It’s now December on Tell Me Lies. Slapsgiving has come and gone, but holiday parties have started up, and no one is acting like themselves these days for so many different reasons, ranging from actual real-life trauma, to failing the LSATs to being estranged from your brother to accusing a friend’s brother of rape. This is a dense episode, here we go:
It seems like Lucy’s plea to Stephen last week to just leave her alone has affected him, because this week, the episode opens with a dream he’s having about her. For once, not a sex dream, but a dream in which Lucy helps him hide the evidence that he was driving the car that killed Macy. What’s that meme, “a friend will help you move, but a real friend will help you move a body”? Yeah, in Stephen’s warped mind, Lucy’s help to conceal his part in Macy’s death is basically like, the nicest thing a person can do for another person and now he’s having dreams that make him reconsider his feelings for her. This might be because Diana’s usefulness to him is running out – now that she failed the LSAT and her dad isn’t speaking to her, Stephen is worried that her dad won’t help him with his law career, something he brings up to Diana on the regs. Stephen also douses Diana with a feel-bad shower, explaining that he’s relying on her help to advance his career, and dismissing her own confusion about where her life is going. “What do I do with no money and no recommendation letters?” he asks her, following up, “What in your life is so stressful that you’re falling apart like this?” Obviously Stephen doesn’t know she’s hiding Pippa’s rape and starting to wonder where her own life is going but girl, how are you not just running from this user and abuser?! Sometimes I hate this show.
So now that we’re keeping track, Diana’s not herself these days because she failed the LSAT, realizes Stephen is a creep and is powerless against him, ad is estranged from her father, Pippa’s not herself lately because of her sexual trauma, and Wrigley is also not himself because he’s truly depressed. At first he attributed it to his injured knee which kept him from football, but when his coach calls him out for being mentally anywhere but here, he takes that to heart. He’s still completely preoccupied with the fact that his little brother Drew is refusing to speak to him. Fortunately his relationship with Pippa has turned into a deeper friendship, one where he can confide his feelings, and she can cryptically reveal, without naming names, that her secret friendship with Diana is actually a crush. Pippa and Wrigley spend the night with each other, as they’ve been doing, but in the safety of each other’s arms, they decide to have sex, Pippa’s first time since her assault, and Wrigley’s first time making Pippa not have to fake an orgasm. Aww! The sweetness turns awkward though because Diana walks in on them immediately after, and the energy between Pippa and Diana is like, wait, whut.
Is Bree herself these days? Also no, and it’s unsettling. It’s bad enough that I get a pit in my stomach waiting for Bree and Oliver’s relationship to implode and become a scandal, I am filled with anxiety every time they’re on screen, but watching her intentionally do that? Woof.
Oliver and his wife Maryanne are hosting for faculty and students, and at first, Bree isn’t sure she’ll feel comfortable being around Oliver and his wife, but she decides to go. Oliver also gifts Bree, who you’ll recall is a budding photographer, a fancy digital camera to replace her Canon SureShot. “I know you can be a little hard to please when it comes to gifts,” he tells her, caressing her ear just so, a move reminiscent of when he helped her remove the garish earrings Evan gifted her for her birthday. Look, just because your man is a good gift-giver doesn’t mean he’s not making terrible decisions about his and your life!
Bree and Oliver catch glances of one another at the party and it all feels hot and sexy and secretive, and then Oliver asks Bree to meet him in the laundry room for a quickie. Bree obliges, but quickly realizes as she’s surrounded by Maryanne’s bras and dirty laundry that this isn’t cool and fun anymore. Oliver has sex with her while Bree barely shows interest, and when he finishes he throws her one of Maryanne’s nighties to wipe herself off. Sick!
And then Bree essentially has a panic attack. “I don’t like this,” she gasps to Oliver, hyperventilating at the thought of being caught/ruining a marriage/all of the things. He tries to calm her by telling her he got carried away and that… he loves her. This placates Bree with her vulnerability and fears of abandonment, and she gleefully tells him she loves him to. But when she returns to the party and sees Oliver cozy up to Maryanne, she has a moment of realization. If this is true love, she really does have to blow up his life. So she takes off her earrings and plants them in the laundry room in a pocket of some dirty pants to make sure Oliver gets caught. BREE, NO.
Lucy, having witnessed Bree and Oliver exit the laundry room, is fuming that Bree is carrying on this affair and could potentially ruin Maryanne’s marriage, and she’s also furious to be an accomplice to the whole thing. Now that she knows about it, she feels complicit. Bree is unapologetic though, telling Lucy she couldn’t understand what it’s like to feel so cared for. It’s something Bree isn’t used to and it’s a feeling she wants to hang on to. “I am so fucking scared for you,” Lucy tells her, after saying she wishes she had never been told about any of it.
Later, Lucy runs into Stephen who asks if she’s reconciled with Leo. Lucy explains that since Leo witnessed her slap Diana, that’s a no, and Stephen politely tells Lucy that’s Leo’s loss. It’s so gross watching Stephen be so mean to Diana and then move back to being nice to Lucy, isn’t it? Lucy then gets a call from her old BFF-future-nemesis Lydia, who just wanted to let Lucy know that all the sexual assault charges against her brother Chris have been dropped. Lucy relays this to Pippa, who then reveals that she actually does remember details about when Chris raped her, but shrugs it off saying there’s nothing that can be done, since everyone assumes Chris’s other victim is lying.
At the bar later, Evan’s ex, Molly, starts chatting with Pippa, Lucy, Wrigley, and one of Wrigley’s football friends, and everyone starts to talk about Caitie, the girl who accused Chris of rape, claiming that she was lying. Lucy grows adamant that Caitie wasn’t lying, but because Pippa refuses to make public that she was raped by Chris, Lucy tells everyone the reason she is so sure of Chris’s guilt is because Chris raped her, too. Lucy uses the details from Pippa’s experience and tells everyone what Christ did. Pippa is in shock, and Lucy seems to be in shock at what she’s saying, too.
Lucy apologizes and leaves, but Pippa is clearly shook, and when Diana learns what Lucy did, she is livid, saying that this is why people assume women lie about being raped. Diana attempts to talk to Pippa to make sure she’s okay, but Wrigley keeps butting in, even making a joke that Pippa won’t be raped since she only hooks up with girls these days. “Not everything is a fucking joke just because you are,” she tells him and rips him to shreds before leaving. This is the second time Wrigley’s heard this sentiment today, the first time being from Stephen, and he’s wounded. The next morning he goes to Pippa’s to apologize and breaks down in tears. This isn’t just a joker atoning for his bad timing, he admits his depression and sadness is overwhelming him and he’s not sure what to do.
That morning, Lydia calls Lucy back to tell her she heard what Lucy said about being raped by Chris. Lydia coolly tells Lucy that their friendship is over.
When Stephen gets back to his room that day, Diana is waiting for him, wondering where he’s been. He has literally been abusive to her for days, and today is no different: Hetells her to back off, that he doesn’t need her shit, and asks her “Why are you being like this?” You mean being a person who is allowed to be upset, Stephen? Diana tenderly kisses him despite this, but the Stephen pulls away, asking her if she’s afraid of him and if she thinks she truly knows him. No, she’s not scared, she says. And he asks, “What if you don’t know me? What if you’ve been wrong about me this entire time and I’m actually horrible?” Now we’re getting somewhere! But Diana tells him she does know him and she’s not wrong about him, he’s not a bad person.
“I’m sorry, I gotta go,” Stephen says, because if Diana can’t tell he’s a bad person, she’s an idiot, and he’s got no time for idiots.
In what might be my favorite scene of this show, Bree sits waiting for Maryanne to arrive to teach her morning class, expecting Maryanne to be halfway to divorce after discovering her diamond earrings in Oliver’s pants. Instead, Maryanne greets the class warmly and asks, “Did you guys have a good weekend?” while pulling her hair back to reveal that she’s wearing Bree’s earrings. I’m going to guess Oliver found them and regifted in order to save his own ass? Poor Bree looks like a checkers player who realizes that Oliver’s been playing chess with her this whole time.
After Stephen leaves Diana, he goes to Lucy’s room to ask her the same question about himself: “Do you think I’m a bad person?” “Yes,” she answers, reiterating what she told him before, that she knew exactly who he was the whole time they were together, and yet she still loved him. “This goes both ways,” he tells her. “I know all the worst shit about you, the things nobody else knows. And I still…love you,” he tells her. And Lucy? Yeah, she buys it. Real friends… and real soulmates… help you move a body, I guess.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.