Tell Me Lies: Spoiler... Everyone Sucks!
The recap, review, and breakdown of season 2. (Hey that rhymed)
Hi paid subscribers! So lovely to finally see you here joining me for our media discussion today. I’ve stated previously that I didn’t want to make a profit here on Substack but I’ve found something I think is worth charging for and that’s my honest, unfiltered opinions on popular and sometimes niche media. This includes books, movies, tv, and pretty much anything else that has to do with pop culture and trends. Today’s topic: the long awaited season 2 of Tell Me Lies that recently wrapped up with an insane finale on Hulu.
If you have not watched this show yet, I highly recommend binging it and then proceeding with this post for not only your understanding but also your sanity when you sit here confused about who’s who and what’s what. If you have watched it and are now either annoyed, infatuated, disgusted, or all of the above then welcome to the right corner of the internet. Last chance to click away before we get into the dirty details!
This is going to be terribly long and honestly this show deserves it. Not only is my head swarming with the many plot lines the producers and writers brought to us this season but I’m also obsessed with the complexities of it all. We got new relationships, so many surprises, and a lot of returning cast members. I’m so happy that they continued diving into the wedding the way that they did. It makes the first and second season seem cohesive and fluid in most of the plot but also opens the whole thing up for more developments between the characters. Each of them had intricate dynamics including the craziness between Lucy, Evan, Steven, and Bree. But this still didn’t overshadow everything else going on like Wriggley and Pippa or Max and how he could’ve possibly ended up with Lucy after everything that happened.
Let’s dive in a bit further with one of the highlights of the season, Lucy and Stephen pretending like they don’t have tension when they’re basically destroying everyone’s lives from being in denial. Stephen is obsessed with trying to gain leverage on every single one of his friends and even people he doesn’t appear to be close with anymore. For example, Stephen still had something hiding in his back pocket to spring out at Thanksgiving towards Leo all because he was dating Lucy. His plan was to either make a fool out of her because she has leverage on him and he knows in some way or another that she told Lydia about Macie or he needed him to be out of the way so Lucy could still be an option when Diana started to get tired of him. His world centers purely around himself and all he thinks about day in and day out is how he can keep control of every single situation he ends up in.
We start out Episode one with Lucy telling Lydia she’s completely over Stephen and he won’t be a continued problem this school year. Lydia explains that if Stephen even looks Lucy’s way he’s basically dead meat and then asks her to look after her brother during his freshman year. These two are confusing to me because although they are childhood best friends and seem to know a whole lot about each other, they also keep themselves at a distance all of the time. Lucy wasn’t super quick to seek support from Lydia until she was face to face with her during holiday break in the first season. And Lydia has a life going on outside of all of the drama that we know almost nothing about due to not having very many interactions with her. We also still don’t know why she told Lucy she’ll never forgive her during episode one at one of the pre-wedding events although the internet has a lot of theories. My favorite being a court case!!
That brings me to speaking about Lydia’s brother, Chris. After the party scene in the first episode we only really hear of him unless it’s in passing when he tries to have a conversation with Pippa. It’s annoying how un-self aware he seems to be after causing so much trauma to multiple girls on campus. Only 4 people really know the truth about the situation and that is Lucy, Pippa, Diana, and the sorority girl. Yet Pippa is reluctant to say anything especially after knowing that Chris was off the hook and free to roam campus after an ‘accusation’ which we all know was true. The good news that supports the theory of the court case is that Diana is on her way to becoming a lawyer after passing the LSAT. One of the things that really messed me up was Lucy telling people at the bar that she was the one assaulted. Although I know that her heart was in the place of protecting her friend, she did make the situation worse if Pippa wanted to come forward in the future.
Thanksgiving…. how these people all ended up together instead of seeing family or doing god knows anything else is beside me but it did happen. We get the long awaited Lucy and Stephen reunion where they occupy the same room for more than 2 seconds. And of course it was uncomfortable. Not only are Diana and Stephen in a fight about how her dad’s card declined at a dinner I’m sure he somehow organized because Diana hates his guts after finding those pictures but Lucy and Leo are finally being confronted about all of their secrets! Yay! Meanwhile Evan has his new girlfriend (or I guess not even though he literally makes breakfast for her after she stays over) at dinner because her plans fell through and he is still desperately yearning for any chance with Bree. And then Bree is seeing a professor that’s practically ancient AND has a wife but only Lucy knows so she’s super awkward when interacting with the man who cheated on her with her best friend. Evan finds this information out through his new ‘girlfriend’ after Bree confesses small details to someone who isn’t even in her inner circle. If you don’t want people to find out or jeopardize your situation why would you be telling anyone about being with an older man?! Just a thought. And Lucy is judging her for it when she can’t make up her own mind on which guy she’d rather be seeing or at least which one is ‘better’ for her.
This is also where we discover more about Pippa wanting a connection with Diana and vice versa. Their friendship is genuinely the cutest and I was rooting for them to just get together already after seeing them be a couple during the wedding in present day. Then we get to the stupid game someone decided needed to be played where you have to drink a shot and then get slapped by someone. With this friend group I was honestly expecting more action. Evan kissing Bree was not enough for me and I have no clue why Leo didn’t slap Stephen when he’s the biggest jerk in the galaxy. Then Lucy slaps Diana because she wasn't being a girls girl by saying that Lucy allowed the toxic behavior from Stephen because she wasn’t ‘woman enough’ to make him treat her better. Honestly that was a bad move on her part because let someone or especially the girl currently with the emotionally abusive ex putting up with his childish and manipulative behavior say something like that to me and it’s on sight. So now Leo decides he’s this amazing person who doesn't punch random guys in bars and questions Lucy about her violent behavior and ongoing, very obvious obsession towards Stephen. Lucy decided to victimize herself as if she doesn't constantly make things messy for her and the people around her and he inevitably decides to call it quits.
Let’s talk about Wriggley because his character arch this season made him seem more like a person with emotions than a dumb jock who acts like he’s on steroids all of the time. He’s drowning his emotions in substances and alcohol mostly due to his brother but also because of his injury and feeling as if he lost his place in the captain role among his other football peers. His reconnection with Pippa was great when they were still friends but I didn’t know how to feel about them becoming more again. I think Wriggley got mixed signals and wanted a relationship while Pippa was still falling for Diana who was trying to get out of her situation with Stephen. So many people were theorizing that Drew had already died which would explain him not responding to anyone but somehow one phone call or text from Diana and he was on his way back to the school to make amends with his older brother. They hash it out over many drinks and pain pills at the bar before Drew dies overnight from the slow acting medication Wriggley gave to him because that’s the only way he knows how to have fun or build a genuine connection. I wouldn’t say it’s completely his fault but I do think that he has a lot of things to think about when it comes to his relationships and impulsive behavior.
Stephen decides Lucy is actually the one for him because she stayed through all of the terrible things he did to her last year. And somehow Lucy comes to the conclusion that because they’re both messed up, they need each other. Now Stephen assumes that because they made up Lucy is automatically at his beck and call and breaks up with Diana over her financial instability and unclear plans for their future. If he’s as much of a man as he claims to be, he wouldn’t be depending on a woman and her family’s money (just saying). Lucy wakes up from Stephen’s spell and thinks it’s a good idea to make up with Leo and sleep with him directly after Stephen because she impulsively decides she ‘loves’ him just to make herself feel better. And then it all comes out at a party where instead of Lucy checking to see if Leo’s ok after his outburst in reaction to Stephen’s sudden ability to tell the truth she runs to console Stephen for manipulating the entire situation to look like it’s not his fault.
I want to get a bit more into the relationship between Bree and Oliver before we move on. Bree pursues Oliver for a distraction after she discovered Evan wasn’t as nice of a guy that he claimed to be. Instead of gifting her something she’ll genuinely love and cherish for her birthday like the shirts Pippa and Lucy gifted her, he decided diamond earrings would be the best choice. She now starts to understand that he really doesn’t know her that much at all and has been acting weird with her ever since they started their relationship. That’s when she bumps into the mysterious professor who gets her into smoking. I think Bree was looking for excitement and spontaneity after feeling tied down and disrespected by Evan. So now she starts an affair and thinks that she’s this whole different girl, putting herself in a more mature position and thinking she’s a more advanced person than her friends because she’s gaining sexual experience with a much older man. Bree doesn't feel like her being judged is justified, she’s an adult and even though she might be moving fast by admitting she loves Oliver she is just being honest. The one thing she got wrong is Marianne knowing the entire time that Oliver was seeing her, in fact she was almost in on it after wearing her earrings to class. This is what pushes her over the edge to finally break things off and we still don’t know if she does for good considering she’s getting phone calls from an unknown number the entire time leading up to her wedding.
In my very humble opinions, none of these people are good people. Everyone has made mistakes and kept secrets. Everything is always swallowed up in this huge web of lies that never stops growing. There’s still the biggest secret of all being Stephen being with Macy the night she died that hasn’t come out to the whole group yet. And there’s also the drama with Lucy writing the letter about Drew even though Stephen took the blame for it, I believe that he’ll see this as another opportunity to further manipulate her to stay with him. We also discovered a new plot line during the finale episode. Stephen recorded Evan’s confession to sleeping with Lucy while Bree and him were together and sent it to Bree right before the ceremony. Do I think Bree will continue on to marry him? She has so many secrets of her own and we don’t even know if she’s come clean about her actions during her sophomore year, when they got back together, or if she’s been hiding anything else from him. I think that whoever ends up with whoever and whatever happens, there will always be a buttload of drama and we can expect Stephen and Lucy to be end game.
Thank you for reading if you made it this far. I’m super excited to continue more reviews and recaps like this in the future. Please comment any recommendations or requests below and remember that you also have access to the chat if you want to have a further discussion regarding Tell Me Lies or talk about any plot points I may have missed! P.S. I’ve inserted a couple of bonus pictures below :)
