Cruel Summer Recap: Teenage Dirtbag

Cruel Summer Recap: Teenage Dirtbag,What exactly is the plan here, girls? A recap of ‘Confess Your Sins,’ episode eight of season two of ‘Cruel Summer’ on Freeform and Hulu.

Cruel Summer Recap: Teenage Dirtbag

Season 2 Episode 8 Editor’s Rating3 stars ***

Photo: Justine Yeung/Freeform Now, girls. What are we doing here? I understand that Luke is an asshole, and I’m sure that came as a shock. But we can’t just go around kidnapping and drugging every teenage shithead in America. Who would the Republicans nominate to the Supreme Court? At the very least, you should maintain a united front if your revenge plan goes sideways.

“Confess Your Sins” is a wild ride of an episode, so let’s start with the good stuff. When I said that Megan was activated at the end of episode seven, I confess I did not realize quite how activated she was. Having lured her prey to the empty cabin, Megan suggests spicing things up with a little light bondage as a special New Year’s Eve treat. Luke — 17, horny, and a bit of an idiot — enthusiastically agrees to be bound by the wrists to the bedframe with utilitarian rope normally used for things like anchoring sailboats. Once Luke is shirtless and firmly secured to the bed, Isabella makes her dramatic entrance down the stairs. If only Luke knew just how fucked up this was about to get.

Thus trussed, Luke is already in a more than vulnerable enough state for questioning, but the girls think he needs a little “truth serum” as well, so they prepare three solo cups. In her own cup, Megan pours only cola. Isabella’s cup has cola and a healthy pour of rum. Into the third solo cup they pour cola, rum, and the contents of three benzodiazepine capsules, then make Luke drink this concoction from a straw. Next, they point a video camera in his face and begin hounding him for the truth about his shit-talking.

In addition to being morally questionable, I really wonder how well this plan was thought through. What are we hoping to achieve here? If it’s shame, patriarchy dictates that nothing Luke says on this video will come close to the revenge porn tape, so you might as well just pants him at the prom or spread mean rumors about his sexual performance. It’s less illegal and it would be more effective. If it’s the truth, well, don’t you already have it? Isn’t that why you’ve tied him up like this and made him your bitch? A camera only gives him more reason to lie, and plus, it’s got lots of incriminating evidence against you guys.

And remember, Megan and Isabella made this plan before they even learned the worst of it. Luke cops to plenty of gross behavior — using the revenge porn tape to boost his status amongst his bros, bragging that he’s going to have a threesome with both of them, watching some of Brent’s homemade sex tapes — but provides only two pieces of genuinely new information. He confesses he was the one who videotaped himself and Megan having sex without her consent, claiming weakly that he thought it would be hot and it was just for them. Oh, Luke. We all trusted you and you’re really just a pig. Even worse than Brent, in Izzie’s opinion, because at least Brent doesn’t pretend to be decent.

Thoroughly disgusted, Izzie and Megan are about to just leave him there, so Luke panics into making one final piggish act. He blurts out that Isabella lied to Megan, too — because Isabella never said that she and Luke had sex when they were together — and Megan immediately whirls on Isabella. Girl, can you focus, please? Your boyfriend just admitted to secretly filming you having sex, and you’re pissed about this? Luke seizes his moment and starts in on how possessive and smothering Isabella is, how she’s trying to come in between them, how it was all her fault … and suddenly Isabella is pointing a gun at him and shouting, “TELL MEGAN THAT I’M A GREAT FRIEND! TELL HER THE TRUTH!” Girl, what? There is something going on with Isabella that I must have missed because this is simply not the behavior of a well-adjusted or even medium-adjusted person.

I do understand why Iz was frustrated, not that the gun-waiving-around was at all warranted because we know Luke is lying. Back in summer 1999, we all saw Luke beg Isabella not to tell Megan they had sex because Megan thinks she and Luke will be each other’s firsts, and Luke is too chickenshit even to be honest about that. Other than the other two Chambers men reaffirming their essential natures to the audience — Brent unties Izzie’s bikini top at the car wash after she rejects him, and Steve tells her, “Boys will be boys. You’re okay.” — nothing much of note happens in August ‘99.

In August of 2000, however, the walls are closing in on Megan and Isabella. Sheriff Myer has finally gotten around to taking a close look at the video evidence he’s had for months, which, coupled with a few photographs taken by Veronica Mars, leads him right to our girls.

The police department tech has managed to isolate the sound on one of Jeff’s videos from the New Year’s Eve party (sure), so you can clearly hear Isabella and Megan plotting revenge against Luke that very night, which contradicts their alibis and also gives them both a motive. Boo-yah. Now that he’s on a roll, Sheriff Myer hits ‘em with the ole prisoner’s dilemma: telling both girls separately that each has blamed the other for bringing the benzos to the cabin. You’d think a decent lawyer would advise their client to shut the fuck up now, but both Isabella and Megan immediately flip on the other.

Who’s telling the truth? All we really know is that back in January, Isabella was holding the gun. And it fired.

Clues to Watch

• If Isabella shot the gun, why did she take the bloody sheets Megan tried to toss out of the garbage for Debbie to find?

• I was wrong to think Steve had dropped the Isabella thing.

• Wait, what happened to Ned?

• Literally, why does it matter who was on the revenge porn tape? I don’t get it.

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