Summary
Tell Me Lies benefits from Season 3’s emotional depth in “I Don’t Cry When I’m Sad Anymore”, which feels like a more developed take on the classic scenarios that have defined the first two seasons.
A themed party, a drinking game, and a lot of questionable decision-making — at first blush, “I Don’t Cry When I’m Sad Anymore” is Tell Me Lies performing precisely as advertised. But not so fast. While there’s a great deal of familiarity to some of the scenarios here, Season 3’s improved emotional depth elevates Episode 6 to a different, more introspective level. The kids are growing up. That doesn’t mean they’re not still making deeply terrible decisions, since they very much are, but at least they’re becoming aware of how messed up they all are.
Once again, there’s no 2015 timeline in this episode, keeping the action contained to Valentine’s Day in 2009, which is being celebrated with a goth-themed party and the least romantic subplots in the history of the universe. In fact, I’ve just done a quick head count, and nobody, literally nobody, is doing well romantically here. It’s a mess. Which is precisely how we like it, obviously.
Rising Above It
There’s a recurring theme in “I Don’t Cry When I’m Sad Anymore” that sometimes, leaving things alone is the best option. This is mostly evidenced by Diana, who is easily the smartest and most well-adjusted member of the cast. Early on, she receives a frantic call from her mother telling her that her dad has received some pictures of her from an anonymous email account. Of course, we know that Stephen sent them. And so does Diana, but she resolves to do precisely nothing about it, because she has — correctly, in my view — deduced that Stephen will always go lower. He’s impossible to beat at his own game. The way you put out a fire is to starve it of oxygen.
This causes a bit of tension between Diana and Pippa, who would prefer her to address the situation directly, but Diana’s definitely right here. And it’s advice that Lucy could stand to hear. Naturally, when she runs into Stephen at the goth party, who makes a giant song and dance about introducing her to Teagan, she’s so flustered that Alex has to take her out of the building. She spends the rest of the night in a daze, makes a fool of herself to Max, forces Alex into more self-loathing distraction sex rather than acknowledging how broken she feels, and then kind of sleepwalks to Stephen’s dorm in a haze.
Luckily, Diana runs into her and gives her some genuinely sage advice about leaving the whole thing alone. She’ll ignore it, I feel certain, but it’s nice to have Diana around just to talk some sense into people. Alex seems like he cares, but he’s a little too susceptible to Lucy’s penchant for aggressive, demeaning lovemaking for my tastes. He even gets all teary about it this time before going ahead with it anyway. It’s a red flag.
No More Drinking Games
Honestly, I don’t understand why these people keep participating in drinking games. It’s always a terrible idea. The one in Tell Me Lies Season 3, Episode 6 is called “Paranoia”, and it’s pitched by Teagan, who’s blissfully unaware of quite how much dysfunction is floating around in this group.
The tension during this sequence is palpable, and it has the upside of folding in multiple subplots, particularly Bree and Wrigley’s developing romance. She makes a slightly off-colour joke about suicide, assuming Wrigley will take it better than he does, then her attempted apology turns into a grand unburdening of all her issues that Wrigley rightly calls out as inappropriate when she could be sharing these things with Evan. But Evan is sulking like a little baby about the fact that Bree didn’t tell him about having met with her mother, who is apparently coming to her photography exhibition, and everything he says just makes Bree gravitate to Wrigley. And I get it, since Wrigley is the only person in the core group who seems like a nice guy.
But even Wrigley is fraying. After Bree and Evan fall out, the latter asks him to take the former home, and they end up arguing about how weird their dynamic is becoming. Wrigley’s rant about everyone’s terrible decision-making — “Girls… girls are still dating Stephen!” — is brilliantly funny, but it’s also sad, in a strange way, since it’s just so true. These people are messed up beyond all salvation.
Pippa’s Hiding Something
In that rant, Wrigley mentions that Pippa is the only member of the group who’s genuinely unproblematic, and he’s taking her for granted by spending all of his time with Bree. But he’s clearly wrong on at least two counts. For one thing, she’s cheating on him with Diana. And for another, it really does seem like she was lying about being assaulted by Chris.
That seems like a big claim, but I don’t know how else to take what we’re seeing. Either Chris is the most delusional guy who has ever lived, or she’s lying. Either way, he seems perfectly comfortable approaching her at the goth party and telling her about Lucy’s claims, assuming she’ll defend him. And she doesn’t contradict his assessment that they merely hooked up. After, she falls out with Lucy for mentioning her claims to Chris.
I don’t know about you, but to me, that seems like she’s hiding the truth. It seems so unlike Pippa, but this might be where we are at the moment.
Oliver Is Even Worse Than We Thought
At the goth party, Bree runs into Amanda, who reveals that her 18th birthday is coming up. She skipped a year in high school, so she’s only 17, which means Oliver is an even bigger creep than we initially realised.
Bree hasn’t really gotten over the Oliver situation — it’s another thing that Wrigley mentions in his rant, saying she’s directing her frustrations at Amanda instead of the creepy dude who deserves it — but I don’t think it’s down to any lingering jealousy or desire. She seems to have realised that Oliver is legitimately dangerous, so after falling out with Wrigley, she goes to confront him at his home. He isn’t there, though. I think we can imagine where he is, and Marianne is clearly embarrassed to say so. She’s complicit in what Oliver’s doing, but she clearly isn’t as into it as he is. She has just kind of fallen into a habit of allowing it.
She didn’t know Amanda was 17, though. That revelation changes things a bit, and Marianne shows genuine warmth and understanding to Bree, giving her a cuddle and holding her while she sobs. The next morning, Bree has nobody else to turn to about how she’s feeling other than Wrigley, who naturally shows up immediately. They both apologise for bickering, but they also both, for the first time, admit their feelings for one another. And they kiss! It should be a romantic moment, but given what we already know from the 2015 timeline, it’s just another thing that’s going to go badly for both of them.
