‘Tell Me Lies’ Meaghan Oppenheimer On Why Season 3 Is The End

None of us knew for sure what was definitely going to happen, but we all went into it knowing that this could likely be the end.

Meaghan Oppenheimer to Deadline

In the show, Lucy and Stephen are an on-off couple whose relationship devolves into a series of dark secrets and manipulations. Their friends, Bree (Cat Missal), Pippa (Sonia Mena), Diana (Alicia Crowder), Wrigley (Spencer House) and Evan (Branden Cook) find themselves caught in the crossfire, while dealing with their own chaotic and often messy relationships.

Of the show ending this way, Van Patten told Deadline, “It was bittersweet. I think it’s so beautiful and rare that we got to do this for three seasons. We got really lucky that everybody loved the show and we were able to keep going, and it was so great. We were able to have a beginning, middle and end.”

Read Oppenheimer’s conversation below and check back here tomorrow morning for our finale post-mortem, in which Oppenheimer and cast will reveal what happens to the characters years into the future.

DEADLINE: I was shocked when I heard the news that Tell Me Lies is over. Were you always thinking about this being the last season?

MEAGHAN OPPENHEIMER: Yeah. Yeah, I was. I think three seasons is the perfect amount.

DEADLINE: It has to be tempting to continue somehow, with the show’s huge following?

OPPENHEIMER: Obviously we love making the show, and I love our audience, but I had had so many conversations with our writers, and when you actually look at what could happen next, Lucy’s not in school anymore. Most of the cast are graduating college in the future. They’re all living in different places. They’re not in the same industry. There’s not a lot connecting them, so, while I think it’s such a privilege to know when a show is ending and be able to write an ending and quit while you’re ahead, it’s hard. For me, it was just about do I think there’s another season in here that’s going to be as good, that’s not going to feel like a completely different show? And I felt like it would have to be completely re-imagined. The framing device is over. So yeah, while it’s difficult, I think the worst case scenario would be turning in something I didn’t believe in. And also just knowing how much the cast loved this ending, and they were the people who’d been embodying these characters for so long. That gave me a lot of peace about it.

DEADLINE: Had you told your cast fairly early on about your plans for this trajectory? The three seasons?

OPPENHEIMER: I had talked to them. I mean, I talked to them before this season [and told them] that I had written it with a certain amount of finality in mind. None of us knew for sure what was definitely going to happen, but we all went into it knowing that this could likely be the end. And I think there’d always been sort of an understanding that the wedding, that the buildup to the wedding was going to be some sort of resolution.

Lucy is never deliberately cruel. She’s always does things that end up being cruel and end up hurting people, but they’re always coming from a place of an intention that’s very different than that.

Meaghan Oppenheimer

DEADLINE: You and I have talked about this being an emotional abuse story. We’ve talked about this a lot in the past about our own experiences with narcissism, those personality disorders. And it’s funny, this show is fascinating, the reactions people have to it, because there is this contingent of people — and you posted about this on Instagram — that think Lucy and Stephen are kind of the same. And I wonder if maybe they’ve never met a real narcissist, so they don’t see Stephen the way I do. What do you think ?

OPPENHEIMER: The problem is that the word ‘narcissist’ is so overused, and just because your boyfriend cheated on you, it doesn’t mean he’s a narcissist. That doesn’t mean that it is a real, dangerous personality disorder. I don’t think, unless you’ve been with one or had to deal with one, then you understand how two plus two no longer equals four. Your reality gets warped, your sense of yourself gets warped, and you’re just constantly trying to cling on to anything, and you’re in such a state of fragmented flight or fight that your decisions don’t make sense. And Lucy’s in that cycle. But it’s funny, because Lucy is never deliberately cruel. She always does things that end up being cruel and end up hurting people, but they’re always coming from a place of an intention that’s very different than that. And Stephen is just cruel.

DEADLINE: I agree. It’s all about going back to the intention. Stephen’s never done a kindness or a well-intentioned thing in his life.

OPPENHEIMER: He’s had a few moments for his sister.

I’m developing a new thing, and it’s definitely about dark, twisted relationships, but it’s a little bit more revolving around adult siblings and their lives and their kind of interconnectedness.

Meaghan Oppenheimer

DEADLINE: Yeah. She’s the only person. I remember in Season 1 we talked about how you hope that this will liberate some people because they’ll recognize their own situation. So, I think it’s been pretty instructive for a lot of people.

OPPENHEIMER: I hope so. I mean, that was why it was really important to me to have Lucy face some really serious consequences, because I think, not even just when you’re dealing with narcissists, but young women specifically, I think waste so much time on relationships that do not serve them. This maybe is me being generalized. I don’t know. I just don’t see it as much in young men. I don’t see boys in college, just in general, throwing away opportunities because some girl won’t call them back. It really does feel uneven, and I think that you can really make some permanent damage to your happiness if you give the wrong people too much energy. And so it was important to me that Lucy face consequences that actually really catch up to her and really change things.

DEADLINE: I don’t want to reveal finale spoilers yet, but yes we see what it costs her.

OPPENHEIMER: I always knew that she was going to have [consequences], because we referenced in the very first episode, [people telling her] “You’re doing a lot better now.” You see that she’s taking pills.

DEADLINE: Let’s talk about what you’re doing next. I know you were working on a show called Second Wife starring your husband Tom Ellis, who played Oliver in Tell Me Lies. In Second Wife he plays a divorced dad named Jacob, and Tell Me Lies executive producer Emma Roberts is Sasha, a young women who flees her life in New York post-breakup to start over in London and falls in love with him.

OPPENHEIMER: Oh, it’s not Second Wife. Unfortunately, that’s not happening next. I don’t think I’m able to talk too specifically about it, but I have something that I’m working on. I have my overall deal with 20^th Television, so I’m developing a new thing with them, and it’s definitely about dark, twisted relationships, but it’s a little bit more revolving around adult siblings and their lives and their kind of interconnectedness. I really want to do a family drama that feels as edgy and twisted and addictive as Tell Me Lies. I have a lot of experience with dysfunctional families. So yeah, that’s the world.

I always say I’m a perverse Nora Ephron. That would be my dream. Nora Ephron for depressed perverts.

Meaghan Oppenheimer

DEADLINE: Is it based on a book like Tell Me Lies? This next project?

OPPENHEIMER: No. And for Second wife, it didn’t end up getting green-lit for the season at Hulu, which was unfortunate, but I think actually it ended up probably being a blessing in disguise. But in the future, that might still happen. It also could be redeveloped as a feature, that’s something that we’ve been talking about a lot. I love it. We have a script. We have a format. I really love it. It was very, very disappointing that it didn’t end up going forward. I think it was a bit darker than what people wanted in a romcom at the moment, but I think that everything changes every season. But yeah, I love that project very much.

DEADLINE: Obviously you’ve done plenty of other work, but Tell Me Lies is such a phenomenon with the fans, that do you have a sense of wanting to make sure you don’t get cornered in just the twisty drama space? You want to make a romcom or a dark comedy?

OPPENHEIMER: Yes. And when I say twisty drama, I mean that anything that comes from my brain will inevitably be a little bit f–ked up because that’s just the way that my brain works. I mean, I don’t think Tell Me Lies is that f–ked up, but other people do! My barometer for what causes me anxiety, I think, is probably different than other people. But I am not interested in moralizing, I guess I would say. I’m not interested in television that is trying to teach a specific lesson. I’m just trying to tell stories that reflect things that I’ve seen and that make me feel something. But definitely, I don’t want to get pigeonholed into just doing things that feel like psychological thrillers or YA. Not that I’m not open to both of those as well, but I think that when I’m writing in my purest state, it lives somewhere more in the dark, funny, dramedy world, if that makes sense. I always say I’m a perverse Nora Ephron. That would be my dream. Nora Ephron for depressed perverts. That would be my world.

DEADLINE: Sign me up.

OPPENHEIMER: I’m not comparing myself to her. I’m just saying, if I could do anything…

The Season 3 finale of Tell Me Lies will drop on Tuesday at 12AM ET (9 PM PT Monday night) on Hulu and Disney+.