We finally got an episode that broke down exactly what happened to Kate Wallis.
And her admission that she wasn’t always in the basement changes everything!
The events of Cruel Summer Season 1 Episode 9 took place throughout the fall of 1993 and 1994.
We saw a breakdown of what happened in the first 119 days that Kate stayed at Martin’s place willingly. Yes, willingly. We got to a deeper look at their relationship and the power dynamics at play.
We even saw the moment that Jeanette broke into the house, lost her bracelet, and allegedly saw Kate in the house. Except from the looks of it, she never actually saw Kate.
Plus, we found out the significance of the snow globe.
Yes, the penultimate episode was jam-packed with the answers we’ve been wanting since the mystery began.
The events that transpired after Kate went to Martin’s apartment following her explosive fight with her parents weren’t surprising, but I was shocked at how good he was at manipulating and gaslighting her into staying.
It was possible because, on some level, Kate wanted to stay. Martin made himself trustworthy, so she trusted him.
The episode painted Martin in a new light. It wasn’t a better light by any means, but he didn’t come off as much of a monster as I initially thought.
There’s no doubt that he groomed her, stripped her of free will, and made her feel like she didn’t have a choice, but he also didn’t plan on kidnapping her right away either, which definitely changed things.
In fact, when he realized just how messed up the situation was, he told Kate to leave immediately. He was even shocked she spent the whole day at his house and skipped school.
If Kate just left when he asked her to, none of this would have happened!
However, Kate felt safe with him. He made sure that she had nothing left because he became her whole world. He turned off the news about her and made her think everyone gave up looking for her. He was her only source of information.
Martin struggled to shake his impulse, but he always knew what he was doing was wrong, which is why he kept telling Kate she couldn’t leave or else she’d destroy his whole life. He made her feel personally responsible so that even though she was free to walk out at any moment, she never did. He didn’t need to lock her up to trap her — he did that by mentally manipulating her.
He isolated her from everyone by making her think she had to choose between him and them. And since he was always nice to her and there for her, she chose him over and over again until she was 18 and this would somehow be okay.
When she stopped choosing him, that’s when the problems began.
As more time passed, they realized they were in too deep.
Even then, they were both living in a delusion as Kate’s age wouldn’t have changed the situation. The moment they would’ve left the house, they would have to answer for all those months that Kate was missing right under everyone’s noses.
This was never going to end well, and they were both avoiding the inevitable outcome.
When Martin realized he was losing grasp of Kate and could not longer manipulate her, he did the only thing he could think of in the moment to protect himself and locked her in the basement.
And even then, he allowed Kate to go down there willingly because she wanted to grab her luggage. Martin was so twisted.
She had so many opportunities to run free — she even left in the middle of the night and saw her parents — but the very idea that everyone had forgotten about her and was happy without her was too much to bear.
If she had only gotten there a moment later, she would’ve seen her parents breaking down instead of laughing and maybe the whole situation would’ve turned out differently.
Kate began feeling lonely, homesick, and bored. And who can blame her — no matter how much Martin tried, she was stuck inside his home without anything to do. What a sad and lonely life.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that Martin treated Kate like a doll. He enjoyed taking care of her and tending to her every need, and though he didn’t necessarily mean to keep her hostage, he was doing it subconsciously and enjoying it.
When things finally came to blows on Christmas, Kate suggested that he was acting like her kidnapper, which was significant because, in that moment, I think Martin decided what he was going to do.
Kate kept telling him that she wasn’t a good liar, so he figured he had no choice but to lock her up.
Their previous relationship, however, explains why he was so caring towards her even when she was in the basement.
The snow globe came into play during Christmas when Martin stepped out to do some shopping. Kate felt homesick, but she knew she couldn’t do anything about it. She decided to call Jamie in what seemed like an attempt for someone to come find her, which explains the Christmas movie playing in the background, the snow globe music, and her heavy breathing. If only they were able to trace the call back in those days!
Jeanette broke into the house shortly after Kate made the call and stole the snow globe, which explains why she was able to identify it when she heard Jamie’s voicemail.
My guess is that she then gave Mallory the snow globe without telling her where she got it from. When she heard the recording, she wanted to retrieve it as it was finally something she could give her lawyers that proved Kate wasn’t locked up against her will (at least not physically).
If she was, she wouldn’t have been near a TV nor could she have access to the snow globe that was in the living room.
As she booked it out of Martin’s house, she also lost the bracelet Mallory gave her, and Kate picked it up.
Credit: Freeform
At this point, it’s fair to hypothesize that Kate made up a whole story that blamed her situation on Jeanette because she didn’t want to admit that she was responsible for what happened to her.
There wouldn’t be as much sympathy for Kate if they knew she entered a romantic relationship with an older man who was also her vice principal. Grooming was at play, but society has this disgusting way of blaming women for things, and Kate was made to believe that she’d be held responsible for what happened to her.
So instead, Kate decided to make Jeanette the bad guy. And she likely didn’t feel guilty about it because Martin informed her that Jeanette stole her life, which made her the perfect scapegoat.
As the therapist noted, Kate was also hoping Jeanette would tell the authorities that she saw her because that would mean she could leave and not have to break it off with Martin herself.
Her lie was her wishful thinking.
Either way, Jeanette’s life has been destroyed and she’s been crucified by the media, her friends, her family, and everyone in between all because of Kate’s lie.
Overall, I had a lot of theories about what might have happened that got Kate locked in the basement, but the romance theory was the one I nixed immediately because I felt as though it was too simple and predictable.
However, it does explain why Kate was so quick to jump to Martin’s defenses when another student accused him of coming onto her. Even after everything he did to her, she still considers what they had to be true love.
And it seems that even after Martin was killed, Kate still held him in high regard as she wore the pearls he gave her on national television to talk about the kidnapping and accuse Jeanette. How twisted?!
It’s also an important story to tell because romances between older men and younger women are so often romanticized and glamorized on television (hello, Aria and Ezra on Pretty Little Liars!). This shows us just how toxic something that seems “innocent” to a young impressionable woman can really be.
Olivia Holt and Blake Lee did a phenomenal job at executing the storyline because I felt truly creeped out by Martin’s advances towards her. It was disgusting watching them kiss, and it was gross to hear him suggest she should kiss an older man or comment about seeing her in a bikini all the time.
I also found it interesting that Jeanette’s dad was inside Martin’s house when Kate was there and commented on many things including the two coffee cups. The Turner’s have always been connected to this whole thing in a very strange way.
What did you think of the episode? Were you expecting a bigger twist? Are you finally happy that we have answers?
Well, most of the answers. We still have no idea who Annabelle is. My first guess is that Annabelle is their baby and either Kate miscarried or the baby was stillborn. Kate did crave pretzels and felt sick, so it’s entirely possible. Plus, something that traumatic would force her to completely block out the memory as a way of protecting herself.
The idea that Annabelle is Kate’s alter-ego has been shot down, so my second theory is that Annabelle is another student that Martin groomed. There’s been fan theories that Angela blew into town after Kate was found and has just been around for no reason, so maybe she’s connected to this somehow? Maybe she’s Martin’s ex who was lured by him the same way Kate was?
What do you think will be revealed in the season finale? Will there finally be justice for Jeanette? How will Kate make amends for ruining an innocent girl’s whole life?
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