Tell Me Lies<\/a><\/p>\nFix Me Up, Girl<\/p>\n
\n Season 3<\/p>\n
Episode 4\n <\/p>\n
\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n
3 stars<\/p>\n
***\n <\/p>\n
\n Between the Wrigley reveal and Pippa and Diana\u2019s secret romance, I am officially shipping the cheaters.
\n Photo: Ian Watson\/Disney\n <\/p>\n
What\u2019s really been getting me lately about Tell Me Lies is the way the show makes you root for the cheaters. You know who I\u2019m shipping right now? Pippa and Diana. You know who I\u2019m no longer shipping? Bree and Evan. Wrigley is the one man left in the Tell Me Lies universe who doesn\u2019t deserve immediate jail, and the big reveal at the end of \u201cFix Me Up, Girl\u201d is that he\u2019s the one blowing up Bree\u2019s phone on her wedding day because they\u2019ve been having an affair. Whether this is just an emotional thing or a full-blown affair remains to be discovered.<\/p>\n
Which brings me to a very important question: What kind of moron leaves their password-unprotected phone with an incriminating call log on it right next to the group\u2019s pet psychopath, Stephen DeMarco? We still don\u2019t know exactly why Stephen is trying to sabotage this wedding, only that Wrigley and his big, dumb, longing looks on the dance floor have just given him the tools to do it. The thing is, I don\u2019t even know why I\u2019m still so against Stephen\u2019s sabotage because clearly Bree and Wrigley have some kind of star-crossed situation going on. All I know is that Stephen is a handmaid of Satan, so whatever he is up to, it must be bad.<\/p>\n
Back in 2009, Professor Creep has just told Bree she is needy, insecure, and desperate for validation, probably because of all the neglect and abuse she suffered as a child. Now, back in her dorm room, Wrigley assures her that nobody thinks that, least of all Evan, who is still obsessed with her. His brother Drew also had a major thing for her, Wrigley adds, because all girls want when they\u2019re feeling this way is a list of everyone who has had a crush on them. Wrigley does not add that he too is kind of obsessed with Bree, but we can all see it. Just look at how excited he is for her photography project. He wants her to take his picture and add it to her portfolio, which she solemnly does. When you\u2019re 20 years old, is there any purer expression of love? You\u2019ve seen Titanic, right?<\/p>\n
But Bree doesn\u2019t know this; she knows only that Wrigley is still her best friend\u2019s boyfriend. Her takeaway is that Evan isn\u2019t so bad compared with Oliver, so she takes Evan back \u2014 unknowingly setting them all up for heartbreak in 2015. Meanwhile, Pippa and Diana finally consummate their illicit romance in a tender, consent-conscious sex scene that leaves everyone satisfied and emotionally fulfilled. None of this is technically aboveboard, but these dirty little cheaters are the entire heart and soul of this show right now. Everything else is pretty much abject misery, which leaves me clinging to pure nostalgia for brief moments of joy.<\/p>\n
For instance, the RA ushering Lucy to the dean\u2019s office, for the first of what will surely be many agonizing meetings about campus sexual assault, wore her hair in an almost biblically accurate poof. Until now, not one piece of modern media set in this era has had the courage to Bumpit. Everyone knows lacy camis have always been cute and low-rise flares come and go with the tides; there is no bravery in sourcing these items for your millennial college show. But if costume designers really mean business about the year 2009, they should be twisting the top pieces of these people\u2019s hair into little poofs and securing them with a minimum of 15 bobby pins. If I had my druthers, Lucy\u2019s hair would be perpetually poofed, but I\u2019m thrilled to see any poof at all.<\/p>\n
Okay, yeah, I\u2019m spending more time on ten seconds of background hairstyle than on the entire Alex subplot, but that\u2019s only because the Alex subplot \u2014 Lucy has developed a humiliation kink and now she and Alex have depressing sex in parking lots \u2014 makes me sad. If we don\u2019t seize these bright moments when we can, we\u2019re left with nothing but a weekly seminar on coercive control. To wit, other than the Bree + Wrigley (Brigley) reveal, the major development this week is Stephen using an actual victim of rape as a torture device against Lucy because he \u201cloves\u201d her. Think of my poof fixation as a way to self-soothe.<\/p>\n
Last semester, the administration dropped Caitie\u2019s sexual-assault case against Chris because there was no evidence and no other victims had come forward. This semester, someone (Stephen, we assume) has told Caitie that Lucy is another victim. The administration\u2019s response is to waylay Lucy in the hall and drag her unprepared into a surprise meeting with the dean, Caitie, and Baird\u2019s second-creepiest professor, Marianne, to discuss coming forward with her (false) allegation of rape. At least Lucy gets to deliver a sick burn to Marianne: \u201cYou should be worried about all the girls on campus who have been traumatized by your husband because he\u2019s a fucking creep.\u201d Preach, Mama.<\/p>\n
To follow it up, someone (again, almost certainly Stephen) has made a \u201cChris Is a Rapist\u201d Facebook group naming both Caitie and Lucy as victims. Now, Bree and everyone else think Lucy was raped by Chris, which she wasn\u2019t, and Stephen has his hostage video of Lucy saying she made it all up, which she did, but not for the reasons she has been coerced into stating in the video. With nowhere else to turn, Lucy makes the best decision she\u2019s made in years and calls Diana.<\/p>\n
Diana knows the basics \u2014 that Lucy lied about being raped because Pippa didn\u2019t want to come forward and that Stephen is depraved \u2014 but this is the first time she\u2019s hearing about the video. First of all, she wants to know why in the ever-living fuck Lucy would do something like that; Lucy explains that Stephen is holding something worse over her head. \u201cWorse than lying about sexual assault?\u201d It sounds so silly when you put it like that, doesn\u2019t it? But Lucy says kinda, and Diana\u2019s like, I\u2019m not covering up any more murders. For a clusterfuck of this size, Diana\u2019s advice to Lucy is pretty straightforward: \u201cYou should just stop making decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diana is correct, but that doesn\u2019t make Lucy entirely wrong when she says, \u201cWith Stephen, there are only bad choices.\u201d I have watched a lot of shows about vampires, serial killers, and fascist regimes in my day, and none of them comes close to Stephen\u2019s reign of terror. The mind control Stephen exerts over Lucy isn\u2019t supernatural, but it is real. Diana knows this better than anyone because she also lives in fear of Stephen at this very moment.<\/p>\n
We learned last week that Diana is pregnant and, as I\u2019d hoped, she\u2019s scheduling that abortion for as soon as humanly possible. Her one error is treating it like the undramatic inconvenience it is, out loud, to a girl with low self-esteem. \u201cBeing a woman is a prison,\u201d says Diana, who has been reading some feminist blogs, I imagine. Molly, Evan\u2019s consolation pus-wah, has no idea what Diana means by that, but she does know what the word abortion means. Molly takes this information directly to Evan, who immediately reports back to Stephen \u2014 so now we know Molly and Evan both suck. Telling Stephen is obviously never the right thing to do, but Evan wouldn\u2019t know that because so far only Lucy and Diana have suffered the consequences of his big mouth.<\/p>\n
Stephen gets all purple-faced and mad, growling that he should have been consulted! Wrigley, who has also been reading the feminist blogs, says, \u201cWhat would she consult you about?\u201d Stephen shouts something about \u201crights\u201d and \u201cmy baby, too,\u201d and Wrigley\u2019s like, \u201cYour what?\u201d Evan is suddenly a men\u2019s-rights activist and agrees with Stephen, but Wrigley thinks this whole conversation is bullshit. Stephen storms off to harass Diana, telling Pippa about the pregnancy as he leaves, just out of spite.<\/p>\n
When Stephen does come huffing and puffing to Diana\u2019s door, she doesn\u2019t bother with a \u201cMy body, my choice\u201d argument because Stephen doesn\u2019t care about her bodily autonomy, or autonomy in general. Instead, she says, \u201cI am so excited to abort your baby. It\u2019s gonna be the highlight of my fucking year.\u201d This leaves Stephen skulking away to plot his revenge some other way. I can only imagine the horrors he has in store.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Sadie calls Stephen to let him know her tuition went through, and he responds like a divorced dad who just missed his past three weekends. She\u2019s still having none of it, so good for her.<\/p>\n
\u2022 I just know Bree chose \u201cFade Into You\u201d for her first dance because she saw it on Gilmore Girls.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Just like I know for a fact that Evan loves Joe Rogan in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Stringing Max along was definitely not the most shameful thing Lucy did last year, but it is the thing she confesses to Alex as foreplay.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Max appears unharmed, by the way.<\/p>\n
\u2022 There has to be at least one additional victim of Chris\u2019s on this campus. There must be.<\/p>\n
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