What to Watch: 'Tell Me Lies' Season 3 Brings the Same Bad Decisions Back to Campus
- The Real Perspectives
- Jan 6
- 3 min read
Reel Perspectives
January 6, 2026
Spring semester brings rekindled romances, loud consequences, and a campus where therapy is apparently optional.
💔🎓 Tell Me Lies Is Back to Ruin Our Peace (Again)
If you’ve ever watched a relationship implode in slow motion and thought, “I hate this, but I can’t look away,” congratulations — Tell Me Lies was made just for you.
And with its Season 3 premiere next Tuesday, Hulu’s messiest campus drama returns just in time to remind us that toxic relationships don’t disappear after winter break — they just come back louder, meaner, and in a major need ot therapy.
Season 3 picks up with Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) doing what they do best: rekindling a romance they swear will be “different this time.”
Dear Reader, I promise you... It won’t be. Trust.
⏪ A Quick (But Painful) Refresher: Seasons 1 & 2
Season 1: The Lie That Started It All
Told through dual timelines — college years in 2008 and adulthood in 2015 — Season 1 introduces Lucy as a freshman desperate to feel chosen, and Stephen as a walking red flag with a charming smile and zero accountability.
What starts as an intense campus romance spirals quickly into manipulation, gaslighting, and secrets that infect the entire friend group. Stephen’s emotional cruelty. Lucy’s moral compromises. A death shrouded in silence. By the finale, the message is crystal clear: no one escapes this relationship untouched.
Season 2: Consequences Catch Up
Season 2 opens right after Lucy and Stephen’s brutal summer breakup and immediately proves that time apart does not equal healing. As both try (and fail) to move on — Lucy with Leo, Stephen with… Stephen — the fallout spreads.
Bree’s relationship with Professor Oliver crosses every ethical boundary imaginable. Diana’s storyline deepens around loyalty and survival. Pippa and Wrigley circle each other like unresolved trauma with a Spotify playlist.
And then there’s that finale — a devastating cliffhanger at Bree and Evan’s wedding in the 2015 timeline that recontextualizes everything. Joy, grief, betrayal — all colliding in one unforgettable gut punch.
🔥 Season 3: Same Campus, New Scandals
Season 3 wastes no time dragging us back into the chaos. Lucy and Stephen reunite just in time for the spring semester at Baird College, promising honesty, growth, and emotional maturity — words that have never survived more than five minutes in Stephen DeMarco’s presence.
The trailer opens with Lucy recording a forced apology tape: “I need to apologize… to everyone.”
And just like that, the vibes are off.
This season introduces a major new wrinkle: Lucy becomes entangled in a controversy she wants absolutely no part of — one that threatens her reputation and exposes just how fragile her support system really is. Meanwhile, Stephen’s past refuses to stay buried, dragging everyone else down with him.
Friendships fracture. Secrets metastasize. And the consequences from last year finally come knocking — loudly.
🧨 The Friend Group Fallout
Season 3 isn’t just about Lucy and Stephen’s toxic spiral. It forces the entire friend group to confront the damage they’ve been pretending isn’t there:
Bree (Cat Missal) struggles to move forward after Oliver, grappling with shame, grief, and a sense of lost innocence.
Evan (Branden Cook) finally challenges Stephen in ways we haven’t seen before — and the tension is combustible.
Pippa (Sonia Mena) and Wrigley (Spencer House) attempt reconciliation, proving some bonds are harder to untangle than others.
And then there’s Alex, a new character played by Costa D’Angelo, who boldly claims, “College is the most unserious part of your life.”
Oh, sweet, sweet summer child.
🎬 The Creative Team Behind the Chaos
Season 3 continues under the steady (and slightly diabolical) guidance of creator and showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer, with executive producers Emma Roberts, Karah Preiss, and Matt Matruski under Belletrist, alongside Laura Lewis for Rebelle Media.
The series remains adapted from Tell Me Lies, with Lovering returning as a consulting producer, which explains why the emotional wreckage still feels disturbingly authentic.
🎭 Why Tell Me Lies Still Has Us Hooked
What Tell Me Lies does better than most shows is refuse to glamorize toxicity — even as it makes it impossible to stop watching. Season 3 sharpens that blade, shifting from youthful recklessness to accountability, and asking what happens when lies outlive the people who told them.
At this point, these kids don’t need closure — they need therapy, Black Jesus, and sobriety in that exact order.
If you’re not caught up yet, consider this your final warning. And if you are? Buckle up. The spring semester is about to get ugly.
Watch the trailer here:
Comments