The Hulu original series Tell Me Lies has sparked huge conversations on social media with its recent season three premiere on January 13th. The discussions are centered around the morality and decisions of the main characters: a college friend group consisting of three freshman girls and three junior guys. When I found out the point of the show was that they’re all terrible people who do terrible things to each other, I knew I needed to insert myself in the drama and find out what the hype was all about. Consider this your spoiler warning.
Our characters are introduced in the present 2015 timeline, where the group has been invited to Bree and Evan’s wedding festivities, starting off with an engagement party. Lucy, Pippa, and Wrigley are all established as part of the main group while they mutter about a “Stephen” entrance. Lucy looks a little paranoid, glancing around the party, until she locks eyes with this Stephen we were warned about. That is when we begin the flashback to the girls’ freshman year of college in 2008, which dominates the plot.
Lucy Albright, our main character of the group, is so psychologically fascinating. Right before she leaves for college, she breaks up with her boyfriend of two years without shedding a tear. Her mom and her sister ask her how she’s doing, and she is so mentally detached from the whole situation, sweeping it under the rug like it’s no big deal. She also admits to Macy, Pippa, and Bree, girls she has never met before, that she doesn’t get excited about things, and they look at her funny. I always think about these moments when I want to punch my TV screen and yell at her for finding her way back to Stephen once again.
But Lucy feels alive with Stephen because he makes her feel something. She’s used to not feeling anything at all, so when he lights a fire within her, whether it’s good or bad, she craves it and drops everything for him because it’s so much better than numbness. This is why it’s so hard for me to hate her as much as everyone else on the internet does. She is a victim, not just of Stephen, but of mental illness itself. Even though she continuously hurts herself and others, I want to root for her. It’s also pretty obvious that after we learn what happened between her parents before her dad died, we understand that she does not have a good understanding of what healthy relationships look like. She hates her mom for what she did, yet she can’t help but act adjacently.
When Lucy is with other guys during her many breaks with Stephen, she has a habit of treating them like garbage because she needs that in a relationship. Max read her to filth in the first season during her winter break by suggesting she had depression, but she didn’t want to be called out like that, so she made him leave. The thought of there being an explanation for her feelings scared her, and having someone be able to see through her scared her even more because she wanted to blame it all on Stephen. Leo, too, witnessed her undying obsession with Stephen’s feelings in season two, and called her out on it, which led to their breakup. All of this ties back into these relationships not being exciting enough for her, and they don’t elicit the same emotions within her that Stephen does.
I would argue that the aspect that draws other viewers in the most is how nuanced each situation and character is. No one is ever completely in the right, which furthers the complexity of each storyline and creates these kinds of discussions. The lie that Lucy tells about it being her who was sexually assaulted rather than Pippa is something I can’t get out of my head. We know she had good intentions when telling that lie, but it was stupid and thoughtless of her to think that wouldn’t get around the school, especially to Caitlin, the girl whose case against Chris was dismissed. As a viewer, we want Pippa to be able to come forward and demand justice, but as Diana said, it would only make her case weaker after people learn Lucy lied.
The realism of this scenario regarding Pippa’s experience is so important. What we know is Diana finds her half undressed, lying in her own sick while Chris is completely conscious and alert in the bathroom. We never see what happens between them, but it’s obviously inferred. Pippa doesn’t want to talk about it, but later, she tells Lucy she remembers more than she let on initially. In episode six of season three, Chris confronts Pippa at the goth party and makes sure that they are cool because he claims he did not do anything of the sort, and Pippa agrees. With this information, I think Pippa would never have told anyone about that night if no one found her. She believes that because she was somewhat conscious, she gave consent, and therefore couldn’t have been assaulted even if she was very, very intoxicated.
This is what I mean by the lack of a black-and-white plotline. It’s a whole mess of misconstrued stories and communication between certain characters, and that’s really what happens in life. Of course there’s moments in the show that are very dramatized, like Bree’s relationship with her professor’s husband sophomore year and the upperclassmen being able to live on campus in the dorms, (let me know which universities have that many dorms available!) but the majority of the series handles pretty heavy subjects that are so relatable and realistic that it becomes scary.
One huge question that I would say every viewer shares is, “Why don’t they just get rid of Stephen?” I’ve come to two potential answers for that question. One is that Evan and Wrigley are just guys. They’re non-confrontational when it really matters, and they don’t care enough to completely cut someone off, even when they’re acting insane. The girls get wrapped up in this as well, because Bree and Pippa are with Evan and Wrigley, and they want to continue to hang out with their boyfriends. Lucy wants to continue to hang out with her friends, and Stephen is still friendly with the guys, so it’s a whole circle and cycle that Lucy can’t get away from, which makes it harder for her to bury her temptation.
Another is that the guys are scared of him. Evan told Stephen that he hooked up with Lucy after they broke up, and he doesn’t want that getting around to Bree. Wrigley also lets Stephen walk all over him because he understands his manipulative tactics. They both don’t want to become his next victim, so it’s easier to keep him happy.
The show writers are masters at intricacy and keeping our heart rates up. It makes me so thankful that I don’t have a friend group like that, and I have a boyfriend of three years who would never treat me like this. However, it makes me worry for the girls who have had a Stephen or a friend like Lucy. When you get to college, you go a little bit crazy. The freedom and thousands of people you’re surrounded by everyday makes you feel more invisible and allows you to act how you wouldn’t normally. It serves as a cautionary tale for when you are dropped off in the real world and have to find new connections based on your own judgment. This isn’t my life, but it is someone’s out there, and that’s terrifying.