Breaking Down That Killer 'Cruel Summer' Season 1 Finale

The twisty Freeform teen drama just wrapped up, and it was a doozy.

cruel summer finale
Freeform/Bill Matlock
Freeform/Bill Matlock

Please note: This Cruel Summer Episode 10 recap contains major spoilers.

There are teen series that you keep coming back to for the melodrama—and then there's Freeform's Cruel Summer, which, over this spring and summer, has been utterly addicting. The show, created by Bert V. Royal, about the lawsuit between two teenage girls after one who went missing claims the other saw her in captivity and failed to report it, just wrapped up its first season on June 15. As teenagers are known to keep secrets and bend the truth, the series, told over the summers of '93, '94, and '94, has slowly been peering into diary pages (er, chat room logs) throughout the season, until the tenth episode finally spilled the beans about what really went down between Jeanettte Turner (Chiara Aurelia) and Kate Wallis (Olivia Holt) in the fictional town of Skylin, Texas.

After Jeanette and Kate decided to talk it out face-to-face alone in the now abandoned house of Martin Harris (Blake Lee), it was revealed that Mallory (Harley Quinn Smith) was the one who caught a glimpse of Kate. Then, once it seemed like the show was about to stamp on a Lisa Frank sticker and call it done, a shot from '94 showed that Jeanette did, in fact, break into Mr. Harris' house on yet another occasion and didn't see Kate, but heard her yelling from the basement. It made for a shocking episode for a number of reasons, so to help you sort through everything, we're breaking down the Season 1 finale.

Freeform/Bill Matlock

How exactly did Mallory see Kate?

Once Jeanette's legal camp played dirty by bringing up Kate's chat log that revealed she willingly went to Martin's house and wasn't always in the basement (which, how was this evidence even acceptable in court?), the two young women decided to meet to get to the bottom of what really happened. After lashing out at each other for ruining the other's life, they walked through each of their perspectives of that infamous Christmas Eve in '93. Jeanette said she never went into the basement—she just heard a noise, took the snow globe, and left. She says that if Kate saw her, she figured she wasn't in the basement either, and mentions that theory of hers was confirmed when she heard the phone call Jamie (Froy Gutierrez) saved that featured the sound of the out-of-tune snow globe. Kate admits to being upstairs at the time, and says that when Jeanette left, she came back down, turned off the light, and saw a hooded figure outside looking in.

"But you didn't see my face, did you?" Jeanette asks, and the truth fell into place. Kate admits she didn't see whose face it was, but she saw what she thought was Jeanette's bike, with a card in the spokes and a boombox. It's that bit of information that makes Jeanette point out that bike actually belongs to Mallory.

Turns out, Mallory happened upon Jeanette and wanted to catch her then-former-BFF committing her frequent crime of breaking into Martin Harris' home. Immediately after, she barged into Jeanette's house where she tried to call her out on her bizarre obsession with breaking-and-entering. Mallory asked shat she stole and Jeanette shoved the snow globe into her hands, which is why she ended up with it. Why didn't Jeanette consider it was Mallory that Kate saw if Mallory was following her? Hard to say! Perhaps she was wrapped up in defending herself.

Regardless, Mallory didn't consider it was Kate that she saw at first, since she only caught a glimpse of a blonde woman in the living room on the phone. So, at the time, Mallory assumed it was a girlfriend or sister. When she later put two-and-two together that it was Kate she saw, she figured it was "none of her business," since she was moving freely and potentially wanted to stay hidden. That... seems like a questionable excuse, but it was solely because she didn't want to jeopardize their friendship that she never told Kate later on.

How did Martin Harris really die?

Fans may have been able to piece together the reality behind the allegations between Jeanette and Kate, but one surprising reveal that came out of left field in the finale goes to the explanation to who "Annabelle" is. Or, rather, what Annabelle is. Kate always said that Martin started acting strange the night before she was found—when she met Annabelle—and the finale explained why.

Martin came downstairs distressed and carrying a box, and tells Kate the police came to his house that day and it was only a matter of time before they returned with a search warrant. He says that he and Kate have always wondered how everything was going to end between them, and that their inevitable fate was inside the box. He then opens it to reveal a handgun—a family heirloom named Annabelle (ah, yes, of course!)—that his father used to take his own life and that he nearly used to kill himself. Just after he decided not to go through with it, Kate picked up the gun, and shot and killed him.

Apparently, she then stayed with his body for the night before going upstairs and calling the police herself the next morning. For a time, she led herself believe the media's assumption that Martin was killed in a shootout since he died of a gunshot wound. Considering how traumatic it was to kill someone—let alone someone she believed cared for her—it makes sense Kate repressed the memory of the incident.

cruel summer
Freeform/Bill Matlock

How did the legal battle end?

After the two girls decided to talk amongst themselves about what really happened, the Turner family dropped the whopping $11 million defamation lawsuit against the Wallis family. Based on how much the truth was bent from each party, how their reputations were both at stake, and that it would send the Wallis family into bankruptcy, it was definitely the most viable conclusion.

Somewhat surprisingly, the truth of Mallory's involvement didn't keep Kate (who is, as we were originally led to believe, seriously kindhearted) from being friends with her. She is the only person in her life who really understands and listens to her. Even Jeanette chose to let it all go—deciding not to drag Mallory's name through the mud and forgiving Kate on national television. It's likely because she finally got what she always wanted—going from "America's punching bag" to the pinnacle of teenage perfection, absolved by the public, appearing as a star herself on The Marsha Bailey Show that ruined her life to begin with.

What about that shocking final scene?

Just when Jeanette seemed to be cleared from the case that turned her life as Queen Bee upside down—the legal battle was over and she was finally getting the positive attention that she always craved—Cruel Summer threw in another twist before the finale cut to black. The timeline jumped to '94, cutting to a sunny shot of Martin Harris' home, where (unfortunately and yet predictably) Jeanette was once again breaking in. This time was different, though: Almost immediately upon entering, she heard someone yelling. Kate called out from the basement, announcing who it was, and pleaded for help. Jeanette clearly heard her, as she was about to put her hand on the doorknob, but ultimately stopped before making any discernible noise... and then showed a devious smile. It's unclear when exactly this took place—Did she intentionally keep this a secret for awhile? Or did she immediately offer a tip to the police that led to Kate's release?—but Jeanette definitely kept this bit of information to herself throughout the entirety of the series. Like many of her secrets, it sure was incriminating and a shocking end to the season.

The already confirmed Season 2 will likely delve into those head-spinning final moments, which might just be Jeanette's darkest secret yet. We already knew her obsession with reputation, how she's perceived, and her eerily good ability to lie, but that's part of what's made the stand-out teen series so addicting all along.

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Sadie Bell is the entertainment editorial assistant at Thrillist. She's on Twitter at @mssadiebell.