Cruel Intentions – Season 1 Episode 7 “Eta” Recap & Review

Eta

Episode 7 of Cruel Intentions begins with Beatrice believing she’s done what’s needed in reporting the party and the sorority houses for their drama. She wants to let the house rot, and Caroline is in full-on PR mode here to try and salvage her reputation at Manchester. Between the snake strippers and ketamine-filled balloons, things don’t look good.

Caroline does her best to dodge the bullet though, while the Manchester faculty do the rounds, which also includes an audit at Alpha Gamma, which is in dire straits because of the embezzlement within the financial records.

With Scott at the heart of this one, he’s in the firing line, as is Blaise who could be outed for his involvement here. After kissing together, the pair head over to see Lucien and apologize. The reason being is that they need the treasurer to be in the Sorority House, and that man is obviously Lucien. If the treasurer doesn’t do the audit then they could lose their house. Eventually he agrees, but Blaise wants him to embellish and hide the receipts he has, which is something he’s not really willing to do.

A lot of Caroline’s chances of saving her Sorority  rests on Annie. The board won’t pull their charter or take them down if they have Annie under their wing, so it’s imperative that she becomes one of their sisters.

Caroline turns her manipulation over to Cece, bringing up that Chadwick is a predator and trying to groom her, in a bid to make her switch away from him and focus on getting Annie to the party instead.

Naturally, Caroline decides to seduce Chadwick to prove a point, while Cece is at the front of the hazing ceremony for the sisters. Hey, remember when Annie was on Beatrice’s side and against hazing? Anyway, the girls continue this throughout the episode, while Scott freaks out about the books being misaligned when he finds out what Blaise has done. He promises to handle it, but Scott is rattled.

In the dorm room, Annie starts kissing Lucien but he points out that he has a thing for cameras and is a bit standoffish with her. This is, of course, all part of the bet and he wants to record them together for proof. He does just that and heads back to the dorm room, where he finds Caroline and Professor Chadwick together.

Lucien decides he’s going to forfeit the game when Chadwick leaves, and passes all of it up for Annie. Caroline is not happy and points out that she’s soulless and has no feelings. Speaking of which, Chadwick shows up late to meeting with Cece, while the video of Beatrice and Lucien sleeping with each other spreads across campus. Unfortunately, Annie is one of those that receives the video.

The Episode Review

I’m not sure if it’s the acting or the writing but at absolutely no point in this did we see Lucien and Annie start to develop feelings for one another, despite hanging out a lot. Sure we get clips of them sleeping in the same bed or a few moments of conversation together, but the ties they have don’t show any real emotion, and Lucien has no depth in this adaptation.

It’s genuinely unclear what his goal is in this one, and if he really wasn’t doing this for the bet then why record it? In the movie and book we see this develop and his demeanour soften as he falls in love, but here we get none of that.

There’s also the situation involving the video spreading around campus too. Surely it should be well known that Lucien is a womanizer? Anything like this would be big news, and in an age of smartphones and social media, Lucien’s exploits would be well known, surely?

The trouble with doing a story like this is that you need it to be believable and when your central protagonist is sleeping with half the women in Manchester Prep and newcomer Annie is completely oblivious to it (for the above reasons) then it breaks the immersion completely.

The whole show has been a complete misfire to be honest and this episode may just exemplify that better than any other. With only one episode remaining, this one is definitely vying for a spot on the list of worst shows for 2024.