Diksha Sundriyal
All the tension that had been simmering through the third season of Hulu’s ‘Tell Me Lies‘ explodes in the finale as almost all the secrets are finally exposed. The previous episode ended with Bree finding out about Evan and Lucy, but the confrontation doesn’t go down as expected. Sure enough, Bree goes to her room, but Lucy is nowhere to be found. Having gotten back her sanity in the previous episode (thanks to Stephen returning her tape), Lucy finally starts to recover. But then, she finds Pippa crying. She confesses that she has been cheating on Wrigley for the past few weeks, and she feels terrible about it, particularly because he figured out she wasn’t in love with him anymore and tried to break up with her.
In an effort to make Pippa feel better, or maybe to connect with her, Lucy tells her about sleeping with Evan, but Pippa is disgusted with her. She points out that her cheating on Wrigley is different than what Lucy did. While she confirms she will not tell Bree about it, she also makes it clear that she doesn’t want anything to do with Lucy. This breaks her heart, and she leaves. But things get worse when she notices someone watching her confession tape in the middle of a class. It turns out that her tape has been leaked and is everywhere, but the question is: who released it?
Who Released Lucy’s Tape?
When the tape is released, Lucy’s first suspect is Stephen. Earlier that morning, she had a chat with Diana where they shared their latest trauma. Lucy reveals that Stephen gave her the tape back, while Diana cries about not being able to go to Yale because Stephen is going there. Angered by the fact that he is not answerable for any of his wrongdoings, Lucy decides to do something about it. She shows up at his Yale admission party and tries to expose him as a dangerous person. Unfortunately, the person she talks to isn’t in charge of admissions, and before she can make a coherent point, Stephen intervenes. He tells her how stupid her act was, which means that he is going to get back at her. So, when the tape is released, it is fair to assume that he did it because he had a copy all along.
However, when Lucy confronts him, he reveals that he had nothing to do with the tape because he had already given it to Lucy. He wonders whether she herself released it, since she has been a bit out of it for a few days. She has been forgetting things, and perhaps, the guilt had such a hold on her that when Stephen didn’t punish her, she decided to punish herself. Anyway, the deed is done, and he advises her to lie low because everyone hates her now. She tries to go to Alex, hoping to find a refuge because he told her he doesn’t judge anyone. But he points out that lying about sexual assault is not something he can forgive. He doesn’t let her in his room because Bree is in there, not wanting to face Lucy just yet. Dejected and heartbroken, Lucy goes back to her room and shuts herself off from the rest of the world.
When Pippa learns about the tape, she tries to reach out to her, but becomes concerned when she doesn’t answer the calls. She tells Bree the truth about the situation, which makes Bree feel utterly guilty. At first, it seems that this is because she feels bad for judging Lucy and shunning her. But later, it turned out she had stolen the card from Lucy’s room, and when she saw that her so-called friend had lied about yet another thing, she decided to make her pay and released the tape. But hearing the whole story from Pippa, she realises what a mistake she has made. The problem is that things have gone too far now. Lucy is called in to the dean’s office and is expelled from Baird. This also means she won’t be going abroad next semester, since that was a Baird program. So now, she has to pack up her things and leave for good.
Stephen Receives Shocking News
Before she ruins things for Lucy, Bree faces another heartbreak. She gets a call from her mom, asking to meet her urgently. The meeting turns out to be an ambush, where Bree finds herself facing Oliver, Marianne, and Amanda. It turns out that Marianne reached out to Bree’s mom the night of the exhibition and told her that Bree had been making up stories about Oliver and was making his and Marianne’s lives difficult. Since Bree has no evidence to prove that Oliver slept with her, she can’t harm him. But the messages she sent him can be used to show that she has been stalking and harassing him.
They also bring up the part about destroying Oliver’s car, and worse, Amanda supports their allegations. They make it clear that if Bree doesn’t stop coming after Oliver, they will file a case against her, which will lead her to lose her scholarship, which means she will have to leave Baird. This is devastating for Bree, but what’s worse is that her own mother doesn’t believe her words, which means that Bree cannot convince anyone else of her truth either. Once again, she feels powerless, being abandoned by her mother. With Lucy gone as well, Bree is left with Evan. She confronts him about the truth, and he accepts it, mainly because she tells him she will move on from it if he doesn’t lie.
Bree also does it because she is angry with Wrigley about sleeping with Pippa after he told Bree that they were broken up. She also doesn’t know that after Pippa and Lucy had the enlightening conversation about cheating, Pippa went straight to Wrigley and told him everything about her sexuality and her cheating, though she didn’t mention Diana. She also reveals the part about Stephen, Diana’s nudes, Lucy’s tape, and how Stephen keeps getting away with things. Later, when Lucy’s tape comes out, Wrigley talks with Stephen about it. He, like everyone else, suspects Stephen of releasing it, and his suspicions get stronger when Stephen says Lucy deserved it.
Soon, Stephen gets a call from Yale about the rescinding of his application because someone filed a complaint about him harassing other students, especially by sharing objectionable pictures. While Stephen is left wondering who did it, Wrigley seems to be the most obvious culprit here (though Pippa and Diana are also in the line of suspicion). Anyway, Wrigley goes to Bree’s room, and she makes it clear that she is with Evan now, which puts an end to their love story. For the time being. Years later, they reunite at Bree and Evan’s engagement party, where Wrigley walks into a room where Bree is alone and contemplating things. The conversation about why they didn’t get together in college is kindled, and it ends with them having sex. Still, it does not prevent Bree from marrying Evan.
Do Bree and Evan Break Up? Do Bree and Wrigley Get Together?
At the wedding, Stephen figures out that Bree and Wrigley have been sleeping together. He confronts Bree about it, while also mentioning how he came to the conclusion that Bree has known about Lucy and Evan all along. But things go a step further when Stephen also concludes that Bree is the one who released the tape. When her reaction confirms it, he has everything he needed to ruin the day. He takes to the stage, tells Evan how much he hates him, reveals that he and Lucy slept together earlier that morning, that Bree and Wrigley have been sleeping together for months, that Bree knew about Evan and Lucy, and that she is the one who released the tape.
This explosion of revelations leads Lucy to attack Stephen, and when she stops, Evan goes after him. Seeing that things are getting out of hand, Diana and Pippa decide to leave, while Evan is heartbroken. Wrigley, on the other hand, laughs and seems rather relieved that the secret is finally out. As Evan shouts at him, he doesn’t even care what he is saying and keeps looking at Bree lovingly. She, too, looks at him in a way that suggests that the cat is out of the bag now. With everything that has happened, it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that Bree and Wrigley will finally be together. In a way, Stephen has done them a favor by revealing their secret, because now, the worst part is over.
There is a rather low chance that Evan will want to be with Bree, but even if he does, there is no reason for her to be with him when she actually loves Wrigley, whom she has been in love with since college. Wrigley, too, doesn’t seem to care that his friendship with Evan is done, and in all this mess, at least they will have a happy ending. The same, however, cannot be said about Lucy. She is shocked to discover that Stephen is not the one who ruined her life. It was her beloved friend, Bree. But even as things get out of hand, Bree reminds Lucy that it happened years ago, and that it still doesn’t make Stephen the good guy. Lucy, however, doesn’t seem so convinced.
Why does Lucy Go With Stephen? Why Does She Laugh at the End?
Having done his part, Stephen is ready to leave, but he has one last move to make. While Lucy and Bree have a fight over the tape, Stephen slips in and asks Lucy to leave the party with him. Now, with all that has happened over all these years, one would have to be completely out of their mind to still go with Stephen. Bree points this out to Lucy, desperately trying to show her that this is Stephen trying to win. Once again, he has messed things up for Lucy, and if she leaves with him, she will be giving him back the power he had over her all those years ago. It’ll be over, Bree says, but Lucy is not in the mood to listen. When she leaves the building, Stephen is out there, waiting for her in his car.
Before he made all the mess, Stephen, rather unceremoniously, broke up with Lydia, confirming that being with her was just a way to mess with Lucy’s head. Now, Lucy asks him why he asked her to come with him, and he confesses that things are no fun without her. When she wonders why she shouldn’t believe that he will just mess with her again, he points out that he has just broken off all his friendships and broken up with Lydia. He has no one left without her. It’s not clear whether Lucy realizes that he is just throwing her words back at her, the things she said to him when she tried to fool him into believing she loved him just because she wanted the tape back. Anyway, the ploy works, and she gets in the car with him, and they drive off into the sunset.
Having driven far enough, Stephen says he needs to stop for gas, and Lucy decides to get coffee for them. When she comes back, Stephen and his car are nowhere to be seen. Lucy realises what just happened, and she can’t help but laugh. Stephen’s act is not surprising, which makes one wonder why Lucy got in the car with him in the first place, but that just goes to show the hold he has on her even now. While things may have unfolded over three seasons, they did just sleep together earlier that morning, so Lucy had already fallen to his manipulations that day. The day’s end was just an echo of what had already happened. While she did try to push him away, the revelation about the tape isolated her once more, forcing her to leave her friends, and when everyone else was gone, who was she left with but Stephen?
Lucy getting into Stephen’s car shows how easy it is to backslide, and for him, that’s the win. He was agitated when he didn’t get any reaction from her when he pointed out how bad it must be for her to see him with Lydia. For a minute, it seemed that she really did escape his hold. So, once he messed things up for everyone, he needed to show himself that he could still have Lucy on her knees if he wanted, and her leaving the wedding with him proved just that. Now that he had that validation, he didn’t need her around anymore, so he left her at the gas station. Lucy laughs because all of this has dawned on her just then. She realises that Stephen has won all over again, that it had always been a game to him, and that, despite everything, she is still in the same spot she was all those years ago in college.
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