You might call it a car crash you cannot look away from. You might dub it a slow-motion disaster over three seasons. But neither of these labels do justice to the dreadful chaos of creator Meaghan Oppenheimer’s “Tell Me Lies.” The dark college drama, which premiered on Hulu in 2022, concluded its third and final season last Tuesday with a disappointing finale.
The show follows bright-eyed, emotionally detached anti-hero Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) during her time at Baird College — a fictional school in upstate New York — between 2007 and 2009, and in flash-forwards, at her college friends’ wedding in 2015.
On college move-in day, Lucy meets her roommate Macy (Lily McInerny), and future friends Pippa (Sonia Mena) and Bree (Catherine Missal). Lucy’s fate is irrevocably shattered on her first night out when she meets the elusive Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) at a party. Their twisted relationship becomes the crux of the series.
Lucy’s dysfunctional friend group is rounded out by football player Wrigley (Spencer House), Stephen’s roommate Evan (Branden Cook) and Stephen’s ex-girlfriend Diana (Alicia Crowder). Tragedy strikes in the series pilot, and what may have seemed like an average college drama quickly descends into something akin to a psychological-thriller.
“Tell Me Lies” is a master of shock value, adept at sickening plot twists and world-axis-tipping season finales. Its chaos is what kept viewers watching for three seasons.
The first two seasons solidify three indisputable aspects of the show. First, “steamy” is the only adequate — albeit cliche — descriptor for a show with as many graphic sex scenes as “Tell Me Lies.” Second, “traumatic” doesn't do the show’s subject matter — including suicide, sexual abuse and murder — justice. And third, audiences learn just how frequently the show’s characters make abysmal decisions. It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to deem these players the most toxic group of characters in media history.
Despite all that — or perhaps because of it — “Tell Me Lies” is a hypnotic watch. Season three maintains that without fail. Characters don’t just make poor decisions, but objectively wrong ones — from letting yourself get blackmailed on tape to asking your girlfriend’s abuser for advice. Even when the characters have hit rock bottom, the show out-twists itself once more. The third season presented meaningful character development and new relationships that viewers fell in love with. But while the show remains consistently gripping and unapologetically hard to watch, the finale is tremendously disappointing.
Not only does Oppenheimer’s script avoid logical consequences and leave major characters forgotten, it also tries, awkwardly, to be funny. But nothing laughable happens in the show prior to the physical comedy shtick Oppenheimer pulls in the finale’s climax. Her attempt at levity does grave injustice to a story whose driving force is its darkness.
The success of “Tell Me Lies” throughout its three seasons is defined by its commitment to its dreadful, disastrous world. When you think the characters can’t go lower or that things can’t possibly get worse, they do. That boundary pushing is what makes “Tell Me Lies” worth the watch — and is what Oppenheimer fails to accomplish in the show’s conclusion.
With the finale, Oppenheimer chickened out, instead of letting tragedy be tragedy. There is no happy ending to this story, and Oppenheimer does her work a great injustice by suggesting there might be.
Rebecca Goodman is a university news senior staff writer covering career and alumni. She is a junior from Cambridge, MA, studying English. Outside of writing, you can find her at the Avon or in the basement of the Rock.
