‘Cruel Summer’: Who Is Annabelle? The Best 3 Possible Theories
If you are watching the new Freeform 2021 series, Cruel Summer, all you want to know right now is who Annabelle is? In episode 4, the mysterious person is brought up several times by Kate Wallis (Olivia Holt). By the end of Cruel Summer Episode 4, viewers heard so much about Annabelle that they have several strong theories.
‘Cruel Summer’ Episode 4 recap: Annabelle
In Cruel Summer Episode 4, Kate tells a story about Annabelle around a campfire to her parents and a few other adults on the yearly hunting trip. Right before she tells it, Mallory (Harley Quinn Smith) informs her that Joy (Andrea Anders) threatened Mallory.
“It’s about a girl called Annabelle,” Kate begins during the 1995 hunting trip. “Found herself in the woods one dark night, all alone and vulnerable. They were on a hunting trip, pretending they could love their pets at home while they shoot animals on vacation and pretending that their marriages are perfect. Hypocrites, basically. Secrets, wild accusations, a desperate thirst for gossip. But back to little Annabelle all alone, till she wasn’t.”
Joy tells her daughter that is enough. However, Kate continues to talk about the mysterious Annabelle in Cruel Summer.
“A man joined her,” she goes on. “A man the grownups trusted. Now, of course, Annabelle trusted him too, because, I mean, why wouldn’t she, right? She was just a child. And that trust led to something unspeakable. Then I think that puts blood all over the grownups’ hands, don’t you think too? That they were all responsible for what happened to her? Now, they’d better have all their stories straight because Annabelle sure has hers. Secrets are scary because everybody has them.”
Then at the end of the episode, Kate begins listening to her old therapy tapes to ensure she had her story straight for the upcoming court trial. That’s when Kate tells her therapist about Annabelle. The girl appeared when she was about to be rescued. Kate explains that Mr. Harris began acting strange that day when she suddenly met Annabelle.
‘Cruel Summer’ Who is Annabelle?
One common fan theory about Cruel Summer Annabelle is that she is Kate. Either she is in a dissociative state or is referring to herself in the third person.
“Kate’s story of Annabelle is an interesting one because it doesn’t sound like she’s talking about a real person,” one viewer wrote on Reddit. “To me, it almost sounds like she’s speaking in the third person.”
It could be an alternate personality she created to separate herself from what was happening during her kidnapping in Mr. Harris’ (Blake Lee) basement.
Is Annabelle a gun?
Since the hunting trip occurred during the same Cruel Summer episode when viewers found out about Annabelle, they think the two things are related.
“My first thought was that Annabelle isn’t a who, but a what,” another Redditor wrote. “Totally off the wall theory that Annabelle is a gun. Specifically, it’s the gun that Martin’s dad killed himself with. The gunshot that Jeanette, Jamie, and Vince heard was from Annabelle being fired.”
Other fans see the connection between the reference of Annabelle and the many guns in episode 4. Maybe she isn’t part of the Cruel Summer cast at all, but an inanimate object with a name.
Could Mr. Martin Harris be Annabelle in ‘Cruel Summer’?
Another fan brought up an interesting point about who Annabelle is in Cruel Summer.
“I’d be willing to bet that it is, in fact, Martin who is Annabelle,” another fan commented. “When Kate tells the story, she says that Annabelle was sitting all alone and vulnerable, and then a MAN joined her. Martin at that point was already sitting outside alone before Kate came and sat with him.”
Kate also indicates that she met Annabelle when Martin began acting strange. Could he be the one with an alter ego?
Hopefully, fans find out more about Annabelle when Cruel Summer Episode 5 returns to Freeform on May 12, 2021. All Cruel Summer episodes are available for streaming the next day on Hulu.
