College in New England in the late aughts sounds like a "Gilmore Girls" cozy Autumn girl fall dream, but in "Tell Me Lies," it's closer to something from a night terror.
The simmering Hulu young adult drama, created by Meaghan Oppenheimer, is a sexed-up romp that centers on the excruciatingly toxic on-and-off relationship between college students Lucy (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen (Jackson White). Stephen is the manifestation of every single evil ex-boyfriend you or your best friend has had, and Lucy can't get enough. Everything Stephen touches ruins Lucy's life, creating conflict in her future academic success and her friendships with her best friends, Pippa (Sonia Mena) and Bree (Cat Missal). The sophomore season of the Hulu hit has built a cult following with Gen-Zers online, who tend to curse out Stephen and Lucy's toxic tendencies.
In the show's second season, the "Tell Me Lies" friend group continues to deal with highly sensitive issues like emotional abuse, drunk-driving deaths, disturbing student-teacher affairs and burgeoning sexualities, while also tackling college drug-induced date rape. The harrowing storyline is a reality of the late aughts in the U.S. when college campuses across the country reckoned with a growing number of sexual assaults, and continue to do so. Cases like Standard University student Brock Turner's conviction for sexually assaulting a woman and ultimately serving six months in jail and three years of probation made national news. His sentence was decried by countless people — including his victim — as too lenient. That's just one case out of numerous reported campus sexual assaults, but so many assaults on campus also go unreported.
In the second episode of the new season, Lucy's friend Pippa is assaulted by Chris (Jacob Rodriguez), the brother of Lucy's best friend Lydia (Natalee Linez), at a party. Diana (Alicia Crowder) discovers Pippa passed out and undressed, with a guilt-ridden Chris beside her, after unlocking a door. As the season unfolds, Pippa struggles to cope with the assault, her breakup with former quarterback Wrigley (Spencer House), and her growing attraction to Diana.
In an interview with Salon, Mena talks of the heavy episode and the ways she hopes to see her character Pippa grow into her power.
The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
How do you feel like late ‘00s college culture affects the way the characters act and the essence of this YA show?
It affects everything, just because you're kind of a product of everything you consume and the culture. I mean everything from the way that they use social media — the Blackberry, the Facebook albums. In prepping the show, I watched a lot of "The Hills" and "Vanderpump Rules." That show stressed me. With makeup and stuff and with costumes, we're constantly sending references back and forth and pulling Pinterest mood boards of, like, Britney [Spears]. I wasn't in college in 2008, obviously, but I remember what it was like to be a girl and to be a person of color in a very white environment. And I think drawing on all of that, to me, it's just really interesting because Pippa is so aspirational as a person. I think I spent a lot of time thinking about what she would be looking at and then looking at the gaps between Paris Hilton versus herself. It leaves a lot of striving to do, which is fun.
What about a character like Pippa interested you from the jump?
She's a weird one. I think I can relate. I imagine a lot of people can relate to feeling like you don't know who you are at that age. And she's got a lot of confidence, but a lot of self-loathing, and a lot of embarrassing, like, "I couldn't be enough, so I'll just be something that people want to be, because who would want to actually look at me?" Which I can totally relate to. So I found that really interesting . . . all of the different characters that she puts on and moves that she makes trying to just win. She's very ambitious in a weird way, yeah, even though, like, what is she striving for? I don't know.
I’m really interested in this show’s ability to make each relationship that the girls have kind of radioactive. In the case of Stephen and Lucy's turbulent relationship, how does it affect the larger female friendship with Lucy, Bre and Pippa this season?
It's that classic thing when your friend has a terrible boyfriend and initially you're like, he sucks. And then you're like, if I keep telling you how s**t he is, you won't talk to me anymore. So you kind of start to walk on eggshells. I think the show is about people who are just awful at communicating, and so it's a lot of unsaid things. And like wanting to take care of your friend, also being pissed at your friend for giving the time of day to somebody who has not f****d her over, but f****d me over. It kind of colors everything. I think that was a big thing for Meaghan [Oppenheimer], how their relationship permeates.
Pippa starts off the season being really alienated by her classmates because of her breakup with Wrigley. There are a lot of lonely teenage characters in this show, but do you think Pippa is the most insular?
Obviously, I identify with her the most. I'm like, yeah, Pippa has it the hardest. But I do think it was a really rough storyline in the season. We as the show don't really spend a lot of time with her by herself, so we mostly see her, you know, throughout the season — choosing not to share what happened with her, choosing not to tell anyone what's going on. And so we see that she's extremely alone.
Then the character is sexually assaulted by Lucy’s best friend’s brother, Chris, and it changes everything for Pippa. What was it like getting in her headspace?
It's pretty dark. I felt a lot of responsibility to both take care of the character, Pippa — which I can't do, which is sort of like a weird thing — and also to take care of the storyline. It's interesting the way that it happens in the show because it does sort of fade into the background in a weird way, in that it's not discussed, and there's just so much happening in the show. It was quite nerve-wracking to feel hope that everything that she's going through is still reading, because, like I said, it's a show of people who are horrible communicators.
So it's a scene where we're all just like, "Let's get ready to go out!" But you want to have both things reading, right? Because that is also true to life. People go through horrible things — especially things like assault at that age, or any age — and you're like, "I'm good," and you go live your life.
Pippa spends a lot of time avoiding what happened to her and only taking solace with Lucy, Diana and sometimes Wrigley — how do those relationships anchor her?
Lucy is trying to show up for Pippa and not doing a very good job. Obviously, I think Diana is probably giving Pippa what she would need, but she doesn't want it, which is an interesting thing to think about. Later on, we see what they're like together, and there is a moment when Pippa realizes, "Wait, you see me?" It kind of reminds me of those friendships you have where you're both in just a really dark place and you don't really talk about it. You just sort of spend time together. I found that to be really sweet as well. It's maybe the least lonely [relationship], even though they're not talking about what's going on.
Another thing that I tried to build in a lot — because she doesn't do anything really with what happens, she just kind of holds on to it — was really trying to build through this season that there are so many opportunities where she could and where she almost might [do something about it] and then she keeps choosing not to. So it felt active, like it felt like someone who's continually making this choice and isn't a passive person.
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In the time frame of the show, college campus assaults were a festering issue on campuses across the U.S. Why did this story feel like it was important to address? Why was it the right storyline for Pippa this season?
That was something that [Oppenheimer] came to me with and they're like, "This is what we've come up with." One thing that we talked about that I really appreciated — I'm very afraid of watching myself, so I actually haven't seen most of the show — was I liked the way that we find out. We see what happens, but we don't actually see the event. I think not knowing exactly allows people to fill in what makes the most sense or is most compelling to them. Also, I think it gives Pippa, and women in general, a sense of privacy that I really appreciated.
There is a scene in episode seven where Lucy co-opts Pippa’s assault as her own as everyone talks about another allegation made against Pippa's assaulter. How do you think Pippa actually felt at that moment?
It's unimaginable. Usually when things like that happen — unless you're a very reactive person — people usually shut down and are just like, "What the f**k is going on?" It usually takes a while for things to settle. What's really exciting, I guess, about the way that Pippa's arc is in season two is that we don't get to see a lot of catharsis really at all. We don't get to see a lot of action. We don't get to see a lot of private moments with her, but they've loaded her up so much. There's this assault that happens. There's Lucy co-opting it. There's Wrigley outing her. There's the death of Drew. She's truly operating at 150%.
I think if we come back for a season three, it'll be so interesting to see what she does with that. Because they've given her this huge gift of just the most someone could be going through and we see later that she's kind of OK. How does she get there? It's a show about people who make really crazy decisions to get there, and so I think it's going to be so fascinating to see how they build that for her. Because also we're only with them for this semester. A lot of times these things take a minute. Trauma and all of that s**t — It's very mysterious. It works through you, and then it decides to suddenly be like, "Hi!"
This unexpected friendship and romantic relationship with Diana also unfolds as Pippa is dealing with some pretty heavy trauma. What's it like for Pippa to navigate these feelings for Diana, her sexuality, and also try to grapple with what she’s just been through?
It's really confusing. Regardless of who you are, it's always scary and confusing and exciting, but just weird. Pippa's queerness is something that we're seeing her discover. I don't necessarily think she was in high school, maybe super aware of how queer she was. Then if you add it back to 2008 and they go to a fratty school — it wasn't cool to be gay back then. So I think adding that adds just another layer of she's not someone who's like, "f**k it. I don't care. I am who I am." That's another layer of just anxiety and fear.
Why doesn't she want to go there with Diana? Is it because Diana has seen Pippa through this really traumatic experience?
I think that becomes an interesting basis of their friendship because Diana — initially, before the assault — is like "I don't actually care what you think, because I hate you, because it f****d over my friend." So she feels really free to be herself because she doesn't care. Then that sort of creates an interesting base for them because it's one of the few people that Pippa is repeatedly herself with when she doesn't really want that intimacy, but it's just built in.
By the end of the season, she also rekindles her relationship with Wrigley. Is their relationship one of the healthier ones on the show? And if so, why do you think that is?
There's not a lot of manipulation or trying to get anything out of each other, which is groundbreaking for "Tell Me Lies." It's not great what he does. That scene where he comes and is so sad after the bar is really heartbreaking, but it's also kind of crazy. He totally f***s her over and then he comes to apologize and she spends the whole scene being like, "I'm sorry. It's okay. I got you, I'm gonna fix it."
Ultimately, what joyful experience would you like for Pippa to have next season?
I'm just really excited to see Pippa come into her power. Her way to that will be probably quite messy but I mean, people deal with assault in so many different ways. They can disappear or charge forward. I think it'll be really interesting because she really is at a point now where she's got to start doing something because she is gonna be OK. I feel like she's about to make some wild decisions, and I'm pretty curious and excited to see what those are.
All eight episodes of "Tell Me Lies" season two are available to stream on Hulu.
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