Spoiler alert: The following contains details from Season 3, Episodes 1-3 of “Tell Me Lies,” streaming now on Hulu. Beware if you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know.
Chaotic. Heartbreaking. Gutwrenching. Consequences. Slutty. Messy. Hostage. Fear. Tears. Tragedy. Toxicity.
That’s how the cast of Hulu’s “Tell Me Lies” describes what fans can expect from Season 3 (streaming Tuesdays), which feels darker and more intense than the last. After the Season 2 cliffhanger that left us with more questions than answers, actor Jackson White, who portrays the infamous Stephen, tells USA TODAY “people are dealing with consequences” this season, “and they’re having repercussions from the last few years.”
“It’s all coming to a head,” he says, “and it’s going to be explosive.”
“Tell Me Lies,” based on Carola Lovering’s 2018 novel of the same name and created for television by Meaghan Oppenheimer, has captured a passionate fanbase of readers of the book and series-only viewers alike over its too-realistic portrayal of the toxic ex or situationship in Stephen and Lucy, played by Grace Van Patten, who won’t quit each other, no matter how low their relationship goes.
Van Patten teases that Lucy and Stephen’s relationship in Season 3 goes “beyond what I even thought toxic was. I couldn’t even imagine these things if I wanted to.” To this, Oppenheimer says, “It’s hard to shock this audience, but we try.”
Returning to the series alongside Van Patten and White are Cat Missal (Bree), Spencer House (Wrigley), Sonia Mena (Pippa), Branden Cook (Evan) and Alicia Crowder (Diana), with the new addition of series regular Costa D’Angelo (Alex).
Ahead of the season premiere, USA TODAY caught up with the cast and creator to break down the most dramatic moments so far, and whether fans can expect a Season 4.
‘Tell Me Lies’ Season 3 picks up with Lucy and Stephen back together
Episode 1 of Season 3, titled “You F—– It, Friend,” picks right back up on Bree’s wedding day, as she listens to Stephen’s voicemail with Lucy and Pippa standing nearby. Lucy walks over to Bree and asks how she’s doing, before a flustered Bree runs away. As Lucy catches up to her, Bree says, “I’m a terrible person, I am, I promise. I’m probably the worst person you know.”
Moments before, Lucy asked Pippa about Stephen. “He ruined your life sophomore year, do you not remember that? You barely came back from that,” Pippa says. But in true “Tell Me Lies” fashion, viewers won’t know what Pippa meant by that until the season finale.
Then, the timeline is set back to 2009, and Bree, fresh off the end of her affair with Oliver (Tom Ellis), her professor’s husband, and her breakup with Evan, wakes up next to Lucy as the two spend Christmas break together. Back at school, Stephen and Lucy decide to give their psychotic relationship, as Bree describes it, another chance.
By the end of the episode, Bree finally makes it to the altar in 2015 and, to Stephen’s surprise, says, “Of course, I do.”
In Episode 2, after Stephen confronts Lucy over sleeping with Evan, the two decide to try to move past it. “We’ll see how this goes,” Stephen says.
Instead, he grows more resentful, distant and cunning toward Lucy − humiliating her any chance he gets − and to none of their friends’ surprise, the two break up shortly after.
Before that can fully happen, though, Stephen tries to manipulate Lucy into telling Bree the truth. He claims it’s the only way their relationship will work, but Lucy says no.
But Stephen doesn’t set Lucy free that easily and Lucy doesn’t sit idly at home waiting on him. They make matters much, much worse instead.
“They’re on a different level in terms of how they treat each other and how they treat themselves,” Van Patten says. “It’s what makes this show so scary, exciting and entertaining.”
Wrigley and Bree’s ‘pure connection’
Halfway through the Season 3 premiere episode, Wrigley and Bree share an intimate moment at a bus stop, set to “New Slang” by The Shins, in the middle of the night.
The two, high off MDMA, connect over a conversation about Wrigley’s grief over the death of his brother Drew (Benjamin Wadsworth) and Bree’s curiosity about meeting her biological mother.
The morning after, at the bus bench still, Bree awkwardly says, “This wasn’t weird that this happened, we just fell asleep.” Wrigley says, “No, we were on drugs. I was walking you home.” Bree, still feeling put off by the situation, adds, “Maybe we just don’t mention it to people, though, in case it might accidentally sound like something was weird.”
Oppenheimer breaks down why it made sense for Bree and Wrigley to share this moment. “These are two people who, up until this season, haven’t really been in a room alone together, but once they actually get to talk, they realize they have so many things in common,” she says.
“They are also the only two characters that have not ever intentionally done something to harm anyone else in the ensemble, so it felt like they deserved that pure connection, and I think that their chemistry was just off the charts and crazy good.”
Who is Alex on ‘Tell Me Lies’?
After a brief stint in the season premiere episode, a drug dealer and college student named Alex (Costa D’Angelo) is fully introduced in Episode 2 as an old friend of Bree’s from their time in the foster care system.
In Episode 3, Bree invites Alex to a house party, and Bree encourages Lucy find herself a rebound. Alex, she says, isn’t the relationship type anyway (well, clearly, neither is Stephen).
Lucy ends up going back to his place, but the two stop before anything else happens. In the final minutes of the episode, Lucy returns to Alex’s apartment and has sex with him.
And this may or may not be the beginning of another wild ride for Lucy. The rest of the season will end up a completely “different vibe,” Van Patten says. “This whole season was pretty intense and challenging. This show in general is … especially with some things that happen in Episode 3.”
Stephen blackmails Lucy with video confession
The final − and surprise − episode Hulu released Tuesday culminates in Stephen blackmailing Lucy and forcing her to record a confession video where she admits to lying about Lydia’s younger brother, Chris, sexually assaulting her at a party.
In an attempt to protect Pippa, Lucy lied about it happening to her. Now, if she doesn’t record this video, Stephen is threatening to tell Bree about Evan.
Renewal of ‘Tell Me Lies’ Season 4? It’s ‘anyone’s guess’
“Tell Me Lies” has not been renewed for a fourth season, but “the future is anyone’s guess,” creator and showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer tells USA TODAY.
She says that the Season 3 finale “was always the ending I had pitched and planned for a long time.”
“Once you see Episode 8, certainly some things are wrapped up, and I wanted to leave the fans really satisfied,” Oppenheimer says. “But, you know, right now, we’re just so focused on this season and celebrating it that it’s so hard to know what the future holds.”
