Summary
“Evil, Ornery, Scandalous, and Evil” is toxic even by the usual standards, and contains several deeply (albeit deliberately) uncomfortable sequences.
I love the title of Tell Me Lies Season 2, Episode 5 — “Evil, Ornery, Scandalous, and Evil”. It’s perfect. It applies to every character and every episode in the show’s history. They even repeated the word “evil” twice. As far as mission statements go, that’s about as good as you’re going to get.
It’s Halloween, which is cause for a few fancy outfits but not necessarily for any more evil than usual. The baseline state of Tell Me Lies is one of profound, enduring toxicity. The demons aren’t seasonal.
Lucy
It’s good and bad news for Lucy in the early stages of “Evil, Ornery, Scandalous, and Evil”. The good news is that Lydia is on campus for Halloween. The bad news is that dropping the class that Stephen had ingratiated himself as the TA in has caused her GPA to plummet. Marianne offers to find a way to help, but that isn’t ideal either, since Lucy is thus far the only person aware of Bree’s ongoing relationship with Oliver. When Marianne mentions him being out of town for the weekend, that’s the first clue she gets that Bree will be out of town with him.
But she has other things to focus on. Things are going pretty well with her and Leo, for instance. And their fancy dress night out with Lydia and Pippa is going swimmingly… at least until Chris arrives, dressed incredibly unsubtly as Patrick Bateman.
It’s also not ideal for Lucy that Lydia keeps bringing Stephen up and trying to antagonize him at the party. After she says he looks like a thumb — which he kind of does, to be fair — Sadie later confronts her, saying her brother’s a nice guy and that Lucy stalked him when he tried to break up with her amicably. Lucy, who was adamant about not getting involved, can’t quite tolerate this accusation and tells Sadie how much of a monster her brother is until she’s reduced to tears. Oops.
But worse news comes the next morning when Lydia is alarmed to discover that Caitie has sent an email to her entire sorority claiming that Chris raped her, and since Lucy knows first-hand that he’s almost certainly guilty of doing so, she warns Lydia that they should at least consider the possibility. And, needless to say, the sentiment isn’t well received.
Predictably, Lydia happens to run into Stephen shortly after this, and he takes the opportunity to tell her every personal thing Lucy ever told him about her, including when she lost her virginity and the fact that she’s a conformist who will end up like her mother. It’s so bruisingly personal that Lydia knows immediately that Lucy said those things, but she pretends to believe Lucy when she denies it.
Luckily, Lucy has a grandmaster-level chess move up her sleeve (see Stephen’s section below).
Bree and Oliver
As mentioned, Bree and Oliver go away for the weekend in Tell Me Lies Season 2, Episode 5, and my goodness, this man is deeply, deeply awful.
Naturally, Oliver is trying to be all secretive about the relationship, so he’s cautious about taking Bree for a drink in the hotel bar and horrified when she accidentally reveals that she told Lucy where she was and who she was with. But he’s such a creeper that even when the barmaid scrutinizes Bree’s fake ID, fixes Oliver with the look of abject disgust that he deserves, and makes an offhanded comment about how he should probably not parade his underage girlfriend around in public, he makes a big performative point of passionately kissing Bree with one eye fixed on the barmaid.
Scum. Absolute scum. And it gets worse! When they “make up” after their spat the next morning, Bree laments about the trip being last minute and her not having had the time for a full grooming routine, and Oliver makes her feel better by telling her that it’s fine because she’d look prepubescent otherwise. And then he takes his wedding ring off and puts it on Bree’s finger! The whole thing honestly makes me feel sick.
(Disney/Josh Stringer) SONIA MENA
Stephen
Stephen’s sister, Sadie, is also on campus for Halloween. And she’s arriving at just the right time since Stephen can finally relax a little after acing his LSAT. But that achievement is undercut somewhat by Diana’s revelation that her own LSAT isn’t going to be enough to get her into law school. Their planned future together has hit an immediate and potentially irreconcilable hurdle, and Stephen, the demented control freak that he is, looks at Diana like he’s going to wear her face for Halloween.
As if this wasn’t bad enough when Stephen finds out what Lucy said to Sadie, he immediately leaves Lucy a torrent of abuse in a voicemail message and then tries to destroy her relationship with Lydia (as described above.) Feeling rather happy with himself, Stephen is alarmed to find Sadie listening to the voicemail message, which Lucy sent directly to her over social media, quivering and crying because of how much her beloved brother sounds like their mother.
Pippa and Wrigley (And Diana A Bit)
I must once again confess that I like Wrigley. He’s the only person in this entire show who seems halfway genuine and whatever is going on with him and Pippa in this episode is easily the most charming and funny element.
Pippa ends up leaving the party because she can’t stand to be around Chris and daren’t have a drink in case he’s spiked it, and she takes Wrigley with her for comfort. And he provides it. They share some confessions about their relationship, such as pretending to not like pink Starburst so Wrigley could have them all, not having slept with anyone since the breakup, and faking all of her orgasms during the relationship, and Wrigley takes it all brilliantly well. He even agrees to stay the night so that Pippa can finally relax for once.
But about the orgasms thing. Pippa reassures Wrigley that this wasn’t specific to him, and blames it on her being “too much in her own head”. There’s probably some truth to that, but based on the way she looks at Diana in this episode, it’s not quite in the way she describes. Tell Me Lies Season 2, Episode 5 even ends with the two of them getting a little flirty while touching up Pippa’s roots, so if nothing else, one of the most horrifying chapters in the show’s history ends on a reasonably bright note.
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