Summary
Tell Me Lies continues to do a great job of depicting alarmingly awful characters.
The reason Tell Me Lies works – the main one, anyway, there are a few – is that it understands the power of spite. This is one of the few shows I watch and cover professionally wherein several characters make me physically bristle. I keep watching in the hopes of a comeuppance for them, the same way that several of the characters keep making breathtakingly stupid decisions in the hopes of getting one over on their nemesis. Spite drives everything.
Lucy and Stephen
In Episode 3 of Season 2, “I Can See Right Through Myself”, you see this idea reflected everywhere. It opens in the 2015 timeline, with Lucy once again being forced to mingle with Stephen thanks to Bree and Evan. Their mixed bachelor/bachelorette party – a terrible idea, by the way – puts the two in the same room, with increasingly few buffers between them.
One of them on this occasion is Lucy’s boyfriend Max, who didn’t attend the engagement party, so Stephen sees a target to befriend and be all chatty with. Why? Spite. And it has the intended effect. When Lucy pulls Max to the side to warn him about being too pally with Stephen, he – understandably – wonders why she’s still so hung up on her ex all these years later.
The same is true in the 2008 timeline. At the end of the season premiere, Lucy discovered to her horror that Stephen was the new TA in a class she was taking, which he claims was just a random assignment. Yeah, sure.
As if Stephen ingratiating himself in Lucy’s classroom wasn’t enough of a red flag, his reaction when he discovers Lucy’s ID card in Diana’s bag is extremely telling. His demeanor becomes predatory immediately, demanding to know what Lucy and Diana could possibly have spoken about.
Of course, we know that they worked together to help Pippa after Chris tried to assault her, but Diana can’t reveal that, so she claims Lucy approached her about him instead. In response, Stephen visits Lucy, seduces her, and then walks away when she gives in to prove a point that he still has power over her.
This guy, man.
Bree and Oliver
While we’re on the subject of dodgy dudes, Oliver is sounding giant alarm bells in my head.
Teacher-student relationships are always ill-advised, of course. You could argue that at this age it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other, but no – the power dynamic is too pronounced, and Bree is also vulnerable after breaking up with Evan. Even if Oliver was the nicest guy in the world, he’d still be at fault here.
But Oliver isn’t the nicest guy in the world. He’s not even trying! He spends all of Tell Me Lies Season 2, Episode 3 getting Bree to meet up with him here, there, and everywhere, shows her a little bit of intimacy, then pretends he’s feeling guilty about his wife and the fact she’s a student. Then the cycle repeats.
He eventually gives in totally, which he clearly always planned to do anyway. He even has a conveniently empty house to take her to. This is all going to go wrong, without question, but I’m letting it be known now that Oliver is probably going to reveal some highly worrying tendencies in the course of this relationship.
Tell Me Lies | Image via Hulu
Poppy and Wrigley
This section of the recap was about Poppy and Chris in the first two episodes, for obvious reasons, but the dynamic shifts a little in “I Can See Right Through Myself”. Chris makes a brief appearance and his previous behavior still looms, but when Poppy decides she’s had enough of the football team’s smear campaign, she takes it out on Wrigley.
Wrigley is easily the most charming of the dudes on this show, even though he’s not exactly a stand-up guy either, so it’s refreshing to see him take some accountability for how Poppy has been treated. He apologizes to her for not stepping in to do anything about it and there’s a glimmer of potential reconciliation for the future, even though we know it won’t last. But at least he’ll probably rein the team in.
This, though, will leave Poppy more time to digest what happened between her and Chris, which she’s clearly reluctant to do.
Lucy and Stephen (Again)
One of the crucial developments of Tell Me Lies Season 2, Episode 3 is that Lucy reveals Stephen’s involvement in Macy’s death to Diana. Outside of his obvious obsession with Lucy in general, Stephen has clearly been fretting about her revealing this secret, and it’s the one trump card Lucy has to fight back against his creepy nonsense.
The revelation does backfire a bit since Diana doesn’t believe her, but Grace Van Patten really sells the moment when Lucy realizes that, as she says, “This isn’t my problem anymore.” There’s a feeling of liberation she experiences when she finally understands that it’s Diana, not her, who is truly tethered to Stephen now. As if to prove her point, Diana immediately heads home to sleep with Stephen.
But Lucy commits to detaching herself from him. She drops out of the class he’s the TA in, despite it leaving a blemish on her college record, and she gives Leo another chance to explain his anger issues. Despite having headbutted someone in a café for basically no reason at all, Leo seems like an alright guy, and certainly a better option for Lucy than Stephen.
However, we can probably predict how Stephen will react to Lucy getting a few over on him. And I doubt it’ll yield anything positive for Lucy.
