It is with the happiest heart that I finally say goodbye to Hulu’s Tell Me Lies.
I feel like with how negative this post is going to become, I have to start by saying that I love the cast of this show. I think this group of actors are so spectacular, so talented, and truly seem like they’re all such wonderful people. They seem so different from their characters and I’m happy for the success they’re getting from this show.
With that being said, my issues begin with the fact that this series strays so far from the text it’s based on. Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering is one of the most incredible novels I’ve ever read. I could write essays upon essays about the novel and why it’s one of the best books I have ever read, but for now, I’ll point you in the direction of a piece I did write about Tell Me Lies – click here.
I understand that changes have to be made when you’re adapting something for the screen, I do. One of my favorite shows in the world is The Vampire Diaries and that show strayed so far from the books it’s not even funny. And still, that show was fantastic. But I don’t think Tell Me Lies was. I don’t understand the point in creating an adaptation where you’re going to change just about everything humanly possible about the storyline AND its characters. It can be done well, I suppose, but I don’t think Tell Me Lies was.
I’ve been doing some reading about the series as a whole since I watched the finale and the consensus is that season one is pretty true to the book and seasons two and three diverge. I don’t even agree with this. The Macy/Stephen storyline is so important to Lucy’s story in the novel, and it’s important in the show in the sense that it impacts Lucy’s experience at college, but it doesn’t even hold the same weight. It’s not even in the same ballpark.
Beyond that, the essence of the story isn’t even the same in the show. The novel is a poignant story about how having a relationship with a narcissist can affect your life. How family dynamics can impact your actions, even outside of your family. The characters are morally grey, particularly Lucy’s character, and yet, you see so much growth in her and you understand why she behaves the way she does. You ache with her. You empathize with her. You grow with her.
The Lucy of the Hulu adaptation… I don’t hate her, I usually even try to defend her. I think more than anything, she’s a victim of her circumstances and I don’t think she’s a bad person. But she is not the same Lucy on the page, not by a long shot. And often times, her actions are hard to even defend.
Hulu’s Stephen is infuriating, despicable, never held accountable for his actions. Pretty similar to the book in those respects. But in the book, he feels dynamic, he feels like a real human, he feels like the text book embodiment of a narcissist. In the show, it feels like he exists simply to spite and hurt and manipulate other people. He feels like he’s set up to be the villain that you hate and only hate. In the book, you never like him, but you get inside his head, you see why he behaves the way he does. He feels like a human. Albeit a horrible, despicable human, but a human nonetheless. In the show, I only view him as a villain. He enrages me, much like the other characters in the show.
Throughout much of the series, but this last season in particular, I watched with a scowl, hating – despising even – most of these characters.
Warning: Major spoilers ahead.
I can do my fair share of hating on Stephen but really, what it boils down to is he is a spiteful, narcissistic, jealous little boy who needs to tear everybody else down in order to ATTEMPT to make himself feel good. And I say attempt because I don’t think Stephen is ever actually happy. The way that he just gathers things to use against people when he feels angry at them is disgusting (i.e. Lucy’s tape, Diana’s nudes, Evan confessing to sleeping with Lucy… The list goes on.) The fact that he feels no remorse for Macy, or did we forget about that? I think the only time I actually enjoyed seeing Stephen on my TV screen throughout the entirety of this series was his speech at the wedding. I actually was smiling and laughing so hard because goddamn it, finally everything is just out in the fucking open. And it’s funny how he’s so much of a child that he has to throw this little temper tantrum because he thinks he’s lost to Bree.
Pippa shifted into a hatable, irredeemable woman throughout the show. To cheat on Wrigley is just criminal behavior. To cheat on anyone is horrible in my book, but to cheat on sweet Wrigley… CRIMINAL. And I never liked the way she treated Lucy on the show, but especially this last season… I can’t speak to this personally because I’ve never been involved in a SA case, but what kills me is that Pippa lets Lucy take the fall for everything. I can understand that Pippa doesn’t want to talk about what happened to her, but what I can’t understand is how she couldn’t come forward when she saw how Lucy was being treated and the consequences of taking the fall. How she couldn’t even tell their friends, even Wrigley, what happened. Then, for her to absolutely EXPLODE on Lucy in the series finale when she found out Lucy and Evan had hooked up… Pippa may not be deceptive and evil like Stephen is, but she is NOT a good person and I will stand by that.
Evan morphed into a mini Stephen and it was repulsive. To watch the way he manipulated Bree this season – after going to OLIVER of all fucking people for advice – was just awful. I hated the way he was still friends with Stephen, the way he told Stephen Diana was pregnant, the way he took Bree’s mom to the bar then lied about it, the way he treated Molly (even though I also hate Molly)… Then still got the girl until the wedding? Fuck that shit, man.
Although they’re not main characters, Oliver and Marianne sent me on a downward spiral and they have to be included in my list of grievances. Let’s start by saying this: the way Oliver pries on younger women is sickening. The way he then gaslights them is disgusting. And the way that Marianne is just in on it is icing on the cake. Not only would I have expected Marianne to be a girls girl, but to knowingly allow your HUSBAND to behave this way with young, female students makes you just as bad. I thought Marianne had been on the path to redeeming herself after Bree showed up at their home in the middle of the night, but they way she lured Bree’s mom to campus and got Amanda to turn on Bree… Unbelievable.
I want to hate Bree, but I don’t. I don’t think she’s perfect, but I do think that she has a good heart. I think she’s misguided and I think she can be rash (like sharing Lucy’s tape), but I don’t think Bree is a bad person. To be honest, I feel for her in a lot of ways. Growing up in the foster system couldn’t have been easy. Being gaslit and pried upon by a professor is something I wouldn’t wish upon anybody. Being manipulated by her boyfriend, then feeling like she has to stay in the relationship with the man she doesn’t love and not be in one with the one she does love… I really do feel for her. But could she have been a better friend? Yes. Could she have communicated with Wrigley better and not cheated on Evan? Also yes.
And Diana, as much as I want to hate her, I actually think she’s pretty brilliant. Would I go as far as to say I like her? Probably not, but she’s one of the characters I’m the closest to saying I like. She knows how to stand up to Stephen, she became a friend to Lucy, you could tell she genuinely cared about her friends. But I don’t have much respect for her knowingly cheating with Pippa, nor do I really have respect for her being with Pippa in general because I don’t think Pippa is a good person. It has to say a lot about her character if she’s willing to commit herself to someone with a heart and a personality like Pippa’s.
As for Lucy, I hate seeing how much she changed from when she started college to the person she became when she got kicked out of college. To see her mental state just completely shatter because of Stephen (and because of her “friends”) broke my heart. That being said, she made her fair share of mistakes. I hated how she treated Max, I think she messed up in saying that she was the one with Chris instead of Pippa, I don’t like that she manipulated Stephen in season one (this felt very uncharacteristic of Lucy to me), but I do not think she’s a bad person in the same way that Stephen or Evan or Pippa are. I haven’t watched seasons one or two in awhile, but from everything I can recall, while I think she’s made mistakes, I think every problem she tried to solve and mistake she made came from a good place in her heart. That being said, I disrespect Lucy so much for going with Stephen after the wedding. I think if I really take a step back, she’s probably trying to follow Diana’s advice in making Stephen think everything is his idea, BUT the ending of the novel was so powerful and even though the circumstances in the end of the show weren’t the same as the book, I DO believe that their interaction at the wedding could’ve been the same and Lucy could’ve walked away from him without giving him the time of day and I would’ve felt a similar sense of gratification in her actions in the show as the book.
Lastly, sweet Wrigley. Was he perfect? No. Do I wish he didn’t cheat with Bree? Yes. But do I want them to be together? Also yes. I wish I could understand how Wrigley stayed friends with all of these horrible people with a heart like his. He’s just so sweet and so kind and somehow, always the one who ends up hurt. I respect him and I empathize with him. He gets treated like shit when he’s the only one who is actually kind out of all of these people. We could probably argue Bree is a close runner up, but I’m not willing to defend her just yet. Wrigley gets used and abused by everyone, but he’s the only one who will actually stand up for other people and the fact that he is the reason Stephen didn’t go to Yale (at least, I think he’s the one who made the call) makes me love him even more.
Wrigley aside, these people all treat each other so horribly. They lie. They deceive. They gaslight. No one’s ever held accountable. The way they act doesn’t even feel real. I’ve never loved a Stephen, so I won’t speak to the relatability of his character in that way. But I’m a girl, I have girlfriends, and I would never treat my girlfriends this way nor would I allow myself to be treated this way. If only these goddamn people would just communicate and treat each other with a little grace, it would’ve solved so many of their problems.
I don’t think the point of this show was to showcase good people, but I can’t sit here and say I liked a show where I hated almost every single character.
I REALLY loved this show at the beginning and this post isn’t meant to be a dig at the actors or even the writers. It’s not their fault I didn’t like the storylines. But genuinely, I feel like this whole series was a waste of my time. And to be honest, I feel like there are just so many loose ends still – like how these people still remained friends, the Bree and Wrigley storyline and really not seeing it play out, the Macy story and the lack of accountability, just dropping a quick, rushed comment about how Stephen and Lydia got together… I don’t want to beg for more from a show I very clearly stated I don’t like, but the ending was incredibly rushed and I feel like it did the series as a whole a total disservice. I don’t know if I necessarily believe this was the ending that was always planned as they’re saying – again, it feels too rushed – but please don’t let this become a trend where we announce just hours before the series finale drops that it’s the series finale.
Keep scrolling to see the text I sent my best friend as soon as I finished the show. I know I can be dramatic, but I couldn’t believe how enraged I was at how much they butchered this story.
so I take back every positive thing I’ve ever said about tell me lies (the tv show) they just dropped the series finale and I genuinely am so fucking enraged. every bit of this show was a waste of my time.
from the structure, to the characters, to the story… fuck every moment. this was such an incredible book and incredible story of what it’s like to date a narcissist and the toll it takes on your life and your body and self growth and they ruined that. every bit of it. and they had a chance at the end where it would’ve made sense (despite all the changes from the book, because truly nothing was the same beyond the very beginning) to end it the same way (I am not exaggerating when I say I cried proud tears at the end of the book because of the character growth and that I truly felt so proud and so lucky to have been part of Lucy’s story) and they did not end it the show in that way whatsoever. in fact, I disrespect Lucy so very much because of her actions. they turned this story into a show about deception, lies, gaslighting, and creating the WORST humans they possibly could and took every good thing away from this story. this is one of the most special, most beautifully raw books I have ever read. and it was destroyed as a tv show. and even if I try to look at these two as separate mediums, I can’t even speak positively about it because I did not enjoy this last season in the slightest and I have never hated characters the way I hate these characters. there is ONE single character who maintained goodness throughout the entirety of the show, and even in the end, he’s morally grey. I am so distraught.
Anchored Musings 