‘Cruel Summer’ Season 2 Episode 4 Recap: “Springing A Leak” (2024)

If Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 3 drew on Isabella’s potential obsession with Meghan, this episode (Cruel Summer Season 2 Episode 4, “Springing A Leak”) centers on Meghan’s family dynamics and her future. In December 1999, a leak in Meghan’s family home forces her, Isabella and her mom Deb (Meghan’s sister is conspicuously absent this week) to relocate to Luke’s family house because Meghan refuses to allow her mom to take Isabella’s money for the repair, and a lot of tensions between the two merging families boil to the surface. At dinner, the girls confront Brent about the sex tapes and when Deb finds out that there was more than one, she’s horrified. It’s not just predatory, it’s also criminal — and she’s unsettled that her boyfriend has helped his son sweep this under the rug.

Meghan’s suspicions about Isabella and Luke also hit a new level when she finds Isabella’s bathing suit top tucked away behind some towels in Luke’s bathroom. Isabella says she’d been looking for that top since the summer and is rightfully offended when Meghan asks her outright whether she and Luke had any overlap with his relationship with Meghan — after all, she’s walked around with the Scarlet A on her chest for Meghan since the tape was leaked. “Do you need me to kill for you?” Isabella says ominously in a fun bit of writing that underscores the central tension between the girls. I understand both sentiments, but Meghan’s self-righteous attitudes this episode (especially in bossing her mom around about money) finally hit a point of annoyance that made sympathy a bit harder to reach for this week.

As always, July 1999 is the most wholesome of the three timelines and in “Springing a Leak” the gang attempts to sneak into a local bar with fake IDs. But not just any fakes: Meghan and Jeff decide to make their own and get much closer in the process. After the semi-successful use of the IDs — Isabella and Meghan get in without a problem, but the bouncer stops Luke and Jeff from joining them, thwarted by their lack of astrology knowledge — the girls leave when they spot the Sheriff at the bar. Jeff and Meghan later finally share a kiss that immediately makes Luke jealous and he plants one on Isabella in retaliation.

It’s also not the first time we saw the fake IDs this season; in the premiere, Isabella’s alter ego “Pat Highsmith” ID was seen in her possession, meaning she either still uses it as an alias or has held onto it for sentimental reasons (knowing Isabella, it could easily be both). July 1999 Meghan is also not entirely innocent. While she’s coding the IDs, an AIM chat box pops up on her screen from a username CBABBAGE5: “I can show you some shortcuts for C++ if you want. I’m a pretty good teacher.” Meghan immediately exits the chat room but given her extensive knowledge with computers, the free tutorial doesn’t seem 100% aboveboard. Paired with her December 1999 report card in which she received a single C+, the revelations in the episode make her turn toward the hacker identity in 2000 a bit easier to understand.

But Hacker Meghan in 2000 isn’t great at keeping her story straight. Isabella spies on Meghan throwing trash away in the middle of the night and discovers bloody sheets in the garbage bin. When her lawyer questions her about Luke’s disappearance, she finally admits that she knew he was planning to run away and that they had absconded to the cabin right before he did. Luke had written a letter to his dad that Meghan was going to help him discover, but when she returned to the cabin on that Saturday, he was already gone.

Of course, the police don’t buy any of this and get a warrant to search Meghan’s computer. But she’s one step ahead of them: she calls someone and tells them the police seized her computer and that she took every precaution, but isn’t sure she got the code right. My money is that whoever CBABBAGE5 is, is the person on the other end of that call.

At episode’s end, the Sheriff has one last dagger for Meghan: he accuses her of killing her boyfriend because he rejected her desire for a future and a baby with him. It doesn’t completely track that if Meghan was pregnant, she’d request that from him given all we know about her and her obsession with her future at University of Washington. But, with the C+ grade it’s possible she felt those opportunities slipping from her grasp. In any case, it’s going to be fascinating to find out what dirt the Sheriff has and how he’s playing those cards.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.