Megan is very in-demand as Isabella and Luke subtly battle over their respective connections with her during the penultimate episode of Cruel Summer season 2.
In an Us Weekly exclusive sneak peek from the Monday, July 24, episode of the Freeform series, Luke (Griffin Gluck) is surprised to hear that Megan (Sadie Stanley) has plans with Isabella (Lexi Underwood) that don’t include him.
“When are you going to Madrid?” Luke asks his girlfriend before Isabella answers instead, “Next summer.”
Megan, for her part, tries to argue that “it’s not definite” before her friend points out that she started the application process for a passport.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Luke says about the unexpected revelation. In response, Megan clarifies that nothing is set in stone yet, adding, “I was going to. If it happened.”
Meanwhile, Isabella praises Megan for growing away from her life in Chatham. “When it happens. She needs to travel. Get out of her comfort zone. Staying in one place too long is bad for the soul,” she notes.
The scene, which takes place during the winter 1999 timeline, comes amid Luke’s tense relationship with Isabella. The pair briefly dated before Isabella pulled the plug so Megan could make a move on her childhood best friend.
Things took a turn, however, when Luke later tried to kiss Isabella and then lied to Megan about who was at fault. The show has teased throughout season 2 that the issues between the trio eventually led to Luke’s death. His body was discovered in summer 2000 and Isabella and Megan have since been considered suspects.
After Cruel Summer’s sophomore season debuted last month, Stanley, 21, revealed that the cast was kept in the dark about the biggest bombshells.
“We were learning things as we were getting the scripts, and we didn’t know what part our characters? played in the death of Luke. Then everything that leads up to that — we didn’t know all of it,” she exclusively told Us. “It was just about getting to know our characters and who they are and why they are the way they are.”
Stanley added: “Each episode is kind of set up so you’re suspicious of somebody new and you’re left with a new piece of information to mull over in between. I would just say don’t trust any of the characters. It’s not as simple as who did it. It’s all about how we got to this point and what led to it. Not everybody is who they seem.”
Underwood, 19, meanwhile, warned fans not to make assumptions about who is to blame. “I think another big mystery — just like the mystery of Luke’s death — is who a lot of those characters are deep down. [There’s a] mask that they’re putting on to hide everything that they are internally going through throughout all those three different timelines,” she told Us at the time. “So you definitely have to keep your eye open and understand that everyone is trying to take control of their own destiny and with that things get messy and a little bit selfish.”
KaDee Strickland, why plays Megan’s mother, also weighed in on the way answers would be introduced on the show ahead of the finale.
“What ran through my head [reading the finale script] is, ‘There are answers. We have an answer, thank you very much!’ But what’s great is they did not shoot just one ending,” she shared with Us earlier this month. “When we watch it, there’s scenes that we filmed that aren’t in the show. Whether they were necessary or not, the final edit is different than what I read or filmed, sometimes. And that’s also great. I mean, that’s part of the joy of doing this. I need to be the audience too sometimes when the story’s this compelling.”
All cast interviews were conducted ahead of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
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Cruel Summer airs on Freeform Mondays at 10 p.m.
