Join Now

Want news that’s as fresh as your morning coffee? Join our community and stay in the know!

‘Tell Me Lies’ showrunner, Jackson White break down season 2 finale

Date:

Share:

Warning: This article contains spoilers from the season 2 finale of Tell Me Lies, “Don’t Struggle Like That, Or I Will Only Love You More.”

If anyone knows how to hold a grudge — or hold onto damning blackmail — it’s Stephen (Jackson White).

Tell Me Lies ended its second season with Stephen giving Bree (Catherine Missal) a truly terrible wedding gift: The recording of Evan (Branden Cook) admitting that he cheated on her with Lucy (Grace Van Patten).

“He doesn’t surprise me anymore,” star Jackson White says of his character’s latest move. “I love it. I love how calculating he is. It’s so much fun to play. He’s a total shark. He’s very, very smart and very spiteful and it’s a blast to get to play around with his stuff.” 

Jackson White on ‘Tell Me Lies’.

Disney/Josh Stringer


Showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer adds, “Stephen is someone who just holds a grudge and he is always going to get revenge if he feels betrayed. It felt organic for his character to do that, even though it is crazy for him to hold onto it for that long, but that’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to wait until he needs more from Evan.”

As for how it impacts Bree, Oppenheimer says, “I think other people are really collateral damage to him. I don’t think he even wants to hurt Bree, but he knows that that will ruin Evan’s life and Lucy’s relationship with Bree, so he’s going to do it knowing that it’ll hurt Bree.” 

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

But the recording wasn’t the episode’s only twist. There was also the reveal that Bree and Oliver (Tom Ellis) were never actually having an affair, but rather that he’s in an open marriage, a decision Oppenheimer says they came to partially to surprise people. But it was also about hurting Bree. “I was thinking about: What is the most devastating thing that can happen? Because I think the thing that makes an affair feel so precious is feeling like you have a secret,” she says.

Catherine Missal on ‘Tell Me Lies’.

Disney/Josh Stringer


Specifically, Oppenheimer recalls a scene in I May Destroy You. “The one scene that really stuck with me is when the best friend has the threesome with the two guys. She thinks it’s all just happened organically and then she sees them walk away out the window and they high five and she realizes they were in on it and she wasn’t,” she says. “There is just something devastating about that. That’s where the original idea [came from].”

Speaking of devastating, the finale also revealed how Drew (Benjamin Wadsworth) died — overdosing from a night of partying with his brother, Wrigley (Spencer House), who found him the next morning.

“I had actually thought that he was going to die at the end of season 1, and it was quite similar,” Oppenheimer admits. “It just didn’t fit in, so we put it at the end of season 2. I knew I wanted it to be almost like an anticlimactic moment, because I think that’s how death happens in real life a lot of the time. Sometimes it’s like this weird afterthought.”

Spencer House on ‘Tell Me Lies’.

Disney/Josh Stringer


Oppenheimer admits she thought about cutting the death altogether. “I tried to find a way to keep him alive because Ben is such a great actor and he’s so lovely. I was like, ‘Maybe we don’t have to kill him,’ but we’d already set it up,” she says. “He had to die. We knew we needed to get Wrigley to a place where he could never forgive himself, but it also needed to be Lucy and Steven’s fault at its core, which I think it is.”

Speaking of Stephen and Lucy, they got back together in the college timeline (and hooked up in the other). “He has a conscience,” White says of his character, though he admits that “he can be really jarring.”

Grace Van Patten on ‘Tell Me Lies’.

Disney/Josh Stringer


For Oppenheimer, she believes that their relationship is rooted in love — just a specific kind. “There’s a huge range in what love means to different people. Stephen’s version of love is: What can someone mean for me and how can they make me feel better? How can they contribute to my life? I don’t think he’s capable of selfless love,” she says. “But he loves Lucy when he realizes she accepts me at my worst, and that’s what he needs right then. And so then he thinks, okay, this is love. So yeah, I think it is rooted in love, but a certain version of love that is maybe not the best. And same for Lucy.”

White adds, “It’s really fun to try to find a way into some of the questionable things he does.” And he certainly does plenty of questionable things.

Tell Me Lies is streaming on Hulu now.

Unmatched Baby Essentials

baby

━ more like this

Sacrifice made soldier first Hispanic American MOH recipient of WWII

This soldier became the first Hispanic American MOH recipient of WWIIThe Japanese occupations in June 1942 on the Aleutian islands of Attu and Kiska,...

9 Differences From Sonic Adventure 2

The Sonic movies have established that the speedy anthropomorphic animals saving the world are aliens from other planets. It was eventually revealed in Shadow...

Major leadership shakeup, new budget battles coming to VA in 2025

The year ahead will be a period of major changes for the Department of Veterans Affairs, with new leadership, new priorities and likely its...

Despite No Switch 2, 2024 Wasn’t A Total Disaster For Nintendo

The Switch is running on fumes. It might not be gong out with a whimper, but the needle is past empty. The 2024 release...

A Marine’s legacy as 1st Puerto Rican Medal of Honor recipient

Since Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, its people have played a role in the U.S. armed forces,...

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here