Summary
Lucy and Stephen’s depravity reaches new heights in “Repent”, even by their usual standards, and at least two scenes here are so uncomfortable to watch that one can only imagine how bleak this season is going to get.
I’m not averse to surprises, but I have to admit I’ve had better ones than this. Tell Me Lies was already squirm-inducingly awkward in Season 3, but Episode 3, “Repent”, takes it to new levels of self-loathing depravity and self-destructive behaviour. The easiest summary would be to say that Stephen and Lucy deserve each other and just wash our hands of the whole affair, but there’s a deeper, darker psychology at play that’s worthy of some examination, even if ultimately this show makes me feel a bit nauseous.
To be fair, Hulu/Disney+ dropping “Repent” alongside the first two makes sense, since there were some pretty significant developments in the previous episode that makes pushing through the binge a bit more tempting. Bree and Wrigley have some romantic chemistry, Pippa and Diana have a lot more romantic chemistry, Lucy and Stephen have broken up, and so on, and so forth. That’s plenty to be getting on with, so let’s break it all down.
The Morning After
There’s no 2015 stuff again, so we pick up the morning after the night before. Lucy wakes up from a nightmare about Bree and Evan, which kind of indicates where her head is at, and she comes up with the best possible solution – running away entirely and going to Spain on a study program. She has missed the deadline, but if she submits a writing sample, she can get her application in. Maybe then she’ll be free of Stephen, though not necessarily her own issues, which we’ll get to shortly.
A bit more romantic is Pippa and Diana’s morning. They wake up next to each other feeling significantly less awkward about the previous evening than I expected them to, but there is still the lingering issue of Pippa and Wrigley’s relationship. It’s not like she can just send him packing, given his mental state, so hopefully things between him and Bree pick up (though there is, sadly, no indication of this in “Repent”. Bree has other concerns.)
As soon as Pippa leaves, Diana rushes to the bathroom to throw up. This seems like a reaction to their encounter until the very end of the episode, when it’s revealed that Diana is pregnant, which should throw a spanner in the works.
Bree Isn’t Over It
Bree’s problems revolve, as usual, around Oliver. Given what Amanda told her about how their relationship began, she’s even more incensed than she might otherwise have been, but at least she’s being open about it with her friends. Not that any of them offer any meaningful advice, brainstorming ways to get back at Oliver that include STD claims and a fake pregnancy. This might just be banter, but with this lot, you can never quite tell, and if Bree tries anything like that, it’s highly likely to blow up in her face.
And it’s a little unclear how Bree actually feels about any of this. Later, she meets Amanda and berates her about how wrong her relationship with Oliver is, which could just as easily be her looking out for a vulnerable new friend as it is her trying to sabotage the relationship in a “if I can’t have him, nobody can” kind of way. She sends the picture she took with Amanda to Oliver, so she’s up to something. Time will tell.
Bree also has some flirty back-and-forth with Evan in this episode, who is now technically with Molly but still tells Bree that if she asked him to, he’d ditch Molly in an instant. It’s a throwaway line, but Bree definitely reacts to it. If she pursues anything with Wrigley, we may have a love triangle on the cards, since we know, thanks to the flashforwards, that Bree and Evan do ultimately end up together.
Rebounds
Thanks to Bree’s connection with drug dealer Alex, he also joins the gang at a ski-themed party, and Lucy seems to spot the perfect rebound opportunity, encouraged by Bree. Alex is just what Lucy needs, or so she thinks. He’s a nice-looking guy with a bit of mystery about him who is also seemingly pathologically averse to relationships and attachments. He’s a meaningless one-night stand with legs.
Thus, Lucy pursues this and goes home with Alex, but when a time-sensitive text comes in, he responds to it while they’re in the middle of cavorting, which throws Lucy a bit. Is he into her at all? Unluckily for her, Alex isn’t exactly the reassuring type, so she ends up second-guessing the liaison and feeling pretty stupid about it, and she leaves without consummating the relationship.
But she’ll be back, in even more demeaning circumstances.
Stephen’s Leverage
Stephen spends most of Tell Me Lies Season 3, Episode 3 spiralling, since he didn’t get his own way. He also hears from his mother – utterly disinterested in his life, as well she should be – that his sister – who doesn’t want to speak to him after last season – might lose her tuition. He drunkenly tries to press Max about Lucy, and basically gets told to do one, then tries a quasi-sympathetic angle with Wrigley and once again gets rebuffed. It’s time for desperate measures.
Stephen calls Bree, knowing she’ll be with Lucy, to lure Lucy to his dorm. She’s obviously worried that he’s going to tell Bree about her and Evan, which he claims he’s going to, so Lucy literally begs him not to, claiming she still loves him. Stephen is adamant about hurting her, and since this is the only way he has to do that, he’s still going to tell Bree – unless Lucy can come up with another way for him to ruin her that she’s more amenable to. And she literally brainstorms some ideas to help him, such is the depth of her fear of losing Bree.
What she comes up with is the fact that she lied about being sexually assaulted by Chris, which explains why this was brought up in the premiere. And, to be fair, she did lie, but she was doing it to protect Pippa, who wasn’t willing to come forward. Chris was a determined sexual predator and needed to be outed, so that’s one falsehood that Lucy can probably justify, but Stephen insists that she records a video confession claiming she lied about it for attention. This is an awful scene, and it’s also kind of crazy that Lucy would be willing to do this instead of just talking to Bree. Even Stephen himself finds this pretty remarkable.
With Stephen’s leverage secured and no idea whatsoever about when and if he might deploy it, Lucy returns in shame to Alex. This time, they do sleep together, but Lucy insists he greases the wheels with degrading dirty talk about how pathetic and worthless she is. Needless to say, it’s about as romantic as it sounds.
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