In May 2021, Cruel Summer began airing on Freeform, a teen thriller series starring Chiara Aurelia and Olivia Holt as teenage girls at war with each other in the small town of Skylin, Texas. But this was no ordinary teen drama and it was definitely no ordinary thriller series, either. As viewers learn that Jeanette (Aurelia) and Kate (Holt) are involved in a nasty lawsuit because Kate was kidnapped and claims that Jeanette knew her location, the show's unique structure becomes more obvious.

Cruel Summer plays with time better than any acclaimed movie, as Kate and Jeanette's combined timelines, narratives, and backstories add up to an incredibly well-done TV series.

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Many horror films use time to tell their story, and Cruel Summer is set over three years. The show is set in 1993, when Kate is super popular with friends and a cute and seemingly perfect boyfriend and Jeanette is dorky with good friends and a desire to be cooler. Each episode then moves into 1994, when Kate has been kidnapped and no one is sure why she disappeared or where she went. In 1994, Jeanette has slipped into Kate's life and position in town, as she has Kate's friends and even falls for Jamie (Froy Gutierrez). In 1995, Jeanette and Kate are getting ready for a trial and they absolutely hate each other. While they were never friends before, they did have a nice enough time chatting when they would see each other around. Now, everyone loathes Jeanette and thinks that she's evil, and fans are left wondering what happened.

Jeanette (Chiara Aurelia) In Cruel Summer

If the show was set over one year or a few months, it wouldn't be as interesting and the reveals wouldn't feel quite as big. The show is so layered because of these three time periods, and while time travel horror movies are a lot of fun, there's something cool and special about the way that Cruel Summer uses its flashbacks and then focuses on the present day. At the end of the pilot episode called "Happy Birthday, Jeanette Turner," viewers find out that in 1995, Kate says on TV that Jeanette saw her in her kidnapped Martin Harris's (Blake Lee) home. If the show was only set in 1995, then fans wouldn't have enough detail and information from the past two time periods and this wouldn't feel like such a twist. But since viewers have seen Jeanette spying on Kate at the mall and hoping to be friends with her, this feels like a massive reveal.

Since flashbacks can be so bad, making something seem corny even when the rest of the show or movie isn't at all, Cruel Summer solves that problem by telling the story over three timeframes. Every look, quote, storyline, and plot twist feels that much bigger, more important, and more terrifying. But the best thing that this teen show does is never tell its audience who is the "good" and who is the "bad" person. In a way, both Kate and Jeanette are selfish and awful people yet they're also like final girl characters who don't know how they got into this mess but are fighting to save themselves. While Jeanette seems like she's completely taking over Kate's existence, which is as creepy as any horror movie premise (and is like something out of Single White Female), it's also possible to feel empathy that she just wants to fit in.

Kate (Olivia Holt) In Cruel Summer

Cruel Summer wins fans over with an incredible pilot episode and gets better from there. It also plays with time to show Kate's trauma and experience with Martin. She wants to find someone who understands her and he starts grooming her as he sees her around. While fans see that in 1995, Kate is in therapy and trying to put these pieces together, and it seems like something really bad has happened to her, in 1993 and 1994, Kate is living with Martin and realizing that he won't let her leave the house.

Most of all, Cruel Summer excels in playing with time to show that Jeanette and Kate are both unreliable narrators. By the time fans learn that Kate shot Martin to save herself, the decision to show three different timelines feels brilliant and intelligent. This lets audiences learn the entire story while also realizing that memory is fragile and neither Kate nor Jeanette could be telling the truth. When Kate apologizes for saying that Jeanette saw her and knew where she was, viewers are stunned to find out that Jeanette actually did know. While sometimes a twist can't save a movie, this twist is so well-earned as fans have been waiting to learn what really went down here. Some fans felt that of course Jeanette knew and for others, it was a shock, and that feels fitting for this show, too.

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