2024-10-17 16:05:03
[This story contains major spoilers from the season two finale of Tell Me Lies, “Don’t Struggle Like That, Or I Will Only Love You More.”]
After weeks of anticipation, Tell Me Lies viewers finally got some questions answered in the jaw-dropping season two finale of Meaghan Oppenheimer’s addictive Hulu series. But the epic cliffhanger only provokes more questions.
“I always like to leave people guessing,” the showrunner tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m always trying to surprise people.”
For a show that thrives on toxicity, season two brought plenty of jaw-dropping moments between the cast led by Grace Van Patten and Jackson White. But the rest of the gang also had their fair share of drama, notably in the finale which saw Wrigley’s (Spencer House) younger brother Drew (Benjamin Wadsworth) die, Bree (Catherine Missal) finding out Oliver’s (Tom Ellis) in an open marriage, Diana (Alicia Crowder) orchestrating a breakup with Stephen, and Stephen bringing the ultimate revenge to Bree and Evan’s (Branden Cook) wedding in the 2015 timeline.
Oppenheimer adds that “whatever is the most interesting thing to explore is what goes in the show,” because she’s “not trying to set an example for what anyone should do and I’m not even really trying to give a strong message. I’m trying to just make people lean in and have discussions, and hopefully have things that happen on screen relate to people’s real lives.”
Below in a chat with THR, Oppenheimer opens up about why she “always knew that Drew was going to die,” the moment she knew she wanted Stephen to “blow up” the wedding (with the revenge recording where Evan confesses to cheating on Bree with Lucy), and she hints at who Bree was talking to on the phone before her wedding, among other storylines she hopes to tackle in a potential third season.
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Why did this season only have eight episodes, compared to season one which had 10?
There were a bunch of reasons. It was scheduling. It was because I was expecting a baby and we were trying to finish the season before she was born; then the strike happened and it was all besides the point anyway. It was production reasons, not anything creative. But it was nice. I think it made everything a lot tighter.
One of the most tragic moments in the finale was Drew’s death, especially after he just reconnected with brother Wrigley. Can you walk me through your decision on how to play that out?
I always knew that Drew was going to die, and that it was going to be something that Wrigley blamed himself for. But ultimately, the seed of it needed to be kind of Lucy’s fault. And because of that, Stephen’s fault as well. I thought he was going to die at the end of the first season, and it just didn’t end up fitting in and it didn’t make sense. And because Ben is such a lovely person and a great actor, the first few weeks of the [writers] room for season two, I really tried to think about, how could we keep his character in now that he’s been expelled? How could we keep him alive? And there just wasn’t a way. I think we needed some real, true communal guilt that could hang over the entire group in the future years. So yeah, he was the sacrificial lamb, I guess.
But I also wanted it to be something that felt almost weirdly anti-climactic. I think death in real life is often not the big dramatic moment you expect it to be. It happens in the quiet moments. And so the idea that they have this big night out and then it’s just suddenly in the morning, you slowly realize that he’s no longer alive, as opposed to some big dramatic explosive public death.
Another huge shocker was Bree finding out Marianne (Gabriella Pession) and Oliver [who is played by Oppenheimer’s real-life husband, Tom Ellis] are in an open relationship. But when Bree confronts Marianne as she’s leaving their house and tells her that Oliver said he loved her, Marianne seems surprised. Is that hinting that something could happen with Marianne and Oliver’s relationship in the future?
Anything that happens in the future is still so undecided that I would never want to lock myself into anything. But I think it definitely hints at [how] that was probably not allowed. Marianne and Oliver have rules. The rule is that they are both in on the joke, they are the people who know everything. And I think that saying I love you is not allowed. So I do think that that really does hurt Marianne.
Also, what we were trying to show, and she cries at the end of the scene a little bit, was hinting at this bigger inner life that Marianne has that she’s probably not really OK with this situation. And that she has agreed to have this open relationship probably to keep him, not because she gets off on it as well — even though she certainly lies to herself about enjoying it.
Going back to episode six, viewers saw Bree talking on the phone with someone in the 2015 timeline before her wedding day. Can you confirm if she was talking to Oliver, or was it someone else?
I can’t confirm anything. But I would say, I think it being Oliver would be probably too obvious. I’m sure some people are guessing that. But I think a lot of people also probably know that it’s more likely not Oliver.
Viewers also see Stephen and Lucy hook up in the 2015 timeline before Bree and Evan’s wedding. Is it safe to assume they have had something going on between them since college?
There’s definitely more that needs to happen. I would say, at least in the final semester of Lucy’s sophomore year. There is still absolutely more of that cat-and-mouse game, if you can even call it that, because that sounds so mild for what these two do to each other. But there’s more of that dynamic in her second semester of sophomore year and his final semester. In terms of what happens between them in those other years, between college and present day, definitely something. But I think the bulk of it is college.
I felt like their hook-up also explained why Lucy was being so polite to Stephen in the 2015 timeline, given everything he’s put her through.
Yeah, and I think she’s polite because I think most people [are polite]. When I see things on TV and characters are being so blatantly nasty to people, we’re never really like that in real life. I mean, unless you’re a psychopath. I see people who have devastated me in the past and unless it’s like yesterday, I see them when I’m polite and vice versa. I think that’s what we do as people, and I think she blames herself for a lot of what happened in her college years, and has tried to grow and mature. So she tries to at least save face in front of him.
I also want to talk to you about that wild cliffhanger when Stephen sends Bree that recording on her wedding day, of Evan confessing back in college to cheating on her with Lucy. Have you been planning that since season one?
Not in season one. In season two, I definitely knew that he was going to record Evan saying this thing. Initially, I didn’t think he was going to play it at the end of the finale. I rewrote the ending of the finale very quickly, very last minute. I was on set at [Video] Village and I rewrote it, because initially it was going to be more of a cliffhanger of: Is he going to tell Bree or not at the wedding? And then I decided he’s just gotta tell her; we just have to have that blow up. The long-con is interesting, but I have a lot of Scorpios in my life and I think that there are people who definitely go in it for the long-con, and Stephen is one of them. I mean, my God, he holds a grudge. It’s the big difference between him and Leo’s [Thomas Doherty] anger. Stephen is able to control his anger and then utilize it to his advantage, and when the moment makes sense. It’s very rare that he’s explosive or impulsive. Whereas Leo, obviously we see is different than that. He’s very impulsive.
Can viewers expect to see the ramifications of that Evan confession in a potential season three?
I think we need to see that. Poor Bree. That’s like the hashtag of the season in my mind, #PoorBree. She’s just been through it. I think she deserves some sort of reaction to this massive betrayal from everyone.
Lucy and Stephen subvert the expectation of creating leads who are likable. Why did you decide to make them so flawed and, in Stephen’s case, veering on villainous, while also keeping the show gravitating around them?
Stephen, definitely, is pretty villainous even though he’s also the male lead. It’s funny, I never worried too much about whether a character is likable, as long as there’s someone I want to watch and they’re interesting. That’s what I care about. And to me, it’s actually really surprised me how unlikable people think Lucy is. I mean, I got into a fight with my mom about it the other day. My mom was like, “Lucy’s a bitch.” I was like, “Mom, Lucy is a good person and she’s just had a lot of shit thrown at her.” I like Lucy. I think she’s great. I think she’s very flawed. I think she is very young and immature, but she came into college from a place of trauma that was unresolved and not dealt with. And then she met this master manipulator who made everything worse. And I was really trying to show the way that good people and strong people and intelligent people can fall victim to predators.
We see these women, usually women characters on TV, who act pathetic or messy because of a man, and we like to assume that that means there must be something inherently wrong with them. And I just don’t think it’s true. I think if you look at real life, some of the strongest women I know have behaved very out of character because of their feelings being hurt, or because of falling in with the wrong people.
You told me before season two debuted that if anything gets you canceled, it would be Lucy saying she was the one assaulted rather than Pippa in episode seven. You also noted that it was very divisive in the writers room. Why was it important for you to include that this season?
I just felt that was an action that is arguably one of the worst things a woman can do, lie about sexual assault. I was just very intrigued by the idea of, how do we have her do something that is so nasty and icky and universally despised, but for the right reasons? There was a part of me that is saying like “fuck you” to all of society with that, because people don’t believe women and people don’t protect women. And Pippa is in this situation and no one is helping her, and she has no options really, because society is set up in a way that doesn’t help her. So it was sort of a “fuck you” to everyone in the sense of, “OK, you’re not supposed to do this, but no one is helping these girls.” So she’s gonna do the most desperate thing possible, and she’s coming from a place of real helplessness because the system has failed her. It’s failed her friend, it’s failed her classmate. And anything that makes our writers in the room argue with each other, I always lean into those things.
There are still a lot of missing pieces to the Tell Me Lies puzzle. Do you know yet if you’ll be getting a season three? Also, was it intentional to still leave people guessing?
I don’t know if we’ll get a season three, who knows? I think the show has had a really wonderful response this season, so I’m very hopeful about a season three. I always like to leave people guessing. And I also think some of my favorite shows, even when they end, leave things not completely resolved. I don’t hate those stories that have open endings. So I was sort of of the mind of, let’s have a cliffhanger so that people want to come back and, if we don’t get to answer it, then that’s life (laughs). I’m always trying to surprise people. I’m always trying to surprise the audience, because it’s just very fun to do.
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Tell Me Lies season two is currently streaming on Hulu. Catch up on THR‘s season two interviews with Grace Van Patten, co-stars Sonia Mena and Alicia Crowder, and star Cat Missal, along with Van Patten and Jackson White digging into the season two ending.