I know that there are certain places that I go for certain things. When it comes to shows about complicated relationships, sometimes toxic ones – I know that Hulu is always going to go there.
They don’t back down from controversy, they don’t back down from drama. They give it to you.
And they give it you with such steep angst, heart palpitations, and the hope that your significant other is around, cause you’re probably gonna want a quickie.
But yet, before you all kill me for being crude (which I feel like I was completely tame), let me say this. Tell Me Lies is really f*cking good. As I sit here and write this review, I will say it would be one of those shows I binged if all the episodes were out at once.
It’s a complicated story, one that is going to leave you on the edge of your seat and going what the fuck just happened. Why didn’t they make smarter choices? What are these people thinking?
I’ll tell you what they’re thinking. They are thinking about sex, love, and living.
They are thinking about a relationship that you can’t outrun.
There is always that one relationship that leaves an impression on your soul (and your hormones). You can move on, but you’ll sometimes think about the sex you once had. The hot sex you once had and can still turn you on in a dream. It’s the relationship that taught you what do you do want and what you don’t want. It’s the relationship that you’d run back to.
Maybe.
Lucy is having just that sex dream. Maybe it’s because she misses Stephen and maybe it’s the fact that she’s going to see him after all this time at her best friends engagement party. Maybe its hormones. Maybe its Maybelline. Who knows.
But Lucy, has moved on. She is with someone new. You can just tell though that nothing has been that passionate since she was with Stephen. Looks like we’re in for an angry emotional roller coaster. Sign me up.
JUNE 2015
When you have a sex dream, you wake up probably wanted to have sex. Some may call it cheating when the person that you’re laying next to is not the person you had a dream about. I do not. I call that – for Lucy – an available penis. And Lucy should not pass that up. Would you?
Except her man wants to point out already that her heart is already racing. It’s like dude, talking should have ceased. I don’t think any of us should blame Lucy for getting up and getting out of bed. After all she’s got things to do and a sex dream to tide her over.
The idea of seeing Stephen, that makes her not want Max, her current boyfriend to go. She makes excuses, like it’ll be more like a college reunion. Only that makes no sense because she sees her college friends all the time.
You can see in Lucy’s eyes and in all the flashbacks that she has, that she’s not over Stephen and she may never be. She can move forward and do what she needs to do, but she’s not gonna forget about the volatility and passion in their relationship.
Whatever broke these two up is a lot, however it doesn’t mean that the rest of her friends have had to write him off. Bree, her bestie, it’s her engagement party. Bree has begged her fiance not to invite Stephen.
At this point we’re like 10 minutes in and what we’ve caught onto is that Stephen and Lucy had an intense relationship, one that effected everyone around them. They’ve obviously been through some trauma and some shit, but the thing is, when it comes right down to it – some relationships have survived. Friends are supposed to survive the hard times though. They are supposed to be there for each other.
But it sounds like whatever it is, whatever happened between these two, made everyone uncomfortable. Whatever their relationship was seems as though it was way too intense for everyone else.
While Bree seems to want to comfort Lucy, Pippa showing up, the first thing she wants to do is put Lucy in her place. She needs Lucy to know that it’s Bree’s day and whatever Stephen rabbit whole she was considering falling down, she needs to refrain from. While Lucy tries to tell everyone that she’s fine and can handle this, the truth is that she can’t. She’s so deeply in denial and I think that Pippa is the one that will call her out on that.
It seems as we start to meet the college group, Lucy seems to have a, well, beef with everyone. One has to wonder what happened, but maybe that’s the thing. They’ve set it up that it seems as though something happened that affected them all and that they were all taken down the road of toxicity.
Bree claims that she is fine and that seeing Stephen won’t be a big deal, but I truly believe that is because she wants to see him. He’s an addiction, one that I don’t think she wants to get over. While some are willing to ignore it, some aren’t willing to let her forget.
As the series progresses, as with all series, we know that more will unfold and we’ll see more. What happened between these two – how they came together and how they fell apart – we’ll see it. It’s crazy to me that within 20 minutes, you’re so invested in trying to figure out just what has happened between these two and this entire friend group that you can’t stop watching.
Stephen and Lucy are magnetic with each other – talk about some great casting. The way that these two move in unison. The ways the it feels like they invented chemistry on the screen – I am all in.
8 YEARS EARLIER
It says something to me, when you don’t even let your Mom help move you into the dorm. It says a lot when you’d rather handle it yourself. But in Lucy’s case this may be the best thing. I think that she needed a bit of separation from her Mom. And what she needed was to be someone new.
New place. New life. New friends. She’s got a great roommate, friends across the hall that she instantly connects with.
And when they all head out ot get caffeine and walk around the campus the show does a perfect job at setting up the characters in this show. Pippa runs into a guy that she met touring campus the last year. She hooked up with him once and she’s decided that he is going to be her first semester guy.
Wrigley is the guy and he’s apparently this big football player on campus. He’s having a party that night. He wants them to come. Pippa’s trying to play it cool, but the girls want to go. After all, your first night on campus sets the tone.
When the girls are getting ready, you get to know a little bit of all their personalities. What’s a little worrisome is how Lucy says that nothing excited her. What used to excite her now feels overwhelming. She tries to cover up really quickly and says she doesn’t have anything to wear. This excited Pippa, because it means that she can dress her up.
Pippa seems to be the type that wants everyone to follow her. She wants to be the leader of the group. To be very honest, she kinda terrifies me, because she’d be the person that I would follow. She’s a leader, but she’s also carefree and mesmerizing.
THE PARTY
When the girls get to the party, they have a great time. Wrigley introduces his little brother, Diego. Diego is also a freshman, but hey, when your brother is the big man on campus, life isn’t so bad.
Bree, Macy, Pippa and Lucy are an interesting group of friends. Each one extremely different. The thing is that Bree, she seems like the person that is just going to let go and go wild in college. Diego seems like that starter guy for her – the one that’s going to provide her an awakening. But there is just something about Diego from the beginning that doesn’t sit right.
Lucy heading to get more to drink, well all I have to say is it’s about time that she ran into Stephen. We all deserve to see the tension. It comes off the screen. Granted his ass is really being too blunt.
Stephen walks up to her and tells her that she looks uncomfortable in that dress. He’s like you look good in it, but uncomfortable. Lucy is like who are you? And quite frankly we wonder the same. Stephen and her makes small talk. He calls her a lil uptight. He tells her uptight peoplel are people that aren’t getting fucked well. He’s like the first time you have good sex, it changes you. She’s like is this how you talk to everyone. He’s all pretty much. And the general reaction/first impression – he says he’s pretty polarizing. She laughs. He says its the best laugh he’s ever heard. He takes a step towards her and tells her she’s killing him in the dress.
But it’s scenes like this that are part of the defining moments of the show. It’s showing just how different these two are, but also how differences aren’t what matter here. Differences are what will make them even more on fire together.
Stephen is obviously playing a game with her. What that game is, I am not sure of. I am wondering if he’s a sex addict or if he’s playing a game of who can bed the freshman. I don’t trust him. But that doesn’t make me less intrigued.
THE ACCIDENT
The next morning, like all girls do, they talked about the night before. They spoke about Stephen and Pippa tells her that Stephen really likes her. She knows this because he told Wrigley.
Lucy makes excuses, which again, no shade, because I have been there. It’s just we all know that Stephen isn’t going to give up, which is no surprise. When he calls her, was I shocked? No. He seems to be the type of guy that sees himself as charming.
But Lucy, she doesn’t want to fall for charms. She goes about her day not even thinking twice about him, but when she’s with her friends, she starts thinking about whatever her Mom did.
I don’t know about you, but I want to know what has happened with Lucy & her Mom, because when she listens to a voicemail, it sets her off and she needs to be alone. It’s made her extremely cranky. She’s so cranky that when Macy asks her to go to a party, she snaps.
They say that kindness counts, because you never know what is going to happen. Unfortunately, Lucy is slapped with another painful thing – finding out that Macy got into an accident and passed away.
Lucy tries to remain strong. She doesn’t want to seem cold, but you can tell that death isn’t something she knows how to deal with. She continues to try to remain strong, even at the bonfire vigil. But she’s definitely calling out for help in her own way when she wants to go get drunk.
Attending a rager after going to a vigil, never done it, but okay. Lucy definitely wants to get drunk and does just that, but I don’t think that any of us are shocked when the person there to help her home is Stephen.
I feel like he’s not the guy to back down. I do find it sweet that he took her back to the dorm, that he stood there to make sure she brushed her teeth, and put her to bed. He listens to her when she breaks down in tears, and most importantly he stays when she asks him to.
Of course the next day, she’s going to be embarrassed, we all would be. Breaking down in front of someone isn’t easy. The thing is that you have to do things like that in life. Being vulnerable is a place that we all need to be at some point in our lives. And hey if it leads to some good sex, so be it.
Kudos to Lucy though for not letting it get too far, even though hey, it could have. For a moment I respected Stephen for respecting her, until he heads home and his ex shows up. He was find tripping over and falling into her vag. He’s a liar. He is a liar and I don’t know what his ass is hiding, but can’t wait to find out.
OTHER THOUGHTS
- Lucy breaking up with her boyfriend, the morning she leaves for college is everything.
- Lucy’s Mom is a lot, but I have a feeling that even though I don’t like her, Lucy needs her at some point. So, I reserve judgement.
- Whatever happened with Lucy’s Dad I need to know.
- The way Lucy’s Mom talks to her in the car, and the way that she puts her daughter down… I am not here for it. I know I should write more about their relationship and the car ride, but it pissed me off so bad, I don’t want to.
- The girls having their conversation about virginity is well, weird, but hey, i’ve had weirder conversations with friends. Talking about virginity isn’t a big thing, it’s how Pippa acts that throws me off.
- Lucy telling her Mom that they have very different views on needing to impress people. I about fell off my chair. My Mama woulda smacked me into next week.
- From the moment Lucy first sets eyes on Stephen, you know that there is electricity there.
- Two older girls talking about 18 year old whores… girl you were there, starting college and trying to find your space. Check yourself.
- What the fuck does Diego have to do with Macy’s death?
- Love the last two minutes – I was like what lie is her coming to serve her now?
- I wanna know more about Evan. We’ll get there. I know.
- Tim seems like a sleezebucket.
Tell Me Lies starts streaming on Hulu.
