HELLO, CRUEL WORLD

Cruel Summer, Freeform’s hit thriller, returns with a brand-new cast and an even more twisty mystery

- DAMIAN HOLBROOK

Cruel Summer

SEASON PREMIERE

Monday, June 5, 9/8c, Freeform

Want a gripping TV mystery? Start in a small town that’s got big problems. Take Chatham, a sleepy Pacific Northwest beach hamlet, where you’ll find troubled teens, shady parents, bitter betrayals—and a body washing ashore. It’s the perfect setting for the twisty new installment of Cruel

Summer, Freeform’s hit anthology series. The first season, which aired in 2021, recounted a 1990s tale of an abducted Texas high schooler (Olivia Holt) and the classmate (Chiara Aurelia) who may have been complicit in the crime. That season set up the unique conceit of Cruel Summer: All the action ping-pongs between three different timelines, so you get a clearer picture of how the evolving mystery unfolds.

Season 1 took place over three consecutive summers; for Season 2, new showrunner Elle Triedman is working in a far more compressed space. Armed with a fresh cast and a case of young love gone awry, Triedman’s installment tracks a trio of periods within a single calendar year at the end of the last millennium. “You can see reflected within each episode how the actions in one timeline have repercussions in the others,” Triedman says. And if you think Y2K was nuts, strap in. “Chatham is a crazy, crazy place,” she says with a laugh. Here’s a peek at a year in the life (and death) of Summer’s hot spot.