Summary
The two-part premiere of Tell Me Lies Season 2 delivers a predictable torrent of trauma, terrible decisions, and unhealthy relationships, right on schedule.
Most people have one or two toxic traits, but the cast of Tell Me Lies doesn’t seem to have anything else. Season 2 of the hit Hulu series kicks off with a two-part premiere – Episode 1, “You Got A Reaction, Didn’t You?”, and Episode 2, “I Shall Now Perform A 180 Flip-Flop” – that proves this is not going to be changing any time season.
The end of Season 1, you’ll recall, revealed that Stephen was engaged to Lydia, and Season 2 deploys the same dual-timeline structure to explain the details. Lucy remains a strong focal point, and that dynamic with Stephen is central, but there are many other subplots and characters to be paying attention to as well.
Lucy and Stephen
But anyway, Lucy. She’s struggling. The mere sight of Stephen at Evan and Bree’s engagement party leaves her locked in a room holding back tears, and Stephen’s not reluctant to exert his control over her any way he can.
In the past, Lucy’s return to college is fraught with stress, both at the prospect of running into Stephen and due to the guilt she feels over her one-night-stand with Bree’s boyfriend, Evan. Despite insisting to Bree and Pippa that she’s fine, she clearly isn’t, though she does a good job of resisting Stephen’s inclination to get on her nerves during the freshman welcome party.
Ah, Stephen. He’s awful, isn’t he? Despite spending the entire summer with Diana and working at her father’s law firm, Lucy not falling for his efforts to annoy her visibly annoys him. His need for her validation and obsession is almost sadistic, and I’m with Diana’s father that his predilection for deceit and manipulation is both ingrained and, eventually, liable to get him in trouble.
Evan and Bree
Evan, too, is struggling with guilt, and having a difficult time hiding it. He obviously can’t reveal the cause behind his change in demeanour, which simply confuses Bree, who starts to blame herself for the emerging distance between them.
It’s quite grim the extent to which Lucy manipulates Bree into not “overthinking” the matter just so Evan isn’t inclined to reveal what actually happened. Sure, she doesn’t want to upset her friend, but she also isn’t especially concerned about her friend’s happiness either, or she wouldn’t want to let her linger in this uncertain state. But better that than the truth.
Evan makes several mistakes here. He overcompensates by buying Bree expensive gifts, which she isn’t used to and finds a bit weird, and then he confides in Stephen, of all people, that he cheated, though he crucially doesn’t reveal who with. Stephen initially advises him to keep the secret and write it off as a typical college-age mistake, then pushes him to tell the truth lest the secret torture Evan all his life. Make your mind up, Steve!
Either way, Evan eventually decides to confess, shocking Bree and leaving her in quite the predicament.
Bree and Oliver
Tell Me Lies | Image via Hulu
Bree was already in a predicament, though – she was lusting over Professor Marianne’s husband, Oliver, who had showed her a little attention in return, and a moment of intimacy involving her earrings had thrown her for a loop. Bree made the right decision of going home to Evan, but given he decided to break the news about him cheating, Bree was left with a rather obvious – and obviously ill-advised – path to getting her own back.
Bree tracks Oliver down at a bar and makes a move on him. He isn’t willing to risk his marriage and his job, but can’t quite let a kiss on the cheek go unreciprocated, though nothing else happens between them. Bree goes home to Evan and sleeps with him instead, possibly with her head elsewhere, but he – it turns out incorrectly – assumes that they’ve made up.
No such luck. Bree reveals the next morning that she cheated on him, and he falls for it – he acts out, saying he isn’t ready to forgive her, when Bree wasn’t even telling the truth and just wanted to gauge his reaction to inform her own. It takes a frightening lack of self-awareness for a guy who just admitted to cheating on his girlfriend to feign horror when she claims to have returned the favour.
Bree breaks up with Evan in the wake of this and begins an affair with Oliver, which will no doubt prove problematic down the line. She must get back with Evan at some point, of course, but what’s going to happen with her and Oliver in the meantime?
Pippa and Chris
Pippa’s college-era subplot is a sobering reminder of the perils of a party-hard lifestyle and, as ever, of men who believe they’re entitled to women’s bodies one way or another.
The man in question is Chris, Lydia’s brother. After being smeared by the entire football team following her breakup with Wrigley, Pippa finds solace in Chris, who seems to enjoy her company. He enjoys it so much that at a party he spikes her drink and tries to assault her.
Diana and Lucy, putting their differences aside, work together to help Pippa, but it’s clear that Chris’s sinister motives here will have a lingering affect. Pippa’s in denial about the fact that she has been victimized, though it’s undeniable, and it’ll factor into Lydia’s relationship with Lucy.
Lucy and Stephen (Again)
Stephen’s rather blatant obsession with Lucy, or at least with Lucy wanting him, continues unabated, and at the end of Tell Me Lies Season 2, Episode 2, he turns up as a new TA in Lucy’s class just to keep an annoying eye on her.
Stephen exhibited other nutcase tendencies throughout the premiere, including trying to publicly humiliate Lucy when he senses that Evan’s friend Leo is becoming a romantic threat. It’s a classic case of “I don’t want you, but I don’t want anyone else to have you either.”
It’s clear that throughout the season Stephen is going to do everything in his power to keep Lucy close and torment her. Tell Me Lies hasn’t lost a step.
All of these subplots continue in Tell Me Lies Season 2, Episode 3, where Stephen’s manipulation of Lucy continues.
