The fact that the abyss is hidden behind well-tended bushes and supposedly neat conditions in American small towns made people shudder at the beginning of the nineties with the series "Twin Peaks". David Lynch's and Mark Frost's 1990 and 1991 series, as well as the 1992 film, which was followed by a third season in 2017, made television history in their sophistication. Bert V. Royal's “Cruel Summer” is also set in a small American town in the early nineties that is more typically not seen on television. You could see it as an homage to “Twin Peaks” and wouldn't be disappointed. But then you would overlook the very own eeriness of “Cruel Summer”, one that at first glance seems a little conventional in terms of economic efficiency, but with the fundamental confusion of adolescence,with the attribution of roles and identities of American teenagers and the brutal consequences that an openly held popularity contest among provincial beauties can bring about, plays exciting and makes deadly serious.

It begins, so it says in the opening sequence, "about" on June 21, 1993, 1994 and 1995. Three parallel cuts, three times the beginning of summer and the beginning of the holidays. Three times the birthday of Jeanette Turner (Chiara Aurelia). She is woken up three times in the morning. 1993: Jeanette's fifteenth birthday, father, mother and brother gathered by her bed, singing, joking, hopsasa. 1994: the sixteenth birthday. Boyfriend Jamie (Froy Gutierrez) wakes Jeanette up with a tender kiss, candle and oath of love, happiness. 1995: the seventeenth birthday. Her father brusquely instructs Jeanette to get up. One of her lawyers was there and had to talk to her immediately. The tired woman struggles to peel herself from the blankets. 1993 Jeanette is still the nerd of the year of the only high school in town, braces, untamed hair, funny clothes,with the corresponding outsider friends, socially Darwinistically ignored by the hip classmates. Vincent (Allius Barnes) and Mallory (Harley Quinn Smith) cycle around with Jeanette, killing time in the mall, planning to do something illegal at least once this summer. Jeanette is still munching on cake regardless of the size, laughing louder than the other girls, overflowing with creative ideas.

The seams of the years are blurring

1994: The hair is straight, the make-up subtle, the "ugly duckling" has become an adapted beauty as a miniature version of the ladies with taut skin.

Jeanette's friends are as new as their discreet demeanor, pure sunshine.

1995: Deep circles under the eyes, short hair, grunge clothes.

Kurt Cobain is dead, let go of all hope.

The news suggests that Jeanette is said to be the most hated youngster in the nation.

With this parallel narrative structure on three time levels, in which you can easily find your way as a viewer due to the color scheme (1993 sunflower-warm, 1994 somehow normal, 1995 cold-hate blue), it goes on through the episodes. Sometimes a run on the road starts in a year and grazes the other two. The seams of the years are often blurred. The story is told chronologically, but the revealing of certain events is followed by just as many new disguises. Things happen. People commit acts that no one should know about and which have even worse consequences. Especially for the second main character, Kate Wallis (Olivia Holt). The same-age school beauty who has the most sought-after boyfriend, Jamie, who is with Jeanette the following year. In the first episode, Jeanette meets Kate for the first time while shopping,The series stages their gaze like a mirror that simultaneously reflects and changes the image of the others. Beauty queen and nerd, in the midst of a gaudy world of goods, ambiguous and eerie. It is June 1993. A few days later, Kate is kidnapped and locked in the basement of his house by the new assistant principal Martin Harris (Blake Lee). With a strange consistency, Jeanette Kate's appearance, her boyfriend, the clique, apparently hijacked her entire life. Or apparently? Which crime is Jeanette guilty of and should therefore go to court in 1995? Why does she need an armada of lawyers? And what really happened to Kate Wallis, the innocent provincial flower?Beauty queen and nerd, in the midst of a gaudy world of goods, ambiguous and eerie. It is June 1993. A few days later, Kate is kidnapped and locked in the basement of his house by the new assistant principal Martin Harris (Blake Lee). With a strange consistency, Jeanette Kate's appearance, her boyfriend, the clique, apparently hijacked her entire life. Or apparently? Which crime is Jeanette guilty of and should therefore go to court in 1995? Why does she need an armada of lawyers? And what really happened to Kate Wallis, the innocent provincial flower?Beauty queen and nerd, in the midst of a gaudy world of goods, ambiguous and eerie. It is June 1993. A few days later, Kate is kidnapped and locked in the basement of his house by the new assistant principal Martin Harris (Blake Lee). With a strange consistency, Jeanette Kate's appearance, her boyfriend, the clique, apparently hijacked her entire life. Or apparently? Which crime is Jeanette guilty of and should therefore go to court in 1995? Why does she need an armada of lawyers? And what really happened to Kate Wallis, the innocent provincial flower?With a strange consistency, Jeanette Kate's appearance, her boyfriend, the clique, apparently hijacked her entire life. Or apparently? Which crime is Jeanette guilty of and should therefore go to court in 1995? Why does she need an armada of lawyers? And what really happened to Kate Wallis, the innocent provincial flower?With a strange consistency, Jeanette Kate's appearance, her boyfriend, the clique, apparently hijacked her entire life. Or apparently? Which crime is Jeanette guilty of and should therefore go to court in 1995? Why does she need an armada of lawyers? And what really happened to Kate Wallis, the innocent provincial flower?

Deepest Texas, right-of-center political attitudes, garden parties, white women who spend their time maintaining their looks, white men whose reputation is measured by professional success unless they are sports legends and are courted like the black former Professional football player who's Kate's stepfather. The adult world in “Cruel Summer” looks very much like “Stepford Wives”, the horror movie about constantly smiling, supple wives who turn out to be programmed devotion machines. But this world is just the backdrop of the psychological puberty thriller, which unfolds on its three closely interwoven time levels in a mysterious narrative structure. Instead of answers, the ten episodes of the Amazon production co-produced by Jessica Biel always offer new clues that do not lead to solutions,but further and further into a hormone explosion sultry climate of uncertainty. Such things don't work without platitudes, and if they are clichés of white America, parents may look at their growing children with more suspicious eyes after “Cruel Summer”.

Cruel Summer

runs on Amazon Prime.