Cruel Summer, about an ugly “she said, she said” between teen girls, aired its season finale Tuesday. While the series touches on common themes for a show centered on high school-aged kids and features several queer characters, the story told over the same time period in 1993, ’94, and ’95, also takes on serious issues including grooming of a young person by an adult and the ever-explored relationships between girls that have been the subject of movies from Foxes to Heathers to Mean Girls and beyond.A true series for its time, rather than merely pit girls against one another, Cruel Summer examines those relationships through the modern lens of societal expectations placed on young women and the vulnerable self-esteem that can result from.