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WARNING: SPOILER ALERT – MAJOR spoilers ahead for Tell Me Lies Season 3, Episodes 1-3.

And we’re back! Fans of Hulu’s Tell Me Lies rejoice. With Season 3’s debut, the streamer added a surprise third episode to the first drop Monday night at 9pm PT/ Tuesday midnight ET. And get ready, because this season is darker and more twisted than anything that’s come before.

This time around, the Chernobyl-level toxicity of Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) and Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten)’s relationship goes truly nuclear. “They start in a place of they’re trying to make it work with each other, but they’re both so damaged that all of their demons come out,” White told Deadline ahead of the season premiere. “I know Stephen doesn’t know how to not hurt somebody. That’s how he connects. It’s pretty dangerous. And Lucy’s just trying to keep it together.”

Van Patten added, “I think Lucy starts in a deep denial, but truly believes that things will be different this time and very quickly realizes that this is a vicious cycle for a reason, and that any good does not last longer than a second. From then on, they really are dealing with their separate emotions while still being connected by this one thing that’s being held over both of them, that creates this really active panic with them and the people around them for the whole season.”

Tell Me Lies is based on Carola Lovering’s novel of the same name in which Lucy’s relationship with the charming and dangerous Stephen devolves into a nightmare of secrets and manipulative recriminations. In Season 2, we saw Lucy try to break free of Stephen’s grip, with explosive results. Now, with the premiere of Season 3’s first three episodes, Deadline spoke to showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer, Van Patten and White about what went down so far, whether Stephen actually loves Lucy for real, a derailing twist for Diana (Alicia Crowder) and what aspects of the story are drawn from real life.

They start in a place of they’re trying to make it work with each other, but they’re both so damaged that all of their demons come out.

Jackson White

First off, having seen all the episodes (which I won’t spoil here) I congratulated Oppenheimer on the finale, which I can promise is a doozy. “It was a lot of pressure,” Oppenheimer said, “but I do love the finale. I was just cackling while we were filming that scene. It was a very, very funny day.”

Digging into these first three episodes specifically, Stephen’s twisted manipulations of Lucy reach new levels. In Episode 1, “You F*cked it, Friend”, he already knows she slept with Evan (Branden Cook), Bree (Cat Missal)’s boyfriend, because Evan told him. But he wants to test Lucy to see if she’ll be honest. So, one night when they’re high, he asks her if she has any secrets. “Have you ever been attracted to any of my friends?” he prompts evilly. Lucy doesn’t tell, but of course, we know Stephen will make her pay.  

Sure enough, by the time we reach Episode 3 “Repent”, he forces Lucy to record a confessional video in which she admits to lying about being sexually assaulted — something she did intending to protect Pippa (Sonia Mena) who was genuinely assaulted. And if she refuses to record it? Yep, he will tell Bree everything about her hookup with Evan. Stephen then squirrels away the confessional video for leverage. Are you still with me? This is some twisted television, so hold onto your hat.

How did Van Patten and White (who are in a real-life relationship) cope with shooting that deeply disturbing scene? White said, “There’s no process. It’s just trust. We have trust with each other and when we need to go to that place, you just kind of do it. And I think you just check in after, and you check in during, but I don’t know. How else can you do it? You can’t fake it. You have to go in there and you have to f–king go dark. I don’t even know how else to say it.”

I think, for me, playing Lucy this season, it was a lot more about punishing. Punishing herself, and her feeling like she needed the treatment from people that she felt she deserved.

Grace Van Patten

Van Patten added, “I look at it the same way as when you have to be really happy in a scene. It’s just another emotion that we have to portray as an actor. And yes, this is very intense and high stakes and totally makes you feel like when you’re done for the day, you totally feel drained. It’s a lot, but we’ve done it for three seasons, so the switch is quicker to turn on and off.”

As to how they shrug off the heaviness of scenes like this, Van Patten said, “It’s a deep, deep body scrub after we’re done. Shed the layer.”

“Yep, pumice stone. F–king get the dead skin off,” White said.

For Van Patten, Lucy’s downward spiral is particularly tragic this season. “She’s just losing it and losing hope and starting to really, I think, dislike herself without admitting it,” Van Patten said. “And I think, for me, playing Lucy this season, it was a lot more about punishing. Punishing herself, and her feeling like she needed the treatment from people that she felt she deserved, and starting to accept that, which was the sad part. She started to accept and desire bad treatment because she thinks that’s what she deserves, and that’s complicated and scary and heartbreaking.”

Interestingly, White said he believes Stephen truly loves Lucy, “in his way”. He explained, “People would disagree. But I don’t know what that is for him. He’s not like normal people. He’s not like you or me. Love can be really bad for him. Love is bad and it’s bloody and dangerous, but he has it. I know he has it.”

What would it take to end the toxic cycle for good?

“Someone’s got to go to jail,” White said.

“Restraining order, maybe?” added Van Patten. “I think it’s probably a matter of them not really being in each other’s lives, but then there’s no Tell Me Lies.”

Asked what Oppenheimer draws on when she’s weaving Stephen’s deeply-tangled web, it turns out truth is stranger than fiction. “Unfortunately, I would say I was drawing from a couple people that I’ve actually known in real life. I think knowing people that genuinely have narcissistic personality disorder and are sociopaths. I think there were a couple people that I was just really drawing from that I knew, and I’d seen how they operate, and I had seen the long-term consequences of people being close to those people. And so, I was drawing more from that than any book or film, but I was trying to make sure that it felt different than someone I’d seen on screen before. Not as just a regular guy because in a lot of ways, Stephen just is a regular college boy. He’s not some glamorous, schmoozy person. He’s just regular, very charming and obviously very attractive, but normal. And I think those are the people that are the most dangerous.”

The beginning of Season 3 also sets up Stephen’s increasing interest in disrupting Lucy’s friendship with Bree. Oppenheimer explained, “His obsession over Lucy’s relationship with Bree is so nonsensical. It doesn’t make any sense, but he gets fixated. He needs her to choose Bree over him. I think that those kinds of people, I’ve seen that specific thing happen where they really isolate you and they turn your friends against you. And anyone that might have a different opinion of them, those are the people they target. And so, his fixation on Bree felt very pulled from real life for me specifically.”

And yet another person gets a surprise this season: Diana. In Episode 3, extra spoiler alert here, there she is, staring at a positive pregnancy test. Hmmm, who could be the father? Fortunately, she also has the distraction and comfort of a burgeoning closeness with Pippa (Sonia Mena) who has confessed that she thinks about Diana “all the time”.

Another twisted character that gets to revel in the darkness even further this season is Bree’s professor, Oliver (Tom Ellis). If his tawdry affair with Bree in Season 2 wasn’t enough, he’s doubling down this time with innocent new girl Amanda (new Season 3 cast addition Iris Apatow).

In Episode 2 “We Can’t Help it if We Are a Problem” Evan finally confronts Oliver after finding out he was with Bree. “This is not OK. You were her f—king professor!” Evan yells. Oliver claims total innocence and even maneuvers Evan into keeping quiet by telling him, “It would be extremely disruptive to bring that kind of attention her way… and also, it’s really not attractive.” Evan is no dummy — “Go f—k yourself,” he says — but he knows he’s been backed into a corner.

Oppenheimer said she knew Oliver had to go even lower this season. “It was important with Tom’s character to really go a little bit darker and more f–ked up,” “because on the surface, Oliver, I always knew that he was such a bad guy, but it was funny, some people, even watching Season 2, forgave him for a lot of things because I think Tom is so charming and Tom is so… I’m biased (Ellis is Oppenheimer’s husband), but he’s so beautiful.”

I get a little bit brokenhearted by the way that good men can defend bad men. You see a lot of good guys who make so many excuses for their male friends.

Meaghan Oppenheimer

But post-Oliver it’s not all misery for Bree. She unexpectedly forms a close friendship with Wrigley (Spencer House). Wrigley is reeling from the overdose death of his brother Drew (Benjamin Wadsworth) in the Season 2 finale, while Bree is grappling with Oliver fallout and the reappearance of her past in the form of Alex (new cast member Costa D’Angelo) with whom she shared a foster group home as a kid.

This season we’re seeing Wrigley’s softer side compared to the hard-drinking jock he could be before. “It wasn’t hard to find the beauty in Wrigley,” Oppenheimer said. “It always lived there. And also, I would say Spencer is such an unbelievable performer. I don’t think I knew when I first started doing this show just what depth that character would have, but Spencer just brings it so naturally. He has such an ease with vulnerability, and he has so much emotional intelligence that it just shines through with Wrigley.”

Sharp-eyed viewers also might notice that Wrigley is keeping his distance from Stephen somewhat in these early Season 3 episodes. Having been flattened by grief and guilt over his brother’s death, it seems he has a clearer viewpoint of Stephen’s machinations. “I get a little bit brokenhearted by the way that good men can defend bad men, especially when they’re in relationships,” Oppenheimer said. “You see a lot of good guys who make so many excuses for their male friends. And I think that’s just the way that the world is set up, but it breaks my heart. And so, I wanted to fight against that with Wrigley because he’s been doing that for a long time. But I think now that he’s gone through such trauma, he’s able to empathize with other people more, and be brought out of that, and start to question his own forgiveness of Stephen and the way that he turns a blind eye to Stephen.”

Along with Oppenheimer as executive producer and showrunner, Emma Roberts, co-founder Karah Preiss and Matt Matruski executive produce under their Belletrist banner, and Laura Lewis executive produces for Rebelle Media. Shannon Gibson, Stephanie Noonan and Sam Schlaifer also serve as executive producers, and Tyne Rafaeli is executive producer & director.

New episodes of Tell Me Lies will drop weekly on Tuesdays at midnight ET (9 PM PT Monday nights) on Hulu and Disney+ until the finale on February 24.