Cruel Summer

“Cruel Summer” will easily snatch up fans of “Pretty Little Liars,” but there’s just as many comparison points to “Big Little Lies” within this story of wealth and privilege shattered by crime. Both Holt and Aurelia’s acting keeps things moving, as does the series’ technical production. This is a delicious slice of fun akin to a great beach read.

For now, Cruel Summer is addictive and fresh — and with any luck, viewers won't get burned.

Matters of agency, courage and cowardice emerge and the story starts to accrue depth along with the superficial puzzle of the kidnapping and who saw what and when. If you can deal with the trifurcated timeline, there’s much to enjoy and admire.

A mystery thriller cum nostalgia farm built from the best parts of Riverdale and Pretty Little Liars.

It doesn’t disappoint, delivering a whiplash-inducing storyline that bounces between a series of days in 1993, 1994, and 1995. ... Despite being both Aurelia and Holt’s biggest project to date, the series allows them to show off their considerable acting chops, as they essentially play three different versions of the same character over the course of a single episode.

Thanks to an agile cast and a willingness to push for the unexpected response, “Cruel Summer” ends up a pleasant surprise: A show with a grabby premise but also a great deal on its mind.

The show piles on enough mysteries to make it intriguing and then answers some questions fast enough to be satisfying.

When it focuses on character and performances, Cruel Summer finds unexpected depth. It almost makes up for the slow-burn answers to the mystery of Kate’s kidnapping and what she might have experienced, whether or not Jeanette was involved, and how this entire puzzle is presented in an unnecessarily complex storytelling device.

While the show sets up a lot in its first episode — so much that later episodes almost feel devoid of action compared to it — it keeps you hooked, and Jeannette and Kate are strong enough as narrative foils to make it work. In fact, Cruel Summer works best when it focuses on them.

Occasionally, the right show comes along in the wrong venue, which in TV terms can become its own cruel twist of fate. For now, though, the four previewed episodes continue to deliver unexpected turns and crumbs of information, planting the hook deep enough to sustain curiosity about where all this is heading, with the disclaimer that the aforementioned dramas ran out of creative gas pretty quickly...As pass-the-popcorn diversions go, that's about as solid an endorsement -- given misgivings about the subject matter -- as "Cruel Summer" could hope to elicit.

Even if it lacks the sophistication of Stranger Things or the bite of Euphoria, Cruel Summer does provide interesting observations about the ways young lives are warped by trauma, and is a story that, while it lasts – like those long hot summer months of our teenage pasts – feels suffocating, confusing, hysterically dramatic, and compulsive.

Mysteries abound and the audience is left to guess and try to keep things straight. The execution here, though, isn’t as cohesive as we would want and it frustrated us at every turn.

Cruel Summer is at least competent where it counts most. The hair, costume, lighting and acting choices always make clear which year we’re in, and Aurelia and Holt offer up impressively distinct versions of their characters. ... But Cruel Summer doesn’t quite deliver on the pleasures it promises. Many of its surprises are predictable, and the laggard pacing saps some of the dark juiciness implied by the premise.