Cruel Summer Cast for Season 2: Meet the Characters and Who ...

Isabella LaRue is the plot catalyst for Cruel Summer season 2, and it's a perfect role for rising star Lexi Underwood, who was a big fan of the first season. Isabella is free-spirited and adventurous, unafraid to take risks and to push Megan outside of her comfort zone — she arrives in the town to live with the Landrys as an exchange student for a year, a break from her glamorous jet-setting life. 

“She comes into this town very determined to start the life that she wants,” Underwood tells Teen Vogue. “I feel like she's never been a rule follower, but she's always been pushed back, I would say, by some of her circumstances. She sees this as a fresh opportunity, and you also see a young girl who also is just searching for love and friendship at the end of the day.”

Underwood has previously played Malia Obama in The First Lady and starred in the critically-acclaimed show Little Fires Everywhere as Kerry Washington's character's daughter Pearl. She'll next act in Tommy Dorfman's forthcoming film, I Wish You All the Best.

Follow Lexi Underwood on Instagram here.

CRUEL SUMMER - Freeform’s “Cruel Summer” stars Griffin Gluck as Luke Chambers. (Freeform/Frank Ockenfels)Frank Ockenfels

Griffin Gluck plays Luke Chambers, Megan's best friend who eventually becomes embroiled in a love triangle between Megan and Isabella. Gluck described this season in three words — “teen-angst, mystery, and nostalgia” — in an interview with Nerds and Beyond. Gluck's time on the series is also a reunion of sorts: one of his early roles was in the show Private Practice, and Paul Adelstein — who plays his dad in Cruel Summer — also played his father.

Gluck is a veteran actor at this point; his first big role was in the 2011 Jennifer Aniston flick Just Go With It, and he's since starred in Tall Girl and its sequel, Big Time Adolescence, and Locke & Key.