Tell Me Lies, based on the novel of the same name by Carola Lovering, recounts the messy relationship between Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten, The Twisted Fate of Amanda Knox) and Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White, Ambulance). Stephen is an ambitious junior in college for pre-law looking to get into Yale, Lucy is a freshman English major just doing her best.
On their first date, Lucy declares to Stephen that her career ambitions are to be a travel writer. Ironically, the most compelling journey Lucy can take an audience on doesn’t take place across the ocean, it’s within the halls of Baird College. Season 3 continues to reveal the secrets of Lucy’s past when painful memories resurface during a friend’s wedding.
In the Season 1 finale, Stephen gets back together with Diana (Alicia Crowder, The Society) leaving Lucy high and dry in a coconut bra. Lucy gets drunk with Evan (Branden Cook, Masters of the Air) which ends in them waking up in the same bed. Fast forward to Season 3, Lucy and Stephen’s rekindled relationship hits a breaking point when Evan confesses to Stephen that he slept with Lucy.
The third episode of this season ends with Lucy confessing that she lied about a sexual assault accusation to protect Bree. Stephen threatens to call Bree and tell her about Lucy and Evan unless Lucy can provide a bigger secret that Stephen can hold over her head. Lucy records a video of herself admitting that she was lying about Chris Montgomery (Jacob Rodrigiuez, Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado) assaulting her. Scenes of Lucy having rough sex with her newest partner Alex (Costa D’Angelo, Neighbours) are cut between her confession showing the complex emotions she feels towards herself and Stephen. The break up feels different than the Season 1 split between the two, this time Stephen can hurt Lucy with more than heartbreak.
Flashing forward the audience knows that Stephen is engaged to Lucy’s former best friend and Chris’s sister Lydia Montgomery (Natalee Linez, Siren). How did Lucy and Stephen get there? How come Stephen’s hold on Lucy hasn’t shaken for eight long years. Lucy’s not satisfied by anyone but him, it can’t just be the good sex. That’s the question that this season is both posing and trying to answer. Why won’t Lucy and Stephen just move on from each other?
Their relationship has complex power dynamics that are important to take into account when attempting to answer why it hasn’t ended.
Starting out, Stephen had the power, he’s older than Lucy, a junior in college while she’s fresh out of high school. Then, there’s a role reversal and the pattern keeps repeating. Lucy knows that Stephen lied about Macy, Stephen knows that Lucy lied about Chris. No one else can understand those burdens, their psyches parallels each other.
Speaking of Lucy’s psyche, Grace Van Patten, says in a series-related podcast episode that Lucy needs “antidepressants and to talk to a trusted adult.” Lucy’s mental health is clearly fragile, but is not explored on screen. Rather than focusing on Lucy’s inner life, her relationships with men are the focal point of her character. This season explores her mental state solely through her sexual relationship with Alex, a grad student who is studying psychology, and dealing drugs. Lucy experiences a panic attack coming down from the high of MDMA she bought from Alex the night prior, he sells her some Xanax to calm her nerves.
Overall the show doesn’t take mental health seriously, Lucy brushes it off when a friend brings up concerns about depression. Lucy’s depression stems from the death of her father, beyond a fraught relationship with her mother there is no evidence of that loss. When Lucy’s father died she was alone with him. There was nothing a younger Lucy could have done to help her father. This backstory provides the opportunity to explore topics like PTSD from the traumatic death of a parent, depression, and anxiety about loved ones dying.
The show explores none of it even when Lucy’s roommate Macy (Lily Mclnerny, Palm Trees and Power Lines) dies in a car crash. Macy’s death could have been a catalyst for Lucy experiencing a rush of bottled up emotions about her father, sadly her apathy makes her come off as uncaring. Lucy’s motivations, and inner life should in some way relate to her grief for her father. Even a brief line of dialogue where she wishes her father would be there for her during college would add much needed depth to her character.
Meanwhile, Cat Missal’s character Bree is refreshingly realistic in comparison to Lucy. In season 2 Bree entered a relationship with a professor at Baird named Oliver (Tom Ellis, Lucifer). Oliver takes advantage of Bree’s need for a parental figure since she grew up in foster care and has an “affair” with her. Affair in quotes because Oliver is in an open marriage with his wife Marianne (Gabriella Pession, The Count of Monte Cristo) Lucy and Bree’s English professor. When Bree finds out about the lie she breaks up with Oliver and later pleads with him to take her back. In those scenes Cat Missal shows more emotion than Grace Van Patten has for three seasons. Bree craves love so deeply, her visceral need for it is why she excused Oliver’s behavior for weeks.
In the aftermath, Oliver cruelly calls Bree too needy and has moved on to a new freshman in Season 3 Amanda (Iris Apatow, This is 40). Bree befriends Amanda at a bar, but later tells Amanda that what she’s doing is wrong and gross. Bree is projecting the feelings of hatred and shame for the position she put herself in with Oliver on to Amanda showing that she is more than just nice.
Bree has a realistic range of emotions, her past as a foster child is compelling and her wedding is the focus of the modern storyline. Bree has the makings of a protagonist, while Lucy is written like a side character.
The latest episode of Season 3, “I’d Like to Hold Her Head Underwater” follows Bree’s reunion with her mother Mary (Emily Meade, The Deuce). Wrigley (Spencer House, Space Force) drives Bree to Mary’s house spending the whole day with her. Wrigley and Bree connect at a deeper level in this episode, he even tells Mary about Bree’s talent for photography. Hopefully Bree and Wrigley’s friendship continues through the rest of the season.
For Lucy, Episode 5 brings rumors about Chris who confronts her at a pool party. Alex hears about the assault through the grape vine and tries to be softer with Lucy. This doesn’t satisfy Lucy and the episode ends with her touching herself to an insulting voicemail from Stephen. The scene provides an important piece of the puzzle, Lucy isn’t trying to fix Stephen. In fact she craves his cruelty, who knows what lows Lucy will stoop to for Stephen’s attention as this season wraps up.
Despite the pitfalls of Lucy’s characterization, the passion of writer Meghan Oppenheimer, composer Jay Wedley, and the cast of the series comes through while watching. Production choices like Cat Missal’s hauntingly beautiful covers of “Crazy” and “Mr. Brightside” make the series addictive. Jackson White’s performance adds a bingeable quality to the series by keeping viewers wondering “What will Stephen do next?” Both the audience and Lucy will find out next week.
