It is the penultimate episode of Tell Me Lies Season 3, and it starts with something sweet amid a sea of torment: Wrigley (Spencer House) and Bree (Cat Missal), fresh off their kiss in Season 3 Episode 6. They don’t want to hurt their friends, but they really care about each other (not empty words, since viewers know that this affection will last well beyond their college years). Wrigley says he’ll break up with Pippa (Sonia Mena), and Bree is quick to agree that she’ll dump Evan (Branden Cook), but they’re not sure what comes next.
“We let stuff settle for a bit and then we figure out what this is,” Wrigley says. He’s the happiest we’ve seen him all season, throughout which he was always notably most confident and clear-headed in Bree’s presence. 2015 knowledge aside, it’s hard not to feel some dread for these two. Maybe a pressure cooker of onlookers isn’t a fertile environment for love? They kiss goodbye and head back to certain misery.
Evan kicks off the episode by continuing his uncharacteristic controlling streak, this time by seeking advice from Oliver of all people on how to make things work with Bree. Oliver himself clocks this — “You’re asking me how to fuck with her head?” — which shows some modicum of awareness and maturity, but then he exploits his very reductive understanding of Bree. He calls her “frightened… desperate for stability… if she feels like she needs you she won’t push you away.” Evan, I beg you, do not do this.
In the cold light of the morning after the anti-Valentine’s party, Lucy (Grace Van Patten) speaks to Tegan (Bianca Nugara), telling her that Stephen (Jackson White) is not her friend, that he’s “not a good guy,” and “dangerous.” “Honestly I’m scared of him,” she says, with more honesty than she usually affords her friends or even herself. Tegan takes this in, her feelings unclear as she processes, but Lucy leaves the interaction with renewed courage.
That courage, unfortunately, gives way to a very bad plan: Convincing Stephen that she still wants to be with him so that he trusts her and turns over the confession video, and denying his claims about Lucy and Evan sleeping together. I can’t blame them for wanting to discredit Stephen, but I can blame them for gaslighting Bree. In my many frenzied texts with Decider’s own Nicole Gallucci we constantly wish these two would just come clean instead of putting themselves through so much more anguish, Lucy in particular. Tell her the truth and leave Stephen out of it!
I’ll summarize it with this evergreen GIF:
Let’s shift gears to Pippa, whose character hit a historic low this week. I’ve given her a lot of grace despite cheating on Wrigley, but that ended when Wrigley arrived for a very compassionate breakup and she gets inordinately upset at him. “I feel like you’re trying to get me to say something instead of just saying it yourself,” she says at the top, as if she herself hasn’t been delaying a tough conversation and perhaps secretly hoped this would happen to let her off the hook. Yet here she is feeling “rejected” and saying she doesn’t hate Wrigley when it sure seems like she does! It makes you wonder whether she ever planned to break up with him or if she was content to live a double life with him and with Diana in perpetuity. Actually, no need to wonder; that’s the truth!
Pippa gets minimal credit here for self awareness; she immediately goes to Diana and admits to not handling the well. Still stung by Wrigley’s sudden action, she’s extra sensitive to Diana choosing Stanford law school and imminently moving across the country. The reasons are valid, but the one Pippa’s stuck on is that Diana doesn’t want to be anywhere near Stephen. She finds it unfair that he factors into this major life decision, but she doesn’t. Unfortunately, these thoughts come out as the following, childish sentence: “Maybe you don’t care about me as much as you cared about him.” An overwhelmed Diana ends things, leaving Pippa sobbing — perhaps less about Diana specifically than about the fact that she went from two partners to zero in the course of a few hours.
Meanwhile, the hours tick away at Bree’s photography exhibition, where her mother has arrived intoxicated — but more concerningly, Stephen has arrived sober.
Tension rages between the friends but mercifully no one causes a scene. Even as things escalate with Mary (Emily Meade), they end copacetically. Marianne (Gabriella Pession) is tactless enough to bring up her last conversation with Bree in this setting, but it mostly ends there. Stephen confronts Lucy outside the party (with a chilling “Huh”), her plan exposed along with her desperation to acquire the tape. She begs to see it and not only does he show her, but he hands it over and says he has no copies. Is this scarier than anything else he’s done so far? Is he the one posting freshman year photos at the end of the episode, which ultimately leads Bree to suspect Evan and Lucy? In 2015 she didn’t seem entirely surprised, so the whole thing might come tumbling out in the Season 3 finale.
For the moment, at least, Lucy can exhale, and the exhibition turns out to not be a total debacle (Social Event Marked Safe From Stephen DeMarco), though the same can’t be said of the rest of the night. Wrigley leaves earlier on to meet Pippa.
Oh, Pippa. I fear that she may be struggling a lot more than any of her friends realize. There’s something to be said for processing her assault in isolation and not confiding in anyone close to her (Bree, Lucy, Wrigley, Diana). I’m not sure the show means to explicitly mirror this with her thoughts about Stephen, but there’s an undeniable parallel: “He’s gonna keep getting away with all this fucking disgusting shit because no one ever does anything to actually fucking stop him,” she says, judging Diana and Lucy for their fear and inaction when she knows exactly how those emotions and behavior feel. Unable to face any of this, she calls Wrigley over and insists they sleep together, an act in which Wrigley soullessly participates.
The next day, everyone is exhausted, but only one person appears to suffer PTSD-induced amnesia: Lucy. She stops Tegan on campus and tries to warn her about Stephen again, a scene filmed to disorient the audience and make us feel as unstable as Lucy herself does in the moment. To quote my notes: “Wait what the fuck?”
Or to quote the show itself:
Tell Me Lies Truths from Season 3 Episode 7 (“I Will Promise Not To Sting”)
Most jarring memory of the 2000s: The “tape,” which is of course not an actual video tape but an SD card with the files from Stephens’ digital camera.
Moment that made me yell out loud: Everything Pippa said or did. Help her!
Proma Khosla is a New York-based writer with over 15 years of editorial experience. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Mashable, and most recently at IndieWire, where she was a Senior TV reporter for almost four years. She is the co-director of Lion Party Films and creator of Drunk Bollywood Live, where she highlights South Asian art and performers. She is one half of the podcast PromRad with fellow Decider contributor Radhika Menon.
