Warning: The following article contains spoilers from Cruel Summer season 2, episode 3. Freeform has only aired a few episodes of Cruel Summer season 2, but the theories surrounding the events leading up to and after Luke Chambers’ death are already flooding in. The series jumps between three timelines — the summer of 1999, the winter of 1999, and the summer of 2000. In the summer of 1999, Isabella LaRue is getting acquainted with everyone in Chatham. The winter of 1999 centers around a sex tape scandal (and the eventual disappearance of Luke), and the summer of 2000 focuses on Luke’s body being found in the lake and the subsequent murder investigation.
Based on what happened in Cruel Summer season 1, it’s likely that nothing is what it seems in season 2. Viewers might think they have an idea of what happened the night Luke was killed, but the writers and producers have proven that they know how to subvert expectations. However, one theory could easily explain some of the missing pieces — Luke was alive (hiding out in his family’s cabin) for some of the months he was missing in Cruel Summer season 2.
Luke’s Body Was Easily Recognized When Recovered From Water
The Cruel Summer season 2 premiere led the audience to believe that Isabella was the one who had been missing for months in the summer of 2000 timeline. But when the Chatham Police Department and paramedics pulled a dead body out of the water, it turned out that Luke was the missing person. While Sheriff Myer and the other officials rolled the corpse onto shore in a body bag, a crowd gathered at the scene. Luke’s father, Steve, bypassed the yellow tape and desperately ran up to the body. He pushed past the sheriff, opened the bag, and tearfully confirmed that it was Luke.
Unfortunately, water can significantly skew a body’s time of death. But since Steve easily identified his son, it’s unlikely that Luke had been in the water for very long. Based on context clues, Luke went missing the night of a 1999/2000 New Year’s Eve party that he, Isabella, and Megan Landry attended. The police discovered his body on July 16, 2000, and the cause of death was drowning. If Luke had died on New Year’s Eve, it would have been difficult to recognize him after spending more than six months in the water. So perhaps Luke didn’t die until months after his disappearance in Cruel Summer season 2.
Megan Is Only Cleaning Up The Cabin In Summer 2000 Timeline
Hours before the police found Luke’s body in Cruel Summer season 2, episode 1, Megan traveled to the Chambers’ cabin in the woods to clean the blood off the floor. As fans recall, Luke’s autopsy revealed that a bullet had nicked his ear and left an abrasion. The gunshot wound could explain the blood on the floor, and Sheriff Myer later confirmed that Luke’s murder took place in the cabin. But if Luke had been killed the night of the New Year’s Eve party, it wouldn’t make sense for Megan to wait six months to clean the blood with bleach.
Megan (along with Isabella) undoubtedly had something to do with Luke’s death, which is why she was scrubbing up what was probably Luke’s blood. However, Megan is intelligent and would have thought to erase the evidence quickly after the murder, which might mean that Luke died closer to July 2000, not in the winter of 1999. But since he had been missing since New Year’s Eve, it stands to reason that Luke could have willingly disappeared and was lying low in the cabin for months before his murder in Cruel Summer season 2.
Isabella’s Bookbag With Money In It Could Have Been For Luke
It’s possible that Luke wanted to disappear from Chatham during the winter of 1999 in Cruel Summer season 2. His sex tape had just leaked, and his dad was putting too much pressure on him to follow in his footsteps. It would make sense if Luke wanted an escape, so Megan and Isabella helped him disappear from town and set him up nicely at the cabin. It’s unclear why he would have picked his family’s second house to hide out in, but perhaps Luke knew that his father and brother wouldn’t come to the cabin while he was camping out there. Or he wasn’t planning on staying there for very long.
In Cruel Summer season 2, episode 3, Sheriff Myer revealed that the police had found a bookbag containing a copious amount of cash in a crawl space in the cabin, and the bag belonged to Isabella. The hour ended before Isabella could give a reason for the backpack’s presence in the house, but one might assume that it was a getaway bag in case of emergency. If the theory that Luke was hiding in the cabin is correct, then maybe the bag and money were for him. Isabella could have given it to him if he was planning on skipping town, but he died before he could ever get the chance to leave.
Steve Came Down Hard On Luke When He Turned Tapes Over To The Police
Luke’s sex tape was leaked at the Chambers’ holiday party in Cruel Summer season 2. Everyone assumed Isabella was the girl in the video with him, but it was really Megan. Isabella took the fall for her best friend, and Luke was left out to dry. Even though Isabella faced worse scrutiny for the video because she’s a girl, Luke still felt the heat from his dad, but for a completely different reason.
Both Luke and Steve believed that Brent was the one who filmed Luke and Megan and aired the video at the party because he had a reputation for making sex tapes without his partner’s consent. To get back at Brent, Luke turned over his brother’s other scandalous VHS tapes to Sheriff Myer, which prompted a meeting between the sheriff, Steve, and Brent. Steve blackmailed Sheriff Myer into dropping the matter and letting him handle his son on his own. When he returned to the Chambers’ house, Steve confronted Luke about making their family problems public and humiliating them.
Steve was harsh and unforgiving, and his actions might have pushed Luke to the point of no return. He already had a strained relationship with his father due to Steve’s unyielding desire for his sons to go to the same college as him and study business. So after the conversation about the tapes, perhaps Luke had had enough and decided to disappear from Chatham without a trace. He brought Megan and Isabella in on the plan, and they helped him escape to the cabin after the New Year’s Eve party. This would mean that Luke wasn’t killed until much later in Cruel Summer season 2.