Freeform takes viewers back to the 1990s to unravel the mystery of what happened during a movie Cruel summer
The ’90s drama, which premieres this Tuesday with two episodes (at 9 / 8c), centers around the awkward teen Jeanette (Tell me your secretsChiara Aurelia), who longs to be beautiful and popular, just like her classmate Kate (Cloak and daggerOlivia Holt). Jeanette gets her wish – and much more than she bargained for – as she seemingly takes over Kate’s life when the other girl goes missing. As each twisty episode explores Jeanette’s possible connection to Kate’s disappearance, the drama goes all in on the idea that “there is a very fine line between being a hero and being a bad guy, or being a victim and being a bad guy”, showrunner Tia Napolitano says.
“We looked at women in the 90s who were a little bit stung by the media,” Napolitano continues. “We watched Monica Lewinsky or Lorena Bobbitt… they were pure media villains. That’s it, one side of the story. With Cruel summer, we are going to live with these real people and learn that reality is much more of a gray area than just a black and white hero / villain story. “
With every episode set more than one summer day in three different years – 1993, 1994, and 1995 – the show’s characters are constantly changing, leaving viewers wondering where the truth lies. “There is a huge evolution for Jeanette,” says Aurelia. She starts the show [with] childlike excitement, leading to a more mature and pressured version of popularity, and then to a more sad and depressed dark time in her life. “
Meanwhile, the Kate who first meets the public in ’93 seems to be living the perfect life, complete with a prosperous family, a hot boyfriend, and a group of loyal friends. “Kate represents to Jeanette what she strives for and what she wants to be,” says Aurelia. “Kate is someone she really admires and she looks up and thinks it is beautiful and fantastic in every way.” But if Episode 2 switches to Kate’s position, “you’ll see the cracks and the reality, and nothing is ever as perfect as it looks,” Napolitano notes.
The season then continues to alternate between the two girls’ POVs during those three pivotal years. “The way the stories are told is very unique,” says Holt. “I’ve never seen anything like it on television, and it’s just so captivating and enchanting in its own way.”
The female-focused story and ‘nostalgic’ 90s setting of the show, with its spaghetti strap dresses, butterfly hair clips and dial-up internet, also attracted Napolitano, who came on board as a showrunner after the pilot, which was written / created by Bert V. Royal (Recovery Road, Easy A
“There are many refunds. Cruel summer is a time machine, and it brings you back there ”, Napolitano describes. In addition, the time period presented some welcome challenges, in the sense that “people don’t have smartphones, people don’t even really have a cell phone. If you were really rich, you might have a car phone. But you can’t just pull out your GPS, you can’t immediately follow someone or text someone or Google something. So that made it very engaging as far as it was a setting for a mystery show. “
But Napolitano’s favorite aspect of the ’90s re-creation? “It was definitely the music,” she says. The show’s trailer (see below) and premiere feature prominently in Garbage’s “Stupid Girl,” and every subsequent episode features at least one iconic ’90s tune. Some of the song shocks even Napolitano. “We have [The Cranberries’] ‘Zombie’, which was phenomenal! she exclaims. “And we have ‘What’s Up?’ by 4 Non Blondes, who we were told we’ll never get – Linda Perry never knew anything – and we got it, so that’s really exciting to me. “
For the young cast, however, some of the 90s elements turned out to be a bit puzzling. “I didn’t know how to work with a Walkman,” admits Holt. “I was like, ‘This thing is huge. How do you do this?’ So I had a lot of people to explain to me what it was and how it should work. “