The 2016 Movie
- Narm: Calvin attempting to drag the beaten, bloody Danny to safety is not funny. What is a bit funny, however, is the fact that the entire time, he's screaming at Danny, "SHUT THE FUCK, I’M TRYING TO HIDE YOU!" Unsurprisingly, Nick and Julia show up shortly after.
- Padding: Some scenes drag on far longer than they should, such as the arcade scene and the playground one.
- The Woobie:
- Danny.
- Calvin, too.
The Freeform Series
- Alternative Character Interpretation: A lot, given the nature of the show’s plot.
- Regardless of whether Jeanette really did see Kate while she was held kidnapped and kept quiet about it, how accurate are the accusations that she “stole” Kate’s life? Apart from dating her boyfriend and becoming friends with Kate’s friends— which can be explained as one happening naturally as the result of the other given that Jamie, Tenille and Renee are part of the same friend group— there is nothing that shows Jeanette filling in Kate’s role or taking her place.
- Did Mallory’s vocal hatred for Kate before they become friends in 1994 come from having a repressed crush on her? Or from jealousy over Kate’s seemingly perfect life compared to her own one living with a drug-addict mother and being estranged from her father? Or both?
- Jeanette's personality and motivations in general are hard to pin down—is she a lying sociopath, a mostly-innocent person caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, or somehow both? The Season 1 finale highlights this well: while she really didn't see Kate in Martin Harris' house on the night Kate claimed, she did hear Kate calling out from the basement when she broke into the house again some time later and chose not to let her out for as of yet unknown reasons.
- Did Mallory know that Kate’s accusation against Jeanette was about the night Mallory actually saw her instead, or did she assume that (given that she knew Jeanette had made a habit of breaking into Martin’s house) Jeanette really had seen (and had been seen by) Kate on a later date? Depending on how one sees this, Mallory can either be seen as a sympathetic character who simply didn’t realize, or just as bad as Jeanette, for letting her be crucified for a crime that, as far as Mallory knew, she was innocent of.
- In the pilot, when Jeanette repeatedly rewinds back to Kate accusing her on national television, is she bitterly reminiscing on the moment her life was ruined? Or is she getting a sick thrill out of the object of her obsession talking about her? Or even taking notes on how to further imitate Kate?
- Did Jeanette decide to leave Kate in the basement out of a desire to continue stealing Kate’s whole life, or out of a more specific desire to keep Jamie for herself?
- The show implies that Jamie has stronger feelings for Jeanette than he does/did Kate. How much of this is a sincere connection (giving this some merit is the fact that Jamie showed an attraction to Jeanette before Kate went missing), and how much of it was because Jeanette had turned into a copy of Kate, but one who actually wanted to be with Jamie?
- Awesome Music: Two versions of "Zombie," respectively the original
by The Cranberries and a cover by Damned Anthem, show up as an overarching theme for Kate. - Diagnosed by the Audience: Many people in 1995 call Jeanette a "Psycho", which might not be far off, given her cravings for attention, her constant lying, manipulation, her obsession with Kate Wallis, sneaking into Martin Harris's house repeatedly just for fun, and at times stilted emotional reactions (when she heard Kate pleading for help in pedophile Martin’s basement, she stopped herself from helping Kate and even smiled at the thought of Kate being gone and being able to become the most popular girl in school). This suggests that she might be the sociopath, or a personality disorder.
- Fanfic Fuel:
- What would have happened if Jeanette had let Kate out of the basement when she found her begging for help?
- How might Jeanette’s secret be revealed to the other characters?
- Friendly Fandoms:
- A lot of fans of Pretty Little Liars love this show, being mysteries centered on a popular girl’s disappearance and the question of who can be trusted— it also helps that both shows are from the same network.
- There are also a lot of fans of Cloak & Dagger (2018) who started watching Cruel Summer because it features Olivia Holt.
- Mean Girls fans who ship Janis and Regina— or who otherwise view one or both of them as sapphic— tend to love the Mallory and Kate relationship. Other fans of Mean Girls also like this show, thanks to certain plot similarities.
- The Olivia Rodrigo album SOUR is especially popular with fans of this show, thanks to the release of the show and the album lining up, and especially with how well so many songs off the album fit the show— "jealousy, jealousy" for Jeanette’s feelings about Kate; "brutal" for Kate’s character; "traitor" for the Kate/Jamie/Jeanette triangle; "deja vu" once again for the triangle, more specifically the Replacement Goldfish elements; "favorite crime" for both Jeanette/Jamie and Martin/Kate’s toxic relationships; and so on.
- Hollywood Homely:
- Jeanette starts out wearing thick glasses, having braces, frizzy hair, a fan of immature, frumpy outfits and a shy, quirky attitude. A year later, Jeanette has a bold yet good taste in fashion, wears contact lenses, has had her braces taken off, started wearing Makeup and acts more confident. Then, after the whole Town turns against her, she decides to stop caring about her beauty, and gives herself a haircut at home, giving her cropped short hair and wearing little Makeup, though continues to wear contact lenses.
- Mallory is considered to be even less attractive than Jeanette in 1993 due to her tough, goth style, with her wearing frumpy home-made outfits, having a large nose, not looking after her appearance and wearing her medium-length Blonde hair that she always tries in bunches. In 1994 she still wears home-made frumpy outfits and still acts grouchy, but has dyed her hair in certain places and grown it out. By 1995, Mallory has got bangs and also appears to have dyed her hair a silvery color. Despite being considered to be unattractive, the actress who plays her, Harley Quinn Smith is considered quite pretty.
- Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Nobody denies that Martin is the real villain of Season 1, but Joy, Kate's vindictive Stepford Smiler of a mother, who is still incapable of believing or supporting her after her kidnapping and rape, is absolutely despised. Likewise, Mallory’s bossy, rude treatment of Vincent and especially Jeanette is also widely hated.
- Les Yay:
- In 1993, Jeanette’s admiration of Kate can really come off as also having a crush on her— and Kate seems to find Jeanette’s awkwardness endearing, and even speaks to her defense when Kate’s mom insults her. There is also a long Held Gaze between the two of them, while "Rebel Girl" (whose lyrics are... not terribly subtle in their subtext) plays in the background.
- Kate and Mallory’s friendship has a lot of romantic undertones to it. Particularly, in "Happy Birthday Kate Wallis", Kate and Mallory wake up in bed together (albeit entirely clothed) in 1995, and Mallory surprises Kate by shutting down the roller rink for the day so that they can have the whole place for just the two of them. Mallory is also treated as a positive Foil to Jamie in the episode: Kate mainly spends her 1993 birthday with Jamie and her 1995 birthday with Mallory, but Jamie ruins her birthday with his It's All About Me behavior while Mallory actively shields Kate from anything that could ruin her day. Jamie also expresses a desire for the two of them to be just like Kate's parents when they grow up and gives her a promise ring with a green gemstone, with the heavy implication that Kate doesn't want either of those things. Mallory, on the other hand, encourages Kate to break free of her mother's influence and gives her a green Ring Pop, both of which make Kate happy. It's hard to watch the episode and not conclude that Mallory would be a better Love Interest for Kate than Jamie was. Turns out to be intentional, with the two of them kissing at the end of Season 1.
- In the second season, Megan and Isabella share several emotionally charged moments. Many fans have noted that Megan seems more into Isabella than her canon boyfriend, Luke.
- Memetic Mutation: Before the final two episodes, it was very popular to (usually as a joke) theorize that Jeanette “saw” — and had been seen by — Kate, while she wasn’t wearing either her glasses or new contacts, and thus had looked at Kate without actually being able to see her. Typically the format would be a quote of Kate’s accusation against Jeanette next to an incredibly blurry photo, captioned as “What Jeanette Saw.”
- Moral Event Horizon:
- Martin grooming and then kidnapping Kate Wallis.
- Jeanette leaving Kate in the basement.
- In season 2, Steve Chambers was never going to win any prizes for heroism given his abuse of his sons and his obsession with his reputation, but he takes a grand flying leap over the horizon in the season finale when he arranges for Megan to be arrested for a crime that he knows damn well she didn't commit, just because he doesn't want any further scrutiny of his screwed-up family.
- Signature Line: "Jeanette Turner, I hope you rot in Hell."
- The Woobie: Kate is emotionally abused by her mother, groomed and kidnapped by Martin, and has to deal with the fact that her friends and boyfriend felt her easily replaceable with Jeanette.
