‘Tell Me Lies’ Season 2 Episode 4 Recap: Angry Sex and Panic Attacks

Everyone has some form of PTSD on Tell Me Lies, and it’s all bubbling up in Season 2 Episode 4 (“Just Stable Children”). For Stephen (Jackson White), who was in that car with Macy when she died, a close call when another car nearly swerves into the car he’s riding in with Evan and Wrigley triggers something in him. For a split second, you might even say it triggered him to have normal, human emotions. Don’t worry, that doesn’t last long.

Bree (Cat Missal) is forced to confront her own trauma and past thanks to the two professors whose marriage she’s threatening. It’s a tricky thing, screwing the married, hot Oliver, as Bree is finding out. It’s tricky, for one thing, because even after a night of passion and intimacy, he turns into her therapist, identifying the ways that she’s mistreated and disrespected by her friends (harsh, but where’s the lie?). Especially evidenced later when Pippa (Sonia Mena) mocks Bree for being a virgin. (Way harsh, Tai.) It’s also tricky because she’s starting to realize that her boyfriend’s wife is actually pretty cool. Bree is also thrown off when Oliver walks into her class one day and she doesn’t know how to act being in the room with both him and Marianne (Gabriella Pession). After Bree, a scholarship student, receives a B in Marianne’s class, she asks her what she did wrong and why it’s not an A. Marianne proves just as intuitive as Oliver and seems to take a shine to Bree, offering her a chance to improve her grade, but also lending an ear to understand Bree’s hard upbringing.

Bree explains that shes struggling to listen to the personal stories of her classmates, who are writing essays of their own grief and trauma that aren’t rooted in any real tragedy (cut to Lucy laughing at a classmate’s poem about a pet bird that flew away from last week’s episode). But as Bree talks, her eyes dart around the room to spy photos of Marianne and Oliver together, and she states, “I’m bothered by people who don’t know how good they have it,” a seemingly pointed dig at Marianne’s own marriage, perhaps.

There’s a lot of tense energy between the two, and it almost seems as though Marianne knows what’s going on between Bree and her husband, her poker face is so flat that you can’t tell if she’s sympathetic or about to call Bree out for the affair. But it turns out, she’s just THAT NICE, because she tells Bree not to be so judgey of others though, explaining, “You never really know someone else’s life, Bree… You shouldn’t let your misfortunes compromise your compassion.” Marianne is killing Bree with kindness, which only complicates the fact that Brie is f—ing her husband.

Sometimes I think Lucy is the only sane person on this show and she’s just reacting to all the shitty circumstances she finds herself in, and sometimes I think she’s the absolute worst in every way. This week, her behavior lumps her into the second category when, after weeks of dating Leo and abstaining from sex (PTSD from Stephen has made her wiser and patient), she finally tells him she’s ready. Leo grabs a condom, but before he can put it on, she tells him he doesn’t need it because she’s on the pill. I mean, cool, Lucy, but this guy just spent a year abroad in France, I’m certain he spent a weekend or two in Amsterdam and who knows where else, I feel like he’s doing the right thing let him voluntarily put the condom on. But Lucy assumes the worst, that his wearing a condom means he’s sleeping with other people and “keeping his options open,” which he says he isn’t, but she won’t let it go and Leo gets mad and gets out of bed. I mean, sure, Lucy has a lot of PTSD from Stephen which makes her sensitive to a lot of relationship red flags, but she’s also taking a page from Stephen’s playbook, because a moment later, she initiates sex again, implying to Leo that angry sex is still good sex. Leo is not cool with this. “Are you getting turned on by this?…I’m not turned on by drama,” he tells her, and she leaves.

Pippa’s almost become a different person since her sexual assault and that trauma has caused her to seek comfort with Wrigley, of all people. Last week, she called him out for never defending her when the rest of his football team picked on her, and he apologized for that, and this week, he has continued to soften his stance toward her. When Pippa’s dad – who doesn’t know that she broke up with Wrigley – visits campus and they run into him, Wrigley congenially plays the part as Pippa’s boyfriend, covering for her. She apologizes to him later for not being honest with her dad, but it seems that being referred to as “Pippa’s boyfriend” has made Wrigley want to reconnect with her. They hang out one night after he sends her a “u up?”-style text, and when she comes to his room for, what she tells him is NOT a booty call, he asks her if she was the one who wrote the letter last year pinning Macy’s death on his brother, Drew. Pippa denies that she wrote the letter (which we know Lucy wrote) and asks Wrigley if he can really trust that Stephen wasn’t somehow involved, to which Wrigley responds, “Stephen is my best friend,” a lie, because Stephen is a friend to no one. (This conversation also feels significant as yet another breadcrumb on the trail to Pippa and Diana’s relationship; Wrigley explains that it was Diana who told Wrigley that his football bros were being dicks to Pippa. Pippa has always assumed Diana’s worst intentions, telling her last week that she’s “brutal to other girls” but in this case, she’s not.) The two don’t hook up, but they do just hold one another in the way that shows that they really need one another in that moment.

Brie’s storyline this season has been empowering and unsettling, because she’s being turned on to the fact that she’s the one in the friend group that is repeatedly ignored. While it’s a turn-on that she’s receiving all this attention from Oliver, it’s also such a dangerous game, given that she’s a pawn in it. He tells her she holds all the power, and has the ability to ruin his life, but she’s also very much alone, unable to discuss this relationship with her friends or allow it to be really real. But she decides, after meeting with Gabrielle, to confide in Lucy who is shocked, probably because Bree is the last person that she’d expect this kind of behavior from.

“I’m not judging you,” Lucy tells Bree, which is all Lucy can say, since she’s the one who slept with Bree’s boyfriend over the summer. “He is hot,” she adds, to which Bree hilariously responds, “He is. Thank you, he really is.”

Stephen has spent most of the episode studying with Diana for the LSAT, and after the test concludes, Stephen walks out of the testing room and immediately has a panic attack. For whatever reason, he receives a full chest X-ray at the hospital, which shows signs of a rib injury, which the doctor says – while Diana is in the room – looks like it could be from something like a car accident. Hypothetically speaking, it aligns with his rib hitting the steering wheel. The doctor may as well have said, “A steering wheel from a car carrying a female passenger who died during the first semester of her freshman year, is this ringing any bells?” Diana’s eyes dart to Stephen who’s like, “Nope, no bells,” but she’s starting to realize that no matter how often she asks him, “I’m the one who knows you best, right?” maybe she doesn’t really know this sociopath at all.

When they get home from the hospital, Stephen hits. the shower, so Diana takes that opportunity to snoop on his computer. There, she finds pictures of Macy in her underwear. Sounds like Lucy was not making up the story of Stephen being with Macy when she died, who’s the crazy one now, Diana!? But just when you think Diana will zig, she zags: instead of confronting Stephen, she deletes the photos from the computer, seemingly to erase any evidence of a connection between him and Macy.

Later, Lucy goes back to Leo’s room to apologize for being crazy and irrational, and they have sex. Bree waits for Oliver at the apartment where he’s housesitting and asks him to apologize for coming into her classroom and making her uncomfortable. Oliver’s sort of surprised by Bree’s complain and her assertiveness, repeating that he’s the one with everything to lose in this relationship. And yet, he lets it happen, despite knowing that it’s likely going to be the cause of some future PTSD for the both of them.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.