Cruel Intentions – Season 1 Episode 2 “Beta” Recap & Review

Beta

Episode 2 of Cruel Intentions begins with us back at the Delta Phi sorority house. There’s an upcoming vote for which members are going to receive invitations to the Delta Phi President Night. Dressed as nuns, the group cycle through a bunch of women during an important vote, eventually leading to Annie Grover. It’s clear that she’s going to be a sure-fire winner and the House are in unanimous agreement that she’s the one who could turn their fortunes around.

After, Caroline receives a call from her mum who grills her over the Rourke situation. After humiliating him, this has an adverse effect on her own business, as Rourke’s father and half the constituency have pulled out from her massive work event. Caroline is rattled and following this, we get a look at Caroline’s cross around her neck, something also evident in the movie. There’s cocaine inside and she takes a bump.

As for Annie, she speaks to her mum about opportunities at school and she’s supportive of her choices. However , she also reminds her that she’s in a position of privileged power here so she needs to be wary of what direction she goes. Annie finds herself wrapped up with a bunch of kids who have created the “New Political Society”. Annie finds herself hanging with them more often, and they have nothing but bad things to say about the Greeks. The sorority house mind, not the historical race. They’re wondering whether to go national with the exploits at the college surrounding the hazing and favouritism.

Caroline uses Lucien to bolster her image at President’s Night, with the end-goal being Annie. She knows that with Annie’s support, it would improve the image of Delta Phi as a Sorority House immediately and paper over the scandal. The pair strike their deal, with the car on the line, and a tiny bit Of flirting before Lucien gets to work.

The first port of call comes from Lucien trying to find who has been talking to Annie Grover. For now though, President’s Night gets underway and Cece stays close to Caroline, bringing up the ratings for all the different ladies in attendance. Caroline only wants to hang with the best of course so it doesn’t damage her reputation.

As for Lucien, he heads over to Annie’s with a gift – a fake ID under the name of Cassidy Featherstone. This works to clear the air a little and get a conversation going, where Lucien asks for another chance to prove that he’s a good guy. Annie takes the bait and the game is afoot.

Lucien and Annie show up together at President’s Night… but not in the way you may expect. It turns out he’s joining the activist cause with Annie and marches with a whole bunch of disgruntled students as they push for anti-hazing measures at the House. Caroline is not happy and vows that this is not over as the event comes to an abrupt close.

The Episode Review

So this episode we start to push into social issues, but the most glaring problem with this adaptation comes from the characters themselves. Caroline is rude and nasty in public as well as in private, while the movie and book get this balance right by showing her hoodwink the public into thinking she’s an upstanding woman with no flaws. This immediately devalues her character, and it becomes more about the bet and straightforward seduction than deeper character ties and more intriguing journeys into love and seduction.

The most telling part of this though stems from an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, where the creators reveal: “I think with Caroline we didn’t want to cast somebody who automatically you looked at and thought was a villain.” Well, looks like you failed love because she’s immediately villainous from the off.

The worst culprit, as I said in episode 1 as well, is Cece. Her character has been elevated with more power and it completely undermines what her character is supposed to represent.

The setting of a college is fine and parts of the modern spin are quite good but largely, this feels hollow and a complete bastardization of the source material. A box ticking exercise with little sprinklings of key jangling nostalgia; Cruel Intentions is not improving.