‘Tell Me Lies’ Boss on Ending TV’s Most Toxic Show With That Chaotic Finale and What Happens Next

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Tell Me Lies” Season 3, Episode 8.

“Tell Me Lies” showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer shocked the fandom for the Hulu series when she announced Monday night that its Season 3 finale would also serve as a series finale, ending the hit show on a chaotic high.

While the college-set series has been hitting its stride this season viewership-wise, Oppenheimer said the show reached its “natural conclusion” after the Season 3 finale saw the story across both timelines come to an end — with Grace Van Patten’s Lucy expelled from Baird upon the release of that blackmail tape as well as the conclusion of that chaotic wedding weekend (more on both of those below).

“What I always knew was that the wedding was going to be the framing device of the show, and it felt like anything we did after that point would start to feel like a different show and would start to feel a bit inorganic,” Oppenheimer told TheWrap, also explaining that going back to college isn’t realistic with Lucy and half the cast — including Stephen, Wrigley, Evan and Diana — leaving Baird upon graduation.

“I realized while writing the show that I think that setting of college and that age is part of what makes the show so good and so specific,” she continued. “When you go past the wedding, these are not characters that live in the same city, these are not characters that work in the same industry. They’re not characters that see each other on a daily basis. It would be undermining of the stakes of what happened to keep going after that.”

Moreover, due to the nature of not knowing about the show’s renewal status until well down the line into the season’s rollout, Oppenheimer wanted to give the audience a proper ending regardless. “It was really important to me going into this season, to give them something that felt conclusive and felt like resolution, even though I’m sure people will have a lot of different opinions about how it ended.”

While the college timeline seems to break off abruptly as Lucy is expelled from Baird following the release of the tape — which was released shockingly by Bree after she learned that Lucy had slept with Evan — there’s a bit more finality in the wedding storyline, which sees Stephen reveal every secret that’s been hiding during the late night hours of the wedding reception, from Bree knowing about Lucy and Evan to Bree releasing the tape to Bree and Wrigley’s ongoing affair.

The reveals, which prompt a chaos-filled scene full of yelling, attacking and spilled wedding cake, culminate in Lucy once again trusting Stephen when he asks her to leave the wedding reception with him — a mistake that Bree calls the last straw in their friendship. To no one’s surprise, Stephen screws over Lucy yet again when he ditches her at a gas station as the sun rises, still in her bridesmaids dress. Lucy’s shock eventually turns into a laugh that Oppenheimer said confirms she’ll never make that mistake again.

“There’s always been this question of, ‘Is Steven going to change?’ And it was to me very obvious that, of course he was never going to fully change, and of course he would hurt her in the end. But I wanted her to have that moment of laughter, because it is a release — she’s so at rock bottom that you kind of have to laugh at yourself,” Oppenheimer said. “I wanted that laughter, just so it wouldn’t be too bleak, and you would know that there was a self-awareness that she’d gained. I think that she’s actually going to move on from this and be happy … I wanted her to break free.”

After this moment, Oppenheimer noted that Lucy giving another chance to Stephen wouldn’t feel believable, nor would Stephen going after Lucy because “he’s won and had the last word.”

While Oppenheimer had been planning to wind down the series in the case of not receiving a Season 4 greenlight, the fandom has only grown, with Disney touting the premiere scored 5 million views globally across Disney+ and Hulu in its first week, up 150% from Season 1. The popularity prompted Oppenheimer to think about different ways the show could keep going, but she and the writers ultimately came back to their initial thought.

“For me, the worst-case scenario would be to give a fourth season that didn’t feel as good or didn’t feel like the same show, and just because of where we leave the finale, I couldn’t see any organic ways to continue it that felt as exciting to me, but, of course, there were a lot of conversations,” Oppenheimer said. “It’s very bittersweet because I love making the show, but I do feel like it’s better to quit while you’re ahead … We’ve all seen those shows that outstay their welcome and I didn’t want that for us.”

Oppenheimer called the move a “joint decision” between her and Hulu, applauding their respect for the creative and confirming there are “definitely” a possibility of spinoffs within this world. “The theme of obsessive, toxic, or just generally unhealthy romance and friendships at this stage in life is a very timeless, universal theme, and so there are a lot of ways to continue exploring that,” she said.

While the finale doesn’t follow the characters after that crazy wedding reception, Oppenheimer said the clues to what happens next are right there in the episode.

“I think it’s pretty clear that Evan and Bree are not going to stay married, and I think that little smile between Bree and Wrigley tells you that they’re probably going to work it out and be together,” she said. “I want that happy ending for them. But happy endings are also kind of boring to watch, at least a whole season of a happy ending — it’s the explosion. Anything after that is going to be a little bit anticlimactic.”

Below, Oppenheimer breaks down all of those happy and not-so-happy endings and what else happens next for the characters and Oppenheimer as well.

TheWrap: How quickly do you imagine Bree and Wrigley got together after the wedding?

Oppenheimer: Pretty quickly. I think Evan and Bree get annulled and I think that Bree is probably talking to Wrigley immediately after, and they’re like, “Look, everything else is blown up. There’s no reason not to give this a real try now.”

What about Diana and Pippa? It’s clear they get together after college but when do you imagine that happened?

I think that didn’t happen until pretty recently. When she’s at the engagement party, and she’s like, “I’m seeing someone new.” They’ve reconnected as adults, in the last couple months, so I think it’s pretty fresh.

What’s next for Lucy after the expulsion? And in the future, does she forgive Bree?

I think that friendship has probably run its course, at least for a long time — maybe in several years, when they’re older adults, they’ll find their way back to each other, but I think that they don’t need to interact much more in their 20s.

I think after college — it’s kind of indicated in the show — she gave up writing, she went into sales. She was in sort of a tentative recovery, a very delicate recovery, and I think this wedding weekend exposed the fact that she was not as healed as she thought. I think she’s going to go and actually get real healing now, and now that all of the secrets have come out and the truth about Bree and the tape, she’s going to actually be able to heal in a real way. She’s no longer weighed down by this guilt that she’s been hiding about Evan, because she’s been carrying that for years, not knowing that Bree knew.

What was it like developing the arc for Bree? She ends on such a low moral note.

I think she has a good moral compass. She’s just in a very fractured environment, and is dealing with a lot of obstacles. And I think that moment when she releases the tape, that’s a moment of her being in absolute rock bottom, and she doesn’t know in that moment that Lucy lied for Pippa. She watches the tape, and she’s like, “Oh my God.” She believes the confession, she takes it at face value. It is a bad move, but it’s a move she immediately regrets.

I forgive her for that. I think she’s still a good person.

Before I started the writers’ room, I knew that whatever it was that Stephen did to ultimately destroy Lucy’s life, we needed to find out that actually, secretly, Bree had a hand in that. Even though Bree didn’t mean to destroy her life, she accidentally kind of did. Then it was figuring out the mechanics of how we made that happen.

We still do get consequences for Stephen, but yet he doesn’t change. How did you want to give him what he deserved while also being true and realistic to the character?

[We wanted to makee] sure that the consequences were imperfect and incomplete — one thing in the book is that he never has any consequences for Macy, and I always knew that I was going to stay true to that. I thought that watching him get arrested for Macy would be unrealistic and also just a little bit not very interesting to me. But I think the fact that he does lose certain things — he loses Yale — that was important to me, and I think he does hurt himself in the end — he has that line where he says, “I just blew up all my relationships. If I betray you, I’m only going to be f–king myself over.” It’s true, and his desire to inflict pain on other people and to win is so much stronger than his desire for happiness. He’s never going to actually be happy. Being Stephen is a punishment in itself. You see him realize that this season where he starts to have this spiral, when he no longer has his relationship with his sister, he can no longer control Wrigley, he can no longer control Evan. He’s spiraling because he’s a deeply unhappy person. And yes, he gets these like minor, temporary, destructive wins, but then he’s immediately bored afterwards.

Is there any room for Lucy to make up things with Max or with anybody else? How can she move forward?

I don’t think that she and Max are meant to be together, because I think they were together based on a lot of untruths or half truths and self denial, which he calls out in Season 2. But I think that she needs to go to therapy.

I do think that there’s a world in which she and Alex could find each other again in the future. I really like them together. They both needed to heal separately. I think they both had a lot of healing to do that they could not do in each other’s presence, but I think in adulthood could maybe find each other again. I think Lucy is going to be OK. She’s only 26.

Oliver and Marianne get their win, but what do you imagine happens with them? Are they still doing the same thing?

I do think Oliver probably got #MeToo’d. Not yet, because we are pre #MeToo … but I think he gets #MeToo’d and has an utter fall from grace. I think he and Marianne have probably long divorced, because that’s a completely unsustainable relationship. But I think he is Marianne’s greatest failure and biggest regret, probably. I think he continued doing this for a long time until finally it caught up to him.

Have you thought about what comes next for each character?

My favorite stories are the ones that leave a little bit to the imagination. When you start to over explain everything, I think you can kill the magic a little bit. But I think Bree and Wrigley definitely end up together. I think Lucy moves on to find happiness. I think Stephen moves on to his next victim and never talks to any of these people again. And I think Pippa and Diana definitely end up together.

And I think Evan will be OK. He deserved to have this wedding blow up in his face, but I think he’s not inherently an evil guy. He’s just a bit of a weak guy, and he will learn and grow from this.

What do you hope that fans take away from the show as a whole?

This has always, for me, been a cautionary tale. As soon as you realize you’re in a relationship like this — any kind of toxic relationship — any more time is wasted. Get out as soon as you can. Don’t try to win, don’t try to fix things, just cut your losses and get out. I had a therapist that once said to me — it was so funny — because she said, “Every tear you cry about a man that was mean to you, you will look back and realize was a completely wasted tear.” And it was so true. That goes for men and women — that goes for anyone. Don’t be with someone who makes you doubt yourself or makes you doubt your sanity.

With “Tell Me Lies” is closing its doors, what’s next for you?

I’m excited to develop more stuff with Hulu. I love everyone at Hulu. They’ve been incredible partners. I’m under an overall with 20th [Television] who are also incredible. I’m actively working on a couple of things which I can’t talk too much about, but I would love to do something that centers around family dynamics, but not in a soft way. It’ll always be a little bit dark and twisty, but I’m very interested in relationships between adult siblings, probably just because I have a lot of siblings. But I’m also very interested in more coming-of-age stories in this universe. I love coming-of-age stories, and I love stories about relationships. It’ll be really fun to start to look at new things.

“Tell Me Lies” Seasons 1-3 are now streaming on Hulu.

The post ‘Tell Me Lies’ Boss on Ending TV’s Most Toxic Show With That Chaotic Finale and What Happens Next appeared first on TheWrap.