'Cruel Summer' star KaDee Strickland explains her character's 'primal' instinct to protect her daughter from murder accusations

• KaDee Strickland said her character on "Cruel Summer" has a "primal" instinct to protect her daughter.
• She couldn't reveal if Debbie would side with Megan or Isabella but praised both actors.

"Cruel Summer" star KaDee Strickland understands her character Debbie's motherly instinct to defend her daughter Megan (Sadie Stanley) — even against accusations that she murdered her former boyfriend.

Strickland, who plays mother to Megan and host to foreign exchange student Isabella (Lexi Underwood) on the Freeform thriller anthology series, said a kind of "primal" instinct takes over "any parent" when someone with their DNA is in trouble.

This season, "Cruel Summer" introduces us to the fictional town of Chatum, where Megan, Isabella, and Megan's best friend Luke (Griffin Gluck) find themselves in an untenable love triangle.

As in "Cruel Summer's" previous season, the mystery unfolds across three timelines — summer 1999, winter 1999, and summer 2000.

Throughout the series, Luke becomes romantically involved with both Isabella and Megan, and when Luke is murdered on New Year's Eve 1999, the two become suspects.

In an interview with Insider, Strickland elaborated on why Debbie refuses to pick a side between her daughter and Isabella when murder accusations against them start spreading.

While Debbie is obviously bonded to her daughter, her relationship with Isabella "developed in a very intimate, mothering way because she needs a mom. She doesn't have that in her life."

Strickland remained mum about where Debbie's loyalty might lie at the end of this season (the finale airs on July 31), but offered praise to both Stanley and Underwood as scene partners.

"When I get in the scene with either Sadie or Lexi, all I have to do is just look them in the eye and stay open because they're going to give me so many more complicated moments to react to," she said.

"Those scenes just pour out of you. They're both such beautifully open vessels to do these complicated scenes with," she said, praising Stanley and Underwood as "smart actors. They're always giving me something to naturally react to."

Strickland said she wanted audiences to wonder up until the end whether "I'm going to let literal bloodline be my loyalty — or am I questioning my child?"

Her son Atticus (with husband Jason Behr) isn't yet a teenager, but Strickland said that working on "Cruel Summer" has helped her approach parenthood with the right mindset.

She noted that although parenting for her character Debbie was a lot different in the early 2000s than it is now, she had a "terrified' moment of panic when she read the script and learned that Megan had a secret life "fueled by Adderall."

Though she now knows some of the challenges she'll face parenting a teenager, she said, "I chose it, and I've never made a better decision in my life."

"Cruel Summer" airs on Freeform on Mondays at 10 p.m ET