Cruel Summer Star Says There Are “Endless Possibilities” for Season 2

The debut season of Freeform‘s Cruel Summer is only halfway through, and while a sophomore season of the series has yet to be confirmed, star Harley Quinn Smith thinks there are “endless possibilities” for what a follow-up story could explore. The current season of the series is unfolding across three different years, so while there are still a number of mysteries that have yet to be answered, we surely couldn’t rule out a new season taking place in the same world as the current narrative, but with a major jump forward in time. Cruel Summer currently airs on Freeform on Tuesday nights.

If there were a time jump and Season 2 would see the return of Smith’s character Mallory, the actress confirmed to ComicBook.com, “I’m super selfish in terms of this, so I would want to keep playing Mallory, because I love her a lot. She’s just, like, my favorite character I’ve ever gotten to play so I had a very hard time stepping away for her at the end of the season so if somebody was like, ‘Yeah, you get to play her for another season,’ I’d be like, ‘F-ck yes, thank God.’ I think, also, all the characters in the show are so interesting and all the characters have so much going on, so there are endless possibilities and I have full trust in Tia Napolitano, our showrunner, and so I know that if there’s a Season 2, which hopefully there is, she will come up with something incredible.”

From executive producer Jessica Biel (The Sinner), Cruel Summer is a psychological thriller that follows two young women: Kate Wallis, the popular girl with a charmed life who one day goes missing, and Jeanette Turner, the nerdy wannabe who is accused of being connected to Kate’s disappearance. All signs point to Jeanette’s guilt, but is Kate really who she seems to be? Set over three summers and told through shifting points of view, the series challenges perception and follows how one girl can go from being a sweet outlier to the most despised person in America.

A key component in whether or not the series will continue is based on the support the series earns from audiences, with Smith sharing her shock at just how passionate fans have become of the series already, which includes people from her own past.

“It’s one of the most insane time periods of my life, you could say,” the actor admitted to the series’ reception. “It’s been super incredible, but also just super weird to have people in my life from five-ten years ago text me and be like, ‘We’re watching Cruel Summer.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, really?’ I had a group of friends from high school, actually middle school, who I haven’t really spoken to in quite some time and a group of my middle school friends got together to watch it and they sent me a picture. My mind was just absolutely f-cking blown. I was just like, ‘What?!’ When that happened, then I was like, ‘Oh, I guess people are watching it. This is crazy.’”

Check out new episodes of Cruel Summer every Tuesday on Freeform.

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