‘Tell Me Lies’ finale: THAT was not the original ending

LOS ANGELES — WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE SEASON FINALE OF “TELL ME LIES”

Still processing that “Tell Me Lies” season 2 finale? Yeah, we feel that.

“Some really close people that you spend a lot of time with on your television sets are gonna let you down,” Jackson White teased when On The Red Carpet met up with him along with on-screen ex and real life love Grace Van Patten.

He was not wrong.

If you have not yet watched the season finale, take Thomas Doherty’s advice before beginning the episode.

“Have a cup of chamomile tea. And make sure you have another hour or two free and go into a dark room and just process what goes on,” he joked. “Meditate a little. Meditate a lot!”

If you have watched it, we are here to unpack it all, along with the cast and executives.

In the first few minutes, Lucy and Stephen are intimate both in the 2015 scenes at the wedding festivities and in the scenes at college. We pick up back in college and after Stephen thinks he’s got Lucy where he wants her, she goes to Leo to apologize, they get back together and are also intimate.

Stephen tells Diana it’s over between them. Once Stephen leaves, she sits down and sighs. Relief? Most likely. Later in the episode, we see her counselor telling her she had an amazing essay and LSAT score and has a good shot at early admission to Yale (the exact opposite of what she led Stephen to believe). Then, when her dad picks her up for holiday break, he asks how Stephen took the breakup and she responds with, “You know Stephen had to think it was his idea.” So, the master manipulator got manipulated by Diana!

Stephen sees Lucy and Leo being cuddly at a party, he confronts them and tells Leo they were together that morning. An infuriated Leo pummels Stephen, who doesn’t fight back. At the end of the scene, we see a small smile cross Stephen’s bloodied face. He knows he can use this to manipulate Lucy.

Bree and Oliver meet and he ends their relationship. She later goes to his house to speak with him and they end up in bed. Oliver goes to shower and Marianne comes home. Oliver confesses to Bree that they have an open marriage, and that Marianne has known about their affair the entire time.

Catherine Missal, who plays Bree, said she was shocked by the turn her story took.

“To be experiencing that kind of manipulation, through Bree’s eyes, it was really sad. It’s really heartbreaking and I feel so much for her. And I love her and I just want the best for her,” she said.

Tom Ellis, who plays Oliver, agreed and said watching it back was quite the experience.

“It was quite a hard watch, I have to say, because I had to find a way to make Oliver forgivable for me to play him. But I realize he’s completely unforgivable,” Ellis said.

Drew and Wrigley reunite and go out partying. But things get out of hand and in the end, Drew dies of an accidental overdose. Spencer House, who plays Wrigley, said those days on set were particularly tough.

“It beats you up, I mean, like, you fall asleep immediately when you get home,” House said. “I love working with Ben (Wadsworth, who plays Drew), and we didn’t get to see a ton of him. And when he showed up, I was just happy to be on set with him. So it was…fun to work with him, but also, yeah, really, exhausting scenes.”

Stephen, Bree, Pippa, Lucy and Evan all go to the hospital to be with Wrigley. Lucy feels guilty for writing the letter about Drew’s knowledge of Macy’s car accident and wants to confess to Wrigley. Stephen steps in and tells Wrigley it was him, taking the heat from Lucy because, as he tells her later, he loves her.

Speaking of confessions, Evan admits to Stephen that when he cheated on Bree last year, it was with Lucy. Stephen walks out of the room to process what he’s just heard and sees Lydia, who is there to pack up her brother’s things for the semester. She tells Stephen that Lucy told her so many things about him but at this point, she doesn’t believe anything Lucy says. The lightbulb again goes off in Stephen’s mind. Is this how his relationship with Lydia begins?

Stephen goes back into the room and records Evan reiterating that yes, when he cheated on Bree, it was with Lucy. Stephen says he forgives him and Evan says, “you’re not going to tell Bree and ruin my life?” Stephen says no, “Not today.”

Jumping back to the 2015 storyline on Bree and Evan’s wedding day, Lucy is looking around the church for Stephen and can’t find him. Wrigley says he can’t get in touch with him. Diana says, “It’s kind of scary when you don’t know where he is.”

Lucy goes to check on Bree, who’s just gotten a text from Stephen. It’s the voice recording of Evan admitting that he slept with Lucy. And that’s how season 2 ends!

Showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer revealed that it wasn’t supposed to happen that way.

“That wasn’t the original ending and I changed it literally on set. A few days before, I was writing on set in my chair, just because I realized Stephen will always be in the getaway car already once he drops a bomb. And in the original ending, he was still at the wedding and I was like, ‘no, he is 100 miles away already and leaving this with them,'” Oppenheimer disclosed to On The Red Carpet.

The season 2 finale left even more questions for fans, questions that will hopefully get answered in a season 3.

“I feel like, if we’re so lucky to have a season three, we’ve got to bring in more people. We’ve got to make things more complex. We’ve gotta light it up!,” said executive producer Emma Roberts.

Oppenheimer said the ideas are already ruminating.

“I can’t give anything away, but I think there needs to be some justice. I think there needs to be some revenge.”

Hopefully another season will get greenlit soon. In the meantime, you can watch both seasons of “Tell Me Lies” now on Hulu.

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of Hulu and this ABC station.