After surviving ten episodes of this show, I regret calling the first season of Bridgerton “elaborate soft porn” because Hulu's Tell Me Lies takes the entire bakery.

Based on the book of the same name by Carola Lovering, executive produced by Emma Robers and created by Meaghan Oppenheimer, Tell Me Lies follows a supposedly emotionless Lucy (Grace Van Patten) as she leaves her small town for college and makes new friends - her roommate Macy (Lily McInerny) and girls from across the hall; Bree (Catherine Missal) and Pipa (Sonia Mena).

In the first 10 minutes of the show, we're immediately shown (and told) that our protagonist, Lucy, doesn't react "normally" to situations - choosing to break up with her boyfriend of 2 years the day she leaves for college in the same tone you might tell your TV repairer that you will no longer be needing their service. This act later leads her best friend, Lydia (Natalee Linez) to call her a "sociopath". In the next 20 seconds, she's telling her mother that she no longer needs to impress people because she's off to college. The message is loud and clear - Lucy Albright doesn't GAF about other people, Lucy Albright isn't your everyday girl, Lucy probably opens canned drinks with a knife and only attends parties ironically. Lucy Albright is cool.


Tell Me Lies starts off (and spends eight-and-half minutes) in 2015 then spends the rest of the season in 2007 with messy college drama. I typically steer clear from stories that start in the middle and jet back into the past because some of them (read Quantico) end up not living up to the teased big mystery from the past. With Tell Me Lies, it's kind of clear why the show starts in the middle because you see all of that and think “how can she be stuck on him after all that?”, “how are they still friends?” etc.



Grace Van Patten and Jackson White as Stephen and Lucy in Tell Me Lies (2022)

The decision to spend so much time on the “banging their way through college” bit (and there is a whole lot of banging) is not easy to defend because by episode 4, we pretty much get the gist and we can predict the rest. There’s no need to dwell on it anymore but the college drama just keeps going. Maybe alternating between their past and present lives- like Yellowjacket and a slew of other shows out there - would have been a better choice. But then again, it's pretty difficult to go back and forth when there’s no real plot.


Hulu's Tell Me Lies is about nothing in particular, just a bunch of college students faffing their way through life. It's worth applauding that the show is somehow able to stretch nothing for a full ten episodes. By Episode 9, the story finally gains a semblance of a direction and we finally see what the plot is - it's a really, really long story about an unfortunate accident and how it unravels several relationships. There’s like 3 tiny mysteries in the show and they’re all stretched very thin but before these mysteries even become real mysteries, the very disturbing relationship between Stephen and Lucy takes front and centre of the show.

Spoilers ahead

Stephen and Lucy have their first conversation at a party during Welcome Week (they shared an intense stare earlier) and it's immediately clear that Stephen is a giant a-hole. His compliments are typically rolling in so much condescension and subtle insults that it's hard to say that they qualify as compliments anymore. Stephen is supposed to be charming but every word that comes out of his mouth is cringe-inducing. He has a habit of taking advantage of sad situations - Lucy is [sort of] mourning someone and he talks about a dinner date? She asks him to stay over because she didn't want to be alone and he somehow took that to mean "get in bed with me and cuddle". They later have a makeout session cut short by Lucy and he goes right from there to making out with his ex and swearing she's the only one and then juggles them both for a while. Stephen is such a red flag that you could spot it from the Orbits but Lucy never does and it gets progressively infuriating as the show goes on.


The major relationship (Diana|Stephen|Lucy) is really toxic and you can't find solace in any of the other characters because they're all pretty awful too. Pipa couldn't breathe a single word without talking about how she orgasms easily only for it to be revealed that she's probably never experienced an orgasm. The friendship that's held high in this show is very hard to root for - they're all very cagey with one another and they never really confide in each other, only in other people. Bree and Evan (Branden Cook) seem like good people but the show ruins Evan's character last minute so I won't be holding my breath for Bree.



Spencer House as Wrigley in Tell Me Lies (2022)

Tell me Lies tries to distract us from the toxic cocktail of these characters by briefly focusing on the stigma of learning disability as Wrigley (Spencer House) battles Dyslexia. But even while being mocked by his frat boy friends, the show makes it near impossible to empathize with Wrigley because he's the frattest of all frat boys and after his disability is ignorantly referred to as "retarded", he goes straight to telling his brother who's going through a rough patch that he's acting like someone on their period (a.k.a a woman). Fans have labelled him "good at heart" but you don't get a pass on all your sexist, derogatory behaviour simply because you're a little goofy.

The side characters on this show are also assholes (except Max); that [second] sex scene between Bree and Tim (Tyriq Withers) was incredibly hard to watch. He had no regard for what Bree wanted and she might as well have been some full-blown sex toy. Being more vocal about her sexual desires is clearly something Bree needed to learn but we never see Bree clear that hurdle as the person she ends up with is ‘present’ enough to know he has to reciprocate and not just sit back and enjoy. This kind of sums up the character development of everyone on the show because there's none. Instead of growing, the characters get worse and more infuriating as Tell Me Lies unravels and they don't seem to be fairing any better in 2015.





The most tiresome how-can-i-throw-something-at-this-fictional-character has got to be Stephen and we know he's dealing with family trauma (did his relationship with his mum seem a little sexual to anyone else?) but that hardly makes him a sympathetic character. He gets so pissed at Diana (Alicia Crowder) for sleeping with Wrigley BEFORE they met and then tries to make Wrigley lose everything over that - his girlfriend, his brother, his life - while still maintaining an air of superiority and helpfulness. Lucy is a perfect match of toxicity (and family trauma) for Stephen as they try to out-manipulate one other and attend parties looking miserable in a trash bag costume while maintaining the illusion that they're somehow better than everyone else. The irony of Stephen lauding Lucy for wearing a sexy costume and then telling her "don't be insecure" for observing that she was the least clothed at the party only to walk out with the most covered-up girl in the room was a fitting end to the second phase of their relationship.


Verdict

Tell Me Lies starts off strong with a lot of drama but there's very little going on besides all the sex (by episode 5, I could pick Stephen's moans out of a line-up). This show could have been a really gripping and engaging movie or limited series (four episodes at most) but instead, the teeny tiny mysteries are stretched beyond their capacity for ten whole episodes and not even the stellar acting of some of the cast is enough to save the barely-there plot. The last few minutes of the season finale had a few cliffhangers but not enough to motivate me to watch the second season of this toxic mess.

You might be able to fully enjoy Tell Me Lies if you think of it as well-acted, well-staged porn.

4/10


Tell Me Lies is yet to be renewed for a second season and the first season is currently streaming on Hulu.