“Tell Me Lies” is back and ready to give us a new reason to hate Jackson White’s Stephen DeMarco.
With Stephen and Lucy (Grace Van Patten) back together after the events of Season 2, the third season will see the exes try their best not to fall into their old patterns, despite it being in their nature, while their friends struggle to come back from tragedies and traumas.
But before diving into the new season, give yourself a refresher on how we got here with our Season 2 recap.
Lucy and Stephen’s toxic cycle continues — and leads them back together
With Lucy and Stephen reeling from their dramatic breakup at the start of summer in the Season 1 finale, which led to her drunken hookup with Evan (Branden Cook), the exes return to campus for the fall semester, with Stephen and Diana (Alicia Crowder) back together while Lucy is determined to turn a new leaf. Lucy starts a fling with newly introduced Leo (Thomas Doherty), which immediately sparks jealousy in Stephen. As Stephen continues to make her life hell, Lucy goes to Diana and tells her what she knows about Macy, but Diana doesn’t believe her.
Lucy and Stephen have their share of back-and-forth throughout the season, but Stephen is ultimately pulled back to Lucy by the end of the season, leading them to sleep together. Afterwards, Stephen breaks up with Diana while Lucy, confused by her actions, runs back to Leo. Stephen baits Leo when he sees him with Lucy at a party, prompting Leo to beat him up while Stephen refuses to fight back. Lucy is further pulled back to Stephen when Stephen takes the blame for the letter that Lucy wrote in Season 1 that asked the Dean to look into Drew’s involvement in Macy’s death, ending the season with the pair together.
Lucy and Evan’s secret isn’t fully out of the bag
Evan confesses first to Stephen and then to Bree (Catherine Missal) that he cheated on her the previous year, though he keeps Lucy’s identity under wraps until he tells Stephen at the end of the season. While Bree doesn’t know it was Lucy in the 2008 storyline, Stephen sends a recording of Evan admitting it was Lucy to Bree prior to her wedding to Evan in 2015.
Bree has an affair with Professor Oliver
Another possibility was added to the mystery of who Bree could’ve been talking to before her wedding, through her affair with Tom Ellis’ Oliver, a professor at Baird who is married to Lucy’s professor, Marianne (Gabriella Pession). Bree resists their connection for as long as she can, but eventually they have a full-blown affair, but when Bree tells Oliver she wants more, he ends it with her. She goes back to his house and tells him she knows it’s just sex, but Marianne walks in on them, and isn’t automatically bewildered. Bree learns that Oliver and Marianne have an open relationship and that they orchestrated the affair this whole time, walking away distraught.
A sexual assault and a lie catch Pippa, Lucy and Lydia in its crossfire
Not too long after Lucy introduces her friends to Lydia’s brother, Chris (Jacob Rodriguez), who starts at Baird, Diana happens upon an unfortunate situation when she walks in on a passed out Pippa and Chris, who appears to have assaulted her. Diana helps Pippa and tells Lucy about what happened, but the next morning Pippa swears Lucy to secrecy, even from Bree.
Lydia (Natalee Linez) is also visiting Lucy at Baird when they hear that a girl in Diana’s sorority accused Chris of assault, and Lucy takes the girl’s side. Lucy makes an even stronger effort to support the girl and Pippa by speaking up about Chris’ actions, though she gets herself in a pickle when she lies and says that Chris assaulted her in an effort to protect Pippa — shedding insight on the betrayal Lydia mentioned.
A relationship between Pippa and Diana is introduced
The assault ends up kicking off a connection between Pippa and Diana, who are revealed to be dating in 2015. Their relationship prompts Pippa to open up about her sexuality to Wrigley (Spencer House) after they make up after their breakup, but they find themselves back together by the end of the season.
Diana gets the last laugh
While Diana had shut down Lucy’s claim about Stephen being involved in Macy’s death, she realizes she was right after seeing evidence of a car crash in his hospital chart and evidence that Stephen and Macy had a relationship. From then on, Diana manipulates reality to get Stephen to end their relationship, knowing that’s the ony way he’ll accept it, by saying she scored poorly on the LSAT and that she and that her dad disowned her. Diana has the best end of the crew: with a near-perfect LSAT and Stephen out of her life — for the most part.
Drew has a tragic end
Season 2 closed out with a tragedy after seeing Drew (Benjamin Wadsworth) return to Baird to reconnect with Wrigley, who had been struggling with his mental health during the season. The brothers reconnect over a night of drinking — which sees Wrigley confess his feelings to Pippa — but Wrigley is devastated to discover Drew dead after giving him a pill at the end of the night. The group rallies around Wrigley in the finale, and he and Pippa appear very much back together, as are Lucy and Stephen after he takes the fall for the letter.
