Jeanette also knew Kate was in the basement Credit: Getty And what happened to Jeanette, We hear you ask. Well after going on national TV to talk about her how she was wrongly accused, she said she “forgave Kate” for her accusation. But in a chilling final scene it was revealed that she DID know that Kate was in kidnapper Martin’s house all along.
But as the sound of Radiohead’s “Creep” begins to play, Jeanette smiles and leaves Kate trapped in the basement, revealing that she did know Kate was there in 1994 — and she left her there. It’s a grim twist that throws an entirely new light on Jeanette and her journey.
In the first episode, Jeanette and her friends Mallory and Vince sneak into Martin’s home and Jeanette goes into the basement, where we know Kate was held captive. She stares at the mirror but turns back to find her friends.
Mirror imagery is an essential part of the show so it could also happen that Kate was hidden in the basement behind the two-way mirror but she was heavily drugged so she thought that Jeanette saw her but actually she didn’t. It is also possible that Jeanette could have returned to the house because Kate did find Jeanette’s necklace in the basement.
Finally, Kate and Jeanette met up face to face to discuss everything that happened. Kate told Jeanette she knew she had broken in on Christmas Eve in 1993. Jeanette admitted that but added that she never went in the basement — so if Kate knew she was there, she must not have been in the basement either. Olivia Holt on the Cruel Summer finale.
Mallory saw Kate, and she planted Jeanette’s necklace. Another popular guess that had been circulating is that Mallory Higgins (Harley Quinn Smith) was the one who saw Kate in the basement. While it’s unclear if Mallory knew about Jeanette’s key, she did break into Martin Harris’ home in 1993.
One fan theory was that Jeanette could have blocked out the memory of seeing Kate, or that she did hide her whereabouts for a yet-unknown reason. After all, Jeanette did have a key to Martin Harris’ home, and she periodically went there.
Who was Kate’s new BFF?
First off, during a face-to-face chat inside Martin’s home it was revealed that Jeanette hadn’t been the person that Kate claimed she had seen, after she’d been kidnapped. In fact it was Jeanette’s former friend and Kate’s new BFF, Mallory.
Mallory was the one who had seen Kate in Martin’s house NOT Jeanette Credit: Getty Images – Getty. Then when Kate was rescued, Mallory realized the truth, but chose to not come forward. This revelation meant Jeanette was finally in the clear, after being accused of not reporting Kate’s kidnap.
In a surprise turn of events, Kate chose to forgive Mallory and in one of the final scenes we saw the pair of them kissing as they danced in the street. As for the mystery of Annabelle, that was the name of Martin’s gun, which he almost killed himself with.
Who is the showrunner on Cruel Summer?
However, Cruel Summer showrunner Tia Napolitano teases that the show has much more twists which we can’t predict right now. In an interview with The Dipp, she said that her team has played with duality a lot and has worked a lot on the nature of shifting perspectives.
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Did Jeanette really see Kate in Cruel Summer? The recent episodes of Cruel Summer have caused a lot of discussions about the actual truth. In the first episode, Jeanette and her friends Mallory and Vince sneak into Martin’s home and Jeanette goes into the basement, where we know Kate was held captive.
Who was the girl who saw Kate in the house?
In reality, it was Mallory Higgins ( Harley Quinn Smith) who unknowingly saw Kate on Christmas Eve night in Martin’s house, not Jeanette.
Aurelia’s character broke in and heard someone, but she never saw Kate because it was Mallory who saw a figure through the window. That said, the final sequence in “Hostile Witness” revealed that Jeanette broke into Martin’s house at a later date. However, this time, Kate was locked in the basement, screaming for help, but Jeanette failed to act.
The fact that she gets to write about The Office regularly is like a dream come true. Before joining Screen Rant, Kara served as a contributor for Movie Pilot and had work published on The Mary Sue and Reel Honey. After graduating college, writing began as a part-time hobby for Kara but it quickly turned into a career.
Considering Kate is still harboring secrets, there are plenty more details to explore for Cruel Summer season 2. Unfortunately for Kate, Jeanette still has the leverage by knowing the truth regarding the teen’s romantic relationship …
Jeanette Turner (Chiara Aurelia) wasn’t innocent in Cruel Summer season 1, but her lie surrounding Kate Wallis’ (Oliva Holt) was more complicated than initially believed. For much of the Freeform show’s debut season, there was a mystery involving the legitimacy behind Kate’s accusation that Jeanette saw her in Martin Harris’ (Blake Lee) house.
Unless someone clues in Kate about the incident at the basement door, she has no more ammo to use against Jeanette. That said, the truth usually comes out eventually, and Jeanette will likely slip up when her confidence gets the best of her.
When Kate claimed Jeanette saw her in Martin’s house, presumably held hostage, the public shamed Jeanette for not doing anything. On the other hand, Jeanette attempted to clear her name, countering that she never saw Kate despite a history of breaking into Martin’s house. She even went as far as to sue the Wallis family for defamation …
Why did Jeanette leave Kate on Cruel Summer?
Much of Cruel Summer’s power has come from its dissection of the societal pressures put on young women, and how their decisions are shaped by those forces. According to the showrunner, the reveal that Jeanette left Kate to suffer in Martin’s basement for what Napolitano told us was “months” fits into that. “What we put on young women — to be popular, to be seen, to be enough, to be pretty, to be all these things — drove her to make this terrible mistake. We shouldn’t do that. We shouldn’t put that on young women. America in 1994 pushed Jeanette to that place, and I think that can happen to any of us at any time.”
It’s here that the show reveals what seems to be its biggest twist: that Mallory was in fact the one who saw Kate. That was another decision that evolved as the production went on. After Kate realizes her mistake in naming Jeanette, she asks the girl she once accused of being complicit in her kidnapping if she’ll come with her to the basement. It’s there, together, that Kate finally remembers the truth about Annabelle — it was the name of Martin’s gun — and that she was the one who use it to kill Martin in the end.
Kate tells the mystery voice upstairs that she is the missing girl and that Martin has her trapped in the basement. But as the sound of Radiohead’s “Creep” begins to play, Jeanette smiles and leaves Kate trapped in the basement, revealing that she did know Kate was there in 1994 — and she left her there. Advertisement.
The team talked about many different versions of what the truth looked like in Cruel Summer, but it wasn’t until they settled on the idea that Jeanette had known about Kate being in Martin’s basement that they found it. “Every time we pitched it to anyone involved, including Chiara, they screamed,” Napolitano said with a laugh. “And that was the exact reaction that we wanted.”
What felt like a pitch perfect and surprisingly hopeful ending neatly tied up Kate (Olivia Holt) and Jeanette’s (Chiara Aurelia) …
After reconciling with Kate and helping her uncover her buried memories of what happened in Martin’s house, a seemingly redeemed Jeanette got her 15 minutes of fame on The Marsha Bailey Show, forgiving Kate publicly while taking her moment in the sun.
While some viewers might feel like some of the weight of that reconciliation is lost when it’s later revealed that Jeanette was still lying to Kate and the world, Napolitano sees it as a valuable moment that shows how far the two teenage girls have come. “They’ve both learned so much,” she said. “Kate being able to remember that moment and being able to forgive Mallory when she learns of her involvement; they’re both better, stronger women than when we met them in 1993, and I think they’ve both gone through a degree of healing.”
