Here’s the thing about Tell Me Lies: Nobody wants what its two main characters, Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco have. On the heels of a wildly divisive series finale, all anyone can talk about is how awful every relationship in the show is. I mean, the series is essentially all about toxic relationships. At the center of it all is the on-again-off-again tryst between Lucy and Stephen, but there are multiple other relationships, both romantic and platonic, that are almost painful to watch play out onscreen. But all that deception, infidelity, and horrible decision-making is—hear me out—actually the best thing about this twisted TV show.
But first, a reflection on the depictions of toxic relationships we’ve had up until this point. The term “toxic relationship” is fairly new, but my fellow millennials and I certainly watched our fair share of them play out on TV over the years, even if we didn’t have the language to identify the dynamics that were at work.
Gossip Girl’s Chuck Bass and Sex and the City’s Mr. Big are two of the first examples that come to mind. Both are characters viewers swoon over, but who treat the women in their lives (even the ones they end up marrying) like garbage. Yet we watch them filtered through this romantic lens. They put their love interests through hell, but ultimately swoop in and sweep them off their feet…and as a result, many of us absorbed the message that these dramatic on-again-off-again love stories were actually the height of romance.
Tell Me Lies refuses to romanticize its toxic love stories. Instead, the show goes there. It doesn’t soften the harsh edges of the relationships it shows onscreen. It leans all the way into the ugliness. Tell Me Lies makes intentional choices in order to make the audience uncomfortable (like including graphic “I-kind-of-feel-like-I-shouldn’t-be-watching-this” level sex scenes) because, well, that’s what watching a toxic relationship play out should make people feel.
Tell Me Lies is a tough watch—and that’s the point
There are so many elements that contribute to the uneasiness viewers feel while tuning in. The low, moody lighting. The perfect musical storytelling. The acting. Jackson White, the actor who plays Stephen (while conventionally handsome in real life), really commits to making his character unappealing. On a Call Her Daddy appearance, he speaks up about some of the mannerisms he picked up to maximize his character’s unlikability. These details matter, and I think that’s what sets Tell Me Lies apart: It takes the responsibility of showcasing toxic relationships seriously. On TikTok, psychologist Dr. Kim Sage calls the show a “master class” in understanding the nuances of narcissism and how proximity to someone with the disorder can completely undo a person.
“[Tell Me Lies] tells us that we might not get our happy ending by pushing through pain, chaos, and instability. Instead, we might just end up turning ourselves into shells of who we were before.”
In the third and final season, there’s a scene where Stephen coerces Lucy to confess her deepest secret on tape. He uses the tape as leverage over her, and many viewers call out that scene as particularly tough to watch. But while your instinct may be to look away or write the show off as over-the-top, there’s value in taking the storyline to such a dark place. Watching a show that leans so heavily into emotionally abusive relationships has the power to inspire real people to take a good, hard look at their own relationships.
For too long, we’ve been fed the idea that relationships are worth “fighting for,” that it’s romantic for a man to chase you down, or that we should all aspire to tame the bad boy. Tell Me Lies is the perfect counterpoint to all these narratives. It tells us that we might not get our happy ending by pushing through pain, chaos, and instability. Instead, we might just end up turning ourselves into shells of who we were before.
Tell Me Lies feels like watching a friend stuck in a toxic cycle
The characters, especially the men (most notably Stephen), don’t have moments of sweetness. As a result, the audience doesn’t receive mixed messages. We don’t root for the couples in these ugly relationships. We’re not watching on and thinking “yeah, he’s kind of the worst, but I’d totally let him ruin my life” (which, let’s be real, is something many of us have thought about a toxic man, whether on TV or IRL). Instead, we’re practically screaming at our screens, “What is she doing with this actual sociopath?!?” And isn’t that what it feels like to watch a friend go back to her awful boyfriend in real life?
“While so many pop cultural touchstones frame toxicity as something that can be overcome, Tell Me Lies tells us something different: Sometimes, the wrong relationship can undo your whole life.”
I’m lucky enough to have never been in a truly toxic relationship—at least not to the level of Stephen and Lucy’s. But I have friends who have found themselves in these cycles, and I’ve seen the way they’ve justified staying in them. And I’ve always wondered what role media messaging plays in all this. I got lucky. I made it through my teens and 20s without encountering a Stephen DeMarco, and hopefully, after watching this show, more young women will be able to say the same.
The accuracy of Tell Me Lies is on point
Many viewers say the show is the first truly accurate representation of what falling in love with a bad boy can do to a woman. In one scene from the penultimate episode, we see Lucy look back at a photo of herself from before she got wrapped up in Stephen’s orbit. It’s like she’s looking back longingly at her old self. That moment invites us as an audience to think about who Lucy was in the show’s first episode and who she becomes by the finale.
We’ve watched Lucy become the worst version of herself. We see her become isolated from everyone, lose sight of her goals, turn to self-harm, and even have full-on panic attacks. This portrayal sends us a new message. While so many pop cultural touchstones frame toxicity as something that can be overcome, Tell Me Lies tells us something different: Sometimes, the wrong relationship can undo your whole life.
At the end of the day, Tell Me Lies is a highly dramatized show. Stephen DeMarco feels like a heightened version of the bad boyfriend so many women have survived. Lucy Albright hits lows many of us will never experience. But what this particular show does is introduce a necessary new narrative about the types of relationships young women often find themselves in and how hard (yet essential) it is to leave them.
Zara Hanawalt, Contributing Writer
Zara Hanawalt is a freelance journalist and mom of two. She specializes in writing feminist, woman-centric content on motherhood, women’s health, work, entertainment, and lifestyle. She has written for outlets like Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Shape, Parents, and more. In her free time, she enjoys travel, cooking, reading, and a good reality romance show.
