Season 3 of Tell Me Lies promises to be another rollercoaster ride! Lucy is (again) convinced that she is meant to be with Stephen, and well, that can never be good news! In episode 1 we also discover that Bree and Lucy had spent their Christmas together at Lucy’s home, and their friendship had only grown stronger. Bree hadn’t completely healed from her toxic situationship with Oliver, but she was trying her best to move on from that messy chapter. Surprisingly, Pippa and Wrigley are together (again). She felt responsible for Wrigley, especially because she partly blamed herself for Drew’s untimely demise. She figured that if she and Diana hadn’t called Drew to the campus that day, then maybe he would’ve survived, and the thought made her feel guilty. In the 2015 timeline, Bree panicked after she played the recording that Stephen had sent. Will she forgive Evan? Let’s get into the details of episodes 1 and 2.
Spoiler Alert
Is something going on between Bree and Wrigley?
Tell Me Lies Season 3 marks the beginning of an unexpected friendship between Bree and Wrigley. This season’s first party started with a round of molly. Bree felt lighter and happier than ever before, and she felt the need to take it all in. She and Lucy were having a good time at the party, while Stephen chose to not take any drugs because, of course, he couldn’t afford to be vulnerable. After Lucy and Stephen left the party, Bree decided to head home on her own. She was having a cigarette alone when Wrigley struck up a conversation with her. Pippa had left the party early. Diana had shared her concern when she discovered that Wrigley and the rest had planned on taking molly. She’d warned Pippa that, given Wrigley’s situation, the drug could have an adverse effect on him. Pippa thought Diana had guilt-tripped her into not taking molly, and while she tried her best to stop Wrigley too, he wasn’t comfortable with Pippa telling him what to do.
Wrigley was alone when he crossed paths with Bree, and he discovered this starry-eyed side of her that he hadn’t seen before. After everything he’d been through, Wrigley felt the need to talk to someone who didn’t falsely promise that things would ‘get better soon.’ Bree didn’t offer him fake consolation; instead, she believed that Wrigley’s life would never be the same, and he had to eventually come to terms with it. Wrigley offered to drop Bree to her room, but she decided to rest a little at the bus stop.
Bree told him about her devastating relationship with a married professor, and Wrigley was surprised that he had never heard of the gossip. The drugs made Bree speak her mind without any inhibition, and Wrigley felt comfortable sharing how often he felt completely alone. He noticed his parents looked at him differently; they never directly blamed him for what had happened with Drew, but deep down he believed they couldn’t completely forgive him. And living with this guilt was quite the curse for him. When the drug finally started to have an effect on Wrigley, he experienced an immense joy after a long time, and it looked like he was glad that he got to share this moment with Bree.
The next morning, when they woke at the bus stop, they decided not to discuss the night with anyone else. Although nothing had happened between them, they didn’t want others to misinterpret their friendship. In episode 2, when Pippa jokingly asked Bree to keep an eye on Wrigley when she discovered that they were both in the same photography class, Wrigley looked disturbed. While he appreciated the lengths Pippa had gone to because of him, there were times when he wished she would just let him be. Wrigley expressed his irritation, and it resulted in a slight conflict between him and Pippa. During the photography class, Wrigley sat beside Bree and chose her as the subject of his portraits. Although she was in a terrible mood, he managed to snap her out of it and made her laugh. We don’t know if Bree and Wrigley ever hooked up, but they surely do make a cute couple!
Why did Bree marry Evan?
Stephen had assumed that after the bomb he’d just dropped, Bree would immediately walk out of the wedding and leave Evan at the altar. He’d imagined a very dramatic morning, but to his surprise, none of what he’d expected happened. Even after Bree received his message, she chose to walk down the aisle and marry Evan. We don’t know if that was a great decision, considering the past is yet to unfold completely, but it looked like Bree knew exactly what she was doing. She didn’t wish to give Stephen the pleasure of ruining her relationship. She also called herself a terrible person after she received the text, possibly suggesting that maybe Bree too had had an affair that she never told Evan about. After she received the message, she perhaps wanted to confess her secret as well, but she just couldn’t, and that made her feel all the more guilty. Maybe she had an affair with Wrigley, and the guilt of betraying Evan and Pippa continued to disturb her. Or maybe her secret was something far more complex but regardless it looks like no one knew about it.
Considering how unbothered she seemed to be after finding out that Evan and Lucy had hooked up, it is quite evident that she was marrying for convenience and not really love. She and Evan lacked transparency, and who knows, maybe it also had a lot to do with Oliver. Either way, Bree likely had someone else in her life whom she couldn’t or didn’t want to commit to, and that was why she’d decided to marry Evan.
Is Bree obsessed with her ex’s new prey?
Bree hadn’t gotten over Oliver. She continued to sneakily stare at his office, and one day she noticed him with a young girl. She figured that the freshman, Amanda, was Oliver’s new catch, and she felt the desperate need to get to know her. Perhaps she wanted to find out if Oliver had a type, or if his modus operandi was consistent. Bree struck up a conversation with Amanda at a party. She didn’t have too many friends on campus, she was in a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend, and she was immensely insecure about her body. Bree was relieved when she learned that Amanda was in a relationship with someone her age, and not Oliver. They gradually became friends, and one day Bree discovered that, as expected, Amanda had slept with Oliver. She was still coming to terms with what had happened; apparently, she and Oliver met at the Christmas party he’d hosted with his wife, and he’d flirted with her the whole night. She chose not to think much about it, because he was married, but Oliver continued to flirt over text. She’d recently broken up with her boyfriend, and Oliver got the perfect opportunity to set out his bait. Amanda felt guilty, but just like Bree, she just couldn’t get enough of her professor. Bree felt extremely uncomfortable when she learned that Oliver had already found his next prey. It was obvious that he targeted vulnerable girls with limited social circles, absent boyfriends, and a search for a sense of validation. Bree saw herself in Amanda, and she felt disgusted.
Is Stephen jealous of Bree?
Evan’s one mistake had almost ruined Lucy’s life. When Lucy was high on molly, Stephen repeatedly asked her if there was something she wished to share with him, but she couldn’t really think of anything. Stephen was visibly frustrated, and the next morning he confronted her about her one-night stand with Evan. Lucy at first pretended to be innocent, but when she realized that the cat was already out of the bag, she apologized to Stephen. She tried to explain how it didn’t really mean anything, but we all know how Stephen is. He figured this was something he could constantly use against Lucy and Evan to get whatever he wanted from them. Stephen is a narcissist, so he didn’t really care about anyone but himself. As soon as he realized that the thought of Lucy and Evan together was bothering him, he felt the need to punish Lucy to feel a little better.
Lucy feared that Stephen might end up telling her secret to Bree; they’d become really close friends, and Lucy didn’t want to hurt her. Stephen was terrified of letting anyone near Lucy, so he obviously didn’t like her friendship with Bree. He knew that Lucy would be less vulnerable if she had a friend by her side who genuinely cared about her. He wanted to feel constantly needed, and if he ever decided to ignore her, he expected Lucy to be completely broken. That was the kind of control Stephen craved to have over Lucy, and somehow Bree was messing up his plan.
Who is Alex?
Lucy felt immensely guilty when Bree expressed how frustrated she felt when people she thought she was close to betrayed her. Lucy thought she was being unfair to her friend, and she wondered if Bree would feel the same way about her if she found out the truth. The thought made her feel extremely anxious, and she slipped into a panic attack. Pippa contacted Alex, a student/supplier who agreed to drop by her room with pills. Alex showed Lucy a calming technique that Bree immediately recognized. She later contacted Alex, and we soon discovered that he used to be in a group home with Bree from years ago, and he was technically her foster brother. He was pursuing a master’s degree in psychology at Baird, and he was glad that Bree had reconnected with him. He had recognized Bree the first day that they had crossed paths, but he assumed that she didn’t want to engage when she ignored him.
Later, when Bree discussed him with Lucy, she mentioned that all she remembered from the past was that Alex used to be nice to her, and she believed they were once close, but she barely had any recollection. From the little that we know, Bree and Alex used to live in an abusive household, and Alex was protective of Bree at the time. Since Bree’s memory was unreliable and distorted, it cannot be trusted. While Bree seems convinced that Alex was a nice guy, there is something mysterious about him that makes me wonder if there is more to the story.
Why did Stephen and Lucy break up?
Towards the end of Tell Me Lies episode 2, when Stephen expressed how deeply disturbed he’d been lately, Lucy felt the need to clarify that the only reason she’d had a casual hookup with Evan was because Stephen chose to break up with her and get back with Diana. She was emotionally devastated at the time, and she thought it was unfair that she’d had to repeatedly apologize for her mistake even though Stephen was the one who’d caused serious damage in others’ lives. Stephen wanted Lucy to confess the truth to Bree, and only then would he continue to be in a relationship with her. Lucy had spent enough time with Stephen to realize that he always needed to have something that he could hold against her. And she figured that if he told Bree the truth, he wouldn’t really have anything left that he could use to manipulate her and Evan. So, she confidently asked him to call Bree and tell her the truth, and she left the room. Lucy’s confidence was admirable, and at the end of the day, we all knew that their relationship wouldn’t really last. But will Stephen sheepishly give up on torturing Lucy? Of course not, especially since her leaving him had turned him into an emotional wreck, and he would definitely want her to pay the price for it.
