‘Cruel Summer’ Showrunner on Twisted Season 2 Finale and the Alternate Endings That Almost Happened (Exclusive)

Cruel Summer showrunner Elle Triedman is ready to unpack that shocking season 2 finale.

The executive producer chatted with PEOPLE about this season’s twisted conclusion, “ride or die” teenage friendships and the surprising alternate endings that almost came to fruition. 

“I hope they [the viewers] have a really good time,” Triedman says of the season. “It’s been fun for me to watch people looking for clues and coming up with theories along the way … I love a good murder mystery. I think it’s also a nice time capsule of the late 90s. It’s a time without cellphones. It’s a very different world.”

Season 2 of the Freeform anthology series centered on a love triangle that develops between high schoolers Megan (Sadie Stanley), her best friend Luke (Griffin Gluck) and Isabella (Lexi Underwood), an exchange student who’s come to live with Megan’s family for their senior year. But when Luke’s body turns up in the lake, relationships are tested, secrets are revealed and lives are forever changed.

Cruel Summer s2 cast.
Frank Ockenfels/Freeform

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Monday’s season finale, titled “Endgame,” finally solved the mystery of who killed Luke. Megan was initially arrested for the murder after the police found incriminating video evidence. But then Luke’s older brother Brent (Braeden De La Garza) stepped in and confessed. It was revealed that the two brothers got into a heated argument on the dock and Brent shoved Luke, causing him to fall into the lake and drown. Their father (Michael Landes) had instructed Brent to keep quiet in order to avoid tarnishing their family reputation.

Meanwhile, Isabella jetted off to Ibiza and befriended a new girl, introducing herself as “Lisa.” In the final scene, Megan went to the dock and spotted a hidden camera in the trees. She watched the footage from the night Luke died and discovered that Luke was actually still alive after Brent left — that is until Isabella came back and pushed his head under water.

Triedman ultimately described Isabella’s shocking choice as a “snap judgment” decision and says she “might not have” killed Luke if she’d had more time to think about it.

“What’s important to keep in mind is she doesn’t go back to the cabin to kill Luke. She goes back to him, maybe she’s going to threaten him, but she’s literally going there to talk to him,” she explains. “She thinks she is a better friend to Megan. She thinks with her at her side, Megan will have this big, wonderful, exciting world and life that she thinks she deserves. Whereas in her mind, Luke represents staying in this small town, living this tiny life … Isabella is a real catalyst for Megan, and she sees herself as sort of this guide for her.”

Lexi Underwood and Sadie Stanley.

Freeform/Justine Yeung

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“I came in knowing that I wanted to tell a story about an incredibly intense, but non-romantic friendship between two girls,” the showrunner adds. “I remember, especially at that age, you can have a friendship that is so much more intense than a romantic relationship.”

The ending wasn’t set in stone from the very beginning. In fact, Triedman says the writers toyed around with several alternate endings. One entailed Megan’s mom, Debbie (KaDee Strickland) killing Luke to “protect” her daughter. Another version saw Sheriff Myer (Sean Blakemore) turn out to be the culprit.

The producer also shares that most of the cast didn’t receive the final two pages of the finale script in advance to “keep the secret confidential.”

“We started out actually playing at a lot of different scenarios,” she says. “In a writer’s room, you explore a ton of different avenues … It was also the question of, ‘Do we want an accident or do we want clear-cut murder?’ And an accident is just never as satisfying. It’s more realistic probably a lot of the time, but it didn’t seem to fit this story.” 

The finale still leaves some questions unanswered. For instance, the fate of Megan’s pregnancy — which was shockingly revealed in episode four — is never explained on screen. “It ended up being a false positive,” Triedman says. “Perhaps it was also the traumatic event of New Year’s Eve, but she would’ve gotten her period like a week or two later. It’s never explicit.”

Additionally, the showrunner states that whether or not Isabella killed Lisa (her friend from boarding school who drowned under suspicious circumstances) is completely “open to interpretation” from viewers. “The way I see it, there are three different versions. One is, it was a terrible accident. Another is she killed Lisa,” she shares. “Or she didn’t rush to help her. She, in a sense, let her drown.”

Sadie Stanley and Sean Blakemore.

Freeform/Justine Yeung

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All in all, Triedman says she hopes viewers keep in mind that the characters are teenagers who are “trying to figure out who they are,” and stresses that they “need room to correct.”

“They’re trying on different personas, they’re trying to figure out who they are and how they fit in,” she tells PEOPLE. “I think it’s really important to remember these are high school kids. These are teenagers. They need room to correct. They can’t be tarnished forever by some completely stupid, knucklehead thing they did when they were 17.”

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Cruel Summer seasons 1 and 2 can be streamed in full on Hulu.

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Source: HIS Education