Set “in an idyllic waterfront town in the Pacific Northwest,” per the show’s official description, Cruel Summer season 2 is bringing another small-town mystery to TV. Taking place in Chatham, Washington, fans have watched Sadie Stanley (Megan), Lexi Underwood (Isabella) and Griffin Gluck (Luke) as they find themselves in a love triangle and murder mystery taking place across three consecutive timelines — Summer 1999, Winter 1999 and Summer 2000.
“Each episode is kind of set up so you’re suspicious of somebody new and you’re left with a new piece of information to mull over in between,” Sadie told Us Weekly ahead of the show’s June 2023 premiere. “I would just say don’t trust any of the characters. It’s not as simple as who did it. It’s all about how we got to this point and what led to it. Not everybody is who they seem.”
Other than the actual character, the Cruel Summer setting plays a major part in the show overall. Keep reading for filming details and where the series is set.
Is the ‘Cruel Summer’ Season 2 Setting Chatham, Washington a Real Place?
No, the show’s second season takes place in a fictional town.
Where Was ‘Cruel Summer’ Season 2 Filmed?
Since Chatham, Washington isn’t a real place, the show was able to create their own town. The show actually filmed in Vancouver, Canada and in Richmond, British Columbia. According to a local news outlet, the stars were in Richmond from March 2022 to June 2022 for production.
“I feel like the first couple of episodes is very summer-heavy,” Griffin told Distractify in June 2023 about filming the show. “And then, as we progress, it gets more and more winter-heavy. We were shooting those summer scenes during the coldest days of the year. Not of the year, but for our shooting, it is the coldest days of the shoot, as we were right at the end of wintertime, I think, verging on spring [and] summer.”
The actor recalled it being “freezing cold out” and he was wearing “shorts and a short sleeve T-shirt and flip flops, freezing my buns off.”
However, when filming the winter-set scenes, things were the complete opposite and it was “incredibly hot” when they shot moments during the holiday season. “We’re wearing pants with a T-shirt and a sweater and a jacket over that and like some big socks and some big boots,” Griffin explained.
Another issue that the cast had? Bugs!
“We were shooting around lakes and stuff a lot,” the Big Time Adolescence star shared. “Then, forests and mosquitoes became a big problem [that] production had to invest in mosquito-sucking machines… They’d spread them out across the forest and where we were working to capture mosquitoes because there were so many of them.”
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