to be friends with. You cannot trust a person like that.
I don’t think we can even rule out Isabella killing Luke because she thought he was going to take Megan away from her and derail her college plans.
And now that the Landry’s are shunning Isabella–Debbie finally sided with her daughter and temporarily kicked Isabella out, while Megan insisted that they were never friends and that Isabella was “delusional” for thinking that—I’m wondering how she’s going to retaliate.
At this point, I’m convinced Isabella is lying to everyone around her, including people from her past life, and even to herself. But what’s the end game?
What happened between these two to lead to such a shift in their friendship? And what does Megan have hidden under her bed? Does it have something to do with her pregnancy? Is it Luke’s belongings? Or is it proof that Megan is working with Ned to frame Isabella?
There’s really no telling how any of this ends, though I’m open to all the theories you all have because maybe I missed something! It seems every scene is a clue that they want audiences to piece together, so let’s put your detective hats on and share your thoughts in the comments!
More For You to Read: Cruel Summer Review – Springing a Leak (204)