Welcome to teen Girl Talk. Teen Girl Talk. I'm see Zakota. I'm
Frank Nakota, and this week I'm doing an extra credit. I haven't done
one of these in a while. But we said, like two months ago
we would finish Curl summer, and Frank was like, I cannot. I
just I can't. I won't. I refuse on principal alone, I will
not. So I'm going it's so low. And I watched all six episodes
of the remaining season two yesterday and I had already seen them. But goodness
gracious, when you binge it does it make the the glaring issues with the
season so much more evident. So, Frank, can you just catch the
listener up on what you remember from the first four episodes of season two.
We are split between nineteen ninety nine and two thousand. Uh huh wait,
summer ninety nine, Winter ninety nine, summer two thousand, respectively. It's
a six month increments. We have our one of our protagonists, but I
don't remember the name of so I'm just gonna call her Megan. Yeah,
she lives in a van. No, you're talking about Isabella. She lives
in an airstream trailer. Okay, listening airstream trailer. She is not a
van lifer. She lives in a van street fanstream trailer fan stream. Okay,
you're like some combination of those words. She has mom who's kind of
loopy, who not her mom. Okay, wait, I'll give you just
a brief overview of the Landry family. The Landry family is Debbie, that's
the loopy mom who sometimes has cancer, sometimes doesn't, depending on who wrote
the episode. We have Megan, the older sister. She is one of
her main protagonists. We have little sister that disappears for three quarters of the
show and the writers continuously forget about. Then we have Isabella, who is
an exchange student that Debbie is putting up in the airstream trailer. Yeah,
she has a mysterious past. Yes, Megan will go from like upbeat popular
team and make the cruel summer transition to possibly smelly team but also kind of
a golf hacker between definitely greasy, like whatever they decided to style her hair
in, it's like so much pomade. Yeah, between summer nineteen ninety nine
and summer two thousand and For our douchey dudes, we have Luke who has
been best friends with Megan since growing up. She has a little bit of
a crush on him, but it doesn't want to ruin the friendship. So
when Isabella says, Hey, I'm interested in Luke, do you mind if
I hit that, Megan's like, have at it. Luke has a terrible
other older brother named Brent, who makes videotapes of people he is intimate with
without their consent. They have a terrible dad named Steve. They have a
dead mom, and Steve basically runs the entire town of Chatham, which is
in the Pacific Northwest, and he is an overbearing dad that wants his son
to follow in his foots steps. Luke Brent already is, but Luke wants
to become a cop and is super tight with the sheriff. Brent likes to
achieve his sex tapes among the family videos. That is true. This for
a dude house. It's pristine, but also has the logic of a dude
has where you would mix in family memories with your ill gotten sex tapes.
Yeah, let's see, Well, Steve is definitely the type of guy who
would hire a maid service and be really condescending to them constantly. Yes,
Okay. So, starting in episode five, we see Isabella writing postcards to
Lisa. Oh no, that's dead, but that was also true. That's
just such a funny way to t look's dead. Season in death, not
like he's a ghost, but he doesn't know what type thing. He dies
somewhere between Winter nineteen ninety nine and Summer nineteen ninety nine. This is also
he does not die Summer two thousand, frank Like, the time travel element
gets very complicated in this show. And also at the winter, the confusing
Winter nineteen ninety nine party where everybody stands outside in the cold and watches a
movie that's an organ It's the craziest part that a video of what people think
is Luke and Isabelle is shown to everyone. Everybody thinks Isabelle, Luke,
Isabella, Isabella was cheating on that, Luke was chooting on Megan with Isabella.
Yeah, and then it turns out it's actually Meghan on the tape.
I'm very confused what any of this matters. And that leads to Luke and
Brent. Luke ineffectually trying to make Brent pay for this. Yeah, so
he brings in Brent's box of ill gotten sex tapes to the sheriff and Steve
bad Dad. Steve uh freaks out and is like, you never embarrassed the
family. So in episode five, we're starting to see that Isabella has a
questionable pass and but she and Meghan are very close and in the winter of
ninety nine, she gives Megan a computer that is like bar and above anything
Megan could ever purchase. Uh. This is where there is a sort of
conspiracy theorist y two K Truther who lives in a super fancy house in the
middle of the woods. I'm so sorry if you hear my cat yelling,
he is furious we won't let him into the basement. And this why two
K truth or Ned hires Megan to do some hacking. Megan being a hacker
is like basically employed as a plot device whenever the show needs her to get
information she wouldn't otherwise have. We fast forward to summer two thousand. We
find out that when Luke died, Megan was pregnant. She didn't tell her
mom. Now the news knows because Isabella's lawyer told the news, and Megan
is like, it's either her or me. I want her out of the
house and back in summer ninety nine. The way we start to learn more
about Isabella's past is Trevor shows up. Trevor is the older brother of Lisa,
supposedly Isabella's best friend. We learned that Lisa drowned when she was drinking.
This is important, this will come up again. And Trevor's like,
you're like an Abercrombie and Fitch weirdo. Now I don't understand what happened to
you? Why do you care about and sink? And she's like, I
have best friends and he's like, and you're dating Luke. So Trevor is
here to let us know that Luke is a hay seed in his opinion,
and Isabella changes it up depending on you know, where she's at. So
Megan sees Isabella kiss Trevor. Isabella is kissing Trevor in order to shut him
up, basically, and Megan's like, hey, guess what. I was
excited to see you cheating on my best friend because I'm interested in my best
friend. And Isabelle's like, we can death make that happen. So the
ending of that episode is in summer two thousand, Debbie's like, Isabella,
I love you, but you gotta get out of here, and Isabelle's like,
cool, definitely, we're on the same page. But Megan did give
me a bag of incriminating evidence and asked me to get rid of it and
I didn't, and it's in the airstream trailer and you should check that out.
So then Debbie goes and finds the shopping bag of incriminating evidence and it's
a bloody pillowcase. And she immediately goes to her daughter and is like,
hey, I love you regardless, but it kind of seems like Isabella kept
some evidence and indites you. Is this Luke's blood? End of episode Questions
comments, follow ups A lot, Yes, please pursued, Okay, so
this is okay. So Megan's pregnant, yes, I don't remember in any
of the earlier flashbacks, and they mentioning a baby, so that, oh,
frank, they dispatched that baby like you would think this is as a
pregnant seventeen year old, this would be a pretty big plot point that Megan
would have feelings about this pregnancy, especially now that she knows the father of
this of the baby had died. Nope, Debbie's like, well, what
happened and Meghan's like, don't end a plot. We are just never going
to find out what happened to that baby. Other than that, Luke has
a terrible response to finding out that Megan is pregnant, and well, I
mean, we'll get to it, but this phantom baby, I don't know
if it got written out or doubt or whatever. But no, you are
correct, and you do not need to worry about that baby because it does
not figure into the rest of the plot. Okay, this is one of
the many loose threads of Cruel Summer season two. Oh my god, I
just can't believe how bad the sounds. Kids are hard. Like when you
were describing Cruel Summer season one, I think you got through like two episodes.
Well, I was like, I need to be in on the show,
like cause that's this sounds so amazingly bonkers. This sounds so pedestrianly boring.
I mean, this is the thing. Like I kind of gave up
writing comprehensive notes after episode seven because I'm like, one thing happens every episode.
Like, if you try to unravel Cruel Summer season one, it would
be very difficult because it does move in a natural cadence and you do need
to know each beat, but this is so haphazard that you could kind of
because the thing is there's very I think everyone does their best acting the show.
And I can't even blame the writers because it seems like someone was brought
in for each episode. So it's like, how are you going to kind
of like keep cohesion if you're not in the writer's room for the entire sort
of run of the show. But I don't know they really did this show
a disservice because and okay, so see episode six is a great example of
this, because now Megan is fully in the hacking lifestyle because of the sex
tape. She starts canceling plans with Isabella and Luke, which causes them to
act out because they're both like people who can't deal without the attention of Megan.
So in winter of ninety nine, they're supposed to go to the Polar
Plunge. Megan gets an im from Ned the Y two K Truth and is
like, I can't go. Sorry. The entire episode is watch mccallo,
focused around this birthday party that they're having for Luke. In summer of ninety
nine, Megan has decided that this is the day after he was jumped by
Isabella. Oh, also, Luke lost his virginity Isabella and then she like
jumped him two days later so Megan could have him. It's like, if
this was a plot line where the genders were swapped, we would be like,
that's really gross, and like the idea that dudes are like kind of
trading this person around is gross. But because they're best girlfriends, it's kind
of like, h well, whatever, I guess Luke wants this. It's
bizarre, so go go ahead. Afterwards, is this spell like once again,
this proves there's nothing you possess that I cannot take away. Well,
that's the thing Bran Isabella had Luke. And when Meghan's like, I'm kind
of interested after I saw you cheat on him, Isabella's like, yeah,
you can have him. That's fine, I don't care. And so then
at this summer ninety nine luke b Day party, Luke gets very drunk.
Him and Megan are super into each other, even though Megan had been like
kind of seeing Jeff who's the guy with the video camera, and Jeff basically
has to confront her at the party and be like you are all over Luke.
It is so like obvious, you're interested in him, and Megan's like
what me No, next day her and Luke are together. Then in summer
of two thousand, they have a memorial for Luke, and so we're kind
of bouncing between Luce bread party in the memorial for Luke, and then in
Christmas ninety nine, like Winter ninety nine, we're just focused on Ned's y
two kbum bunker. That's sort of all that happens during episode six. Okay,
the bunker comes out of left field. Well, this is what I'm
saying, Like she goes from being so many interested in programming to be like,
I'm full on hanging out with this middle aged man who got fired from
his job for assaulting his boss. It's Ned doesn't regret it. He's like,
my boss shelved the sort of tech I was working on, and he
was a jerk. Anyway, Like it's it makes you very unsettled that he's
hanging out with this teen girl all the time. Okay, so so wait
a minute, Okay, sure absolutely what so so if I remember coaching from
Winter nineteen ninety nine, she's still not like terribo golf Megan. No,
So she's just like well, I hadn't you know I had a sex tape
with my boyfriend or what do you want to call him? Exposed to everyone
gotta go hang out this bunker Yes, so she, I mean understandably has
a little bit of mistrust of Luke and not a bunker guy. What's up?
Not a bunker guy. He's not a bunker guy. Uh. So
she's like, with bunker guy, you know what you're getting. Yeah,
He's like, hey, I will. Because the other part is this is
when we begin to learn that Megan is taking sides. Oh, I forgot
about this. The scholarship plot line is so annoying. People in the subreddit
have said that the scholarship that Megan mentioned literally multiple times in episode at the
time that this show is set, it was a diversity scholarship. Megan would
not have gotten it. It was need based, but Megan would not have
been eligible for it as a white woman. So like the fact that this
show is like scholarship, scholarship scholarship, it probably would have just taken a
cursory Google to figure that out. So then it because the whole supposed crux
of the sex tape is that Megan to lose her scholarship, and that's why
Isabelle is lying and saying it's her. I remember that. I remember.
We're very confused about that as well. Yes, So in episode seven,
we are post party and Polar Plunge, post party, pre bunker. Well,
no, she's in the bunker. She's been to the bunker. That
was what she was doing instead of going to the Polar Plunge, was helping
Ned shore up his bunker. So, uh, Luke, I forgot this.
Luke had tried to kiss Isabella at the Polar Plunge and then lied to
Megan about it because Luke sucks. So Luke lies to Megan and says Isabella
kissed him. In summer of two thousand, Meghan gets in trouble for making
fake IDs and hacking, and then in December, like winter of ninety nine,
Meghan finds out about the pregnancy. They're going to a New Year's party.
H Ned and Luke have a fistfight in the parking lot of the party
store because Ned talks to Megan and also Ned hates Luke's dad, Steve.
Uh, there's some sort of blood feud between them. So did I not
write any notes for episode eight? I did not write any notes for episode
eight. Have we been. We're just finishing up episode seven. So episode
eight is only I think it's only winter ninety nine. No, oh my
god, it's a car wash episode. So in summer ninety nine they're doing
a car wash, Luke and Meghan are fully together and everyone's like And then
in winter of ninety nine, Megan finds out that Luke has been basically been
telling everyone that he could bed both Isabella and Megan at the same time.
And Megan is obviously upset about it because this is the father of her unborn
child. So her and Isabella are like furious about this. Then in summer
of two thousand, Megan loses her scholarship. This plot line just kind of
limps along and finds out that Jeff, the guy that she threw over for
Luke, got caught trying to buy a six pack with his fake ID and
snitch her out. So then in episode nine, now that Megan knows that
Luke is a terrible person and lying about her all over the place, her
and Isabella, we're done with summer ninety nine. We don't go back to
Summer ninety nine at all. We're just in Christmas Eve ninety nine and New
Year's ninety nine with a little bit of Summer two thousand sprinkled in, and
they drug Luke. They first Megan makes it seem like it's like, ooh,
I'm gonna tie you to bed romantic, but then they drug Luke.
Video record him admitting that he was bragging to the guys about how like being
able to manage both of them. He admits that he's the one who made
the sex tape, that he messed up and he thought it was one of
his brother's tapes and gave it to the caterer to play, which makes no
sense. And then he tells Megan that he and Isabella slept together and that
Isabella made him lie to Megan, and Megan is mad at both of them.
Isabella tells him to shut up and is holding a gun on him.
There's a lot of screaming. Isabella shoots like fire's a bullet at Luke and
Nix's ear, and then the girls leave him there. Megan and Isabella are
fighting. Megan wants to go untie him the next morning because he's learned his
lesson, and Isabella's like, he treats you like trash. Just leave him
there. He sucks. And there's a lot of discussion about what the cameras
because Ned's bunker is right next to the cabin where all this happens, so
there is a discussion about what those cameras might have picked up. So Megan
hacks into the police server to watch the evidence that they have gotten from the
bunker cameras. Ned's gone. I don't know where Ned went. He will
come back later. But the sheriff catches Meghan and Isabella in Ned's bunker,
which makes no sense. So once Isabella finds out that they have access to
the camera the bunker cameras, she skips down and Mega's like what. And
then by episode ten, Megan is being charged with Luke's murder because Isabella has
doctored the tape that they made when Luke was all tied up and drugged.
Brent admits that the murder was his fault because Luke did escape and he's all
sad and drugged, and he goes down to the dock. He beeps Brent.
Brent shows up and he and Luke get into an argument about their mom's
death. Brent pushes Luke, Luke hits his head on the ladder, sting
since the lake. Brent jumps in, tries to find him, can't find
and brings his dad back. His dad can't find him, and so Brent
admits this. The sheriff arrest Brant and lets Megan go. And then Megan
is going to the dock just say goodbye to Luke. She notices a camera.
I don't know why the cops didn't watch the footage. How long would
it take to watch the footage of New Year's Eve? They didn't watch this
footage? And she sees Luke's body has washed ashore. Luke is still alive.
Oh who's that? It, says Abella, and she steps on Luke's
head and drowns him and then just pushes his body off into the lake.
Show ends. That sounds like it sucked so hard. Okay, thinks I
will say, everybody acted their fucking hearts on this. I so they had
an acoustic version of Dragula by Rob Zombie. I would like you to end
this episode with the actual song Dragula. Yeah, so they're play Dude through
the dis and burns like acoustic slow song. As Megan watches this terrible footage,
the face acting that the actress that played Megan did very powerful in this.
I'm like super annoyed with the show at this point, mega frustrated,
but I was moved. I teared up. I was like, oh my
god, this must be so terrible. Oh. The other part was we
see Isabella on a flint to Ibiza and she makes a new friend, is
lying about her friendship with Megan and introduces herself as Lisa. It's a lot
and the main so I really do like the subreddit because people are you know,
like analyzing and debating, and a lot of people are like Megan and
Luke treated Isabella like shit and like, yes, she shouldn't have murdered Luke
Abby. But they said it felt like such a sort of like last minute
call or like a Hail Mary to save the season, because if you look
at this twist in season one, you could imagine it happening, but it
is so chilling and you leave the season being like fuck this. I was
just like, okay, apropos of what though, like it just it doesn't
it doesn't have the same impact. Yeah, like that ending to Cool Summer
one reshapes everything, Yes, just to go back and rethink about, like,
oh my God, everybody's motives, everybody's troops like, and it changes,
like I forget the two I know one of these name is Jeannette.
Yeah, thank you. It changes their like forgiveness into this twisting knife in
your heart. Yes, it's so powerful. So I'm very glad I did
not make you watch the rest of the season. I feel like you would
have been grumpy, understandably. Okay, So so they have cameras all over
the place, Yes, but for some reason, where are these? But
this is still nineteen ninety nine, so these are the most Oh my god,
Frank, I'm so sorry. I forgot the most egregious part. So
you know how Jeff is always carrying around his camcorder, right, Yeah,
So they're at this warehouse party. It's New Year's party. So there is
music, there talking, there's drinking, there's yelling. The footage they have
of Megan and Isabella scheming Jeff is roughly twenty feet from them in the middle
of a party. The sheriff has to say, we had our sound,
guys, isolate your conversation. In what fucking world is a late nineties camcorder
just filming at a party? Going to pick up one distinct one bespoke conversation
in that din a huge echoe room. Yeah, like sound technology, Like
it would just be like, that's prank. That's if you even heard them
talking. There was music, what do you call it? Crazy Town was
blasting butterfly a sugar Baby here. Okay, that's the song they opened the
scene with. And then the Sheriff's like, oh dude, you are hi
tech. We isolate your conversation and Frank, it is as clear as a
pin drop. We need to make Luke pay. Yeah, We're gonna get
revenge on Luke. What it would be like if you were on a subway
platform at rush hour and you were like, there was someone standing twenty feet
away from me and over the din of subway cars, the crowd, the
general echoiness. With my phone, my camera phone, my phone camera,
I recorded this conversation. What are you in the CIA? Does Jeff have
future technology? Okay, well here's my question speaking of that, is you're
telling me there's security cameras over the place, right? Yes? Are these
also man four seven so somebody can switch out the maybe six hour tape that
they have, right? These are all an online servers. That is the
biggest little horseshit. I've ever heard it's nineteen ninety nine. I know,
I know. They are all on servers where you can remote in and watch
streaming crystal ass clear video like NASA did not have capabilities like that at that
point. Yes, So what I'm gonna say is watch it if you are
a die hard Cruel Summer fan, like I had to because I just had
to know. But if you are a casual viewer, watch season one and
leave it there. Yeah, because holy shit, grasping a straws doesn't even
like cover it. I mean, the thing is like maybe I'm just I
don't know what the word is, just pessimistic. But the big twist of
Luke being an asshole does not come to me as a huge twist. Still
is like this character is so punishable. I was, like, it's true,
like Luke is like whiny and entitled and even sort of the signifiers that
are supposed to make him seem like a good guy they don't land because Luke's
friends are assholes. His family is a bunch of assholes, like you know,
like attracts like, but we're gonna be trying to do more extra kindit
episodes. So if you have any ideas for us, you can write us
at real teengirl talk at gmail dot com, send us down a rabbit.
Yes, please do because, like I hadn't done one of these in a
while, and as much as I was frustrated by this particular project, it
was interesting. It was like fun to do. So until next week,
I am Susie Coda Team Codem Watch the Worms jag Jagg