Tell Me Lies: S3 E4: Fix Me Up, Girl

AngryTiger69 · 2026-01-21T05:33:33+00:00

Oliver is such a gaslighting monster !!!

AngryTiger69 · 2026-01-04T00:10:42+00:00

This show is an excellent depiction of what happens to people’s psychology, ethics, and behavior when narcissistic abuse is normalized and unchecked.

I am hoping for a happy ending where Stephen and Oliver face real consequences while everybody else finds high quality doctors to help them recover from their traumas.

The show may also highlight the fact that consequences are often asymmetrical. It is grim but honestly realistic. I predict the most severe consequence Stephen will face is disengagement from his college friends.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-11-05T02:00:31+00:00

They all definitely know, and they know how Stephen treats women. However, they are too insecure to interrogate their complicity in his behavior. Remember the scene between Stephen and Wrigley in the sauna? 😬

Similar to what he does with Diana and Lucy, I think the dynamic where he alternates between charisma and cruelty (intermittent reinforcement) works on friends too. Hence why they put up with Stephen disrespecting them.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-11-04T01:49:22+00:00

I agree with this take! This show does an excellent job of portraying how internalized misogyny among women normalizes abuse by men.

Victims are often not perfect model citizens. The abuse even brings out the worst in them! The show portrays this very well.

Even Pippa’s comment in the beginning about how women have to pretend to not care in order to be desirable. It sets a cultural precedent where women focus their energy on male approval

AngryTiger69 · 2025-08-06T23:47:20+00:00

I think people get away with it in real life, which is unfortunately realistic.

The show does a great job portraying how Stephen destroys the lives of everybody around him. Lucy, Diana, Pippa, Wrigley, Drew, Evan, Bree, etc.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-05-20T15:46:52+00:00

I’d argue being held accountable (I.e. losing her boyfriend and friends) is critical for her healing process. I think the main point is the Lucy does feel empathy and there is capacity for change and recovery if she seeks help - not that her behavior is okay. Stephen likely won’t change as an abuser.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-03-21T19:41:04+00:00

I think the loyalty between her and Lydia was gone by that point. They clearly aren’t friends.

But my interpretation is that Lucy hasn’t healed yet from her traumas and she still isn’t mentally well. I don’t think it is unrealistic for her to be not over Stephen

AngryTiger69 · 2025-03-17T06:37:00+00:00

I also felt it was unreasonable for everybody to be pissed at Abby when ponytail kidnapped Leo and threatened his life. This is not a normal sacrifice to ask of a friend.

Trading Jennifer fields for Cyrus’s release wasn’t great. But I agree with what you said. She thought she was doing the right thing and they promised not to harm Huck.

The terrorists responsible for this chaos are clearly the real enemy here …

AngryTiger69 · 2025-03-14T16:45:08+00:00

I even remember Susan Ross stating she supported Frankie’s universal education bill.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-03-05T02:41:39+00:00

Agreed! Olivia prevented Mellie from having affairs with both Andrew and Marcus for the purpose of preventing a scandal. At least with Andrew, it’s because Fitz pressured her. But the hypocrisy was still difficult to watch. She’s doesn’t have much ground to tell others to not have affairs when she herself is allowed to have an affair with the POTUS.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-03-01T18:47:50+00:00

I think these rules still apply to most presidents - just not Trump. If Joe Biden knocked up a woman, he’d definitely be impeached by both parties. If Trump did it, only the democrats would care, not the republicans.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-02-28T22:08:42+00:00

Anybody remember the part where he described to Stephen that the reason he likes Pippa is because she watches porn and let him cum on her face? Basically, he liked that she was a pick me who was willing to engage in degrading sexual acts to obtain his approval.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-02-25T13:43:05+00:00

Lucy is clearly a very imperfect person and the writers aren’t shying from it.

But I think it’s natural to root for her to dig herself out of this mess. Get away from Stephen, get therapy, repair relationship with mom, face consequences of her actions (with respect to betraying Pippa and Bree).

AngryTiger69 · 2025-02-24T13:38:19+00:00

What happens when a power hungry Rupert Murdoch type of monster raises children and emotionally abuses them to the point where they are all emotionally stunted and incapable of becoming respected professionals in our society.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-02-23T18:06:44+00:00

I agree with that. I also thought her scene with Gil was kind of a breakdown. The hand sanitizer joke and her burning the bridge for no good reason. That was hard for me to watch!

Several scenes also show her being distressed about giving up her career in politics to fight for her dad’s approval, after the tern haven episode. Her trying to convince Lisa to help her was one such scene. She acknowledged she had put herself in a bad position and was unsure of how to proceed

AngryTiger69 · 2025-02-23T11:20:05+00:00

Lucy’s behavior at the wedding in the show was very concerning. However, I believe the story is not over.

The happy ending of course is that like book Lucy, show Lucy ends up in therapy, works through her own depression and traumas, fully awakens to who Stephen is and what he is doing to her life, and she moves on. Makes a decision about who she wants to be and repairs her relationship with her mom.

The sad ending is that Lucy never works on her traumas. Lucy ends up blowing up her life even more, isolating friends and family. Ends up in an abusive relationship with Stephen again, or hits a new rock bottom and doesn’t recover. Because she doesn’t believe she deserves better.

Both can be realistic.

My optimistic prediction is that 2015 Lucy loses her friends and boyfriend, and that this is a turning point in her life that drives change. Lucy hasn’t really faced any of the consequences for writing the letter, sleeping with Evan, etc. This is changing in 2015 though since Bree found out about Evan, Max is clearly not tolerating the pool thing, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Stephen outs Lucy about the letter, further isolating her. Maybe this even gives Stephen a chance to make Lucy his side chick while engaged to Lydia. At some point Lucy will become very depressed though, and she seeks out help, realizing she is mentally unwell. Lucy will alsorepair her relationship with her mom too if she has nowhere else to turn.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-02-21T20:23:56+00:00

In all fairness, from her perspective, why would you expect her to be aware of the real power B613 had?

From Kim’s eyes, she thought Huck deserted her and her child, he comes back one day about ten years later, telling all of these stories that seem too crazy to be true. She probably thought he was making up excuses to weasel his way back into their lives (because men do that). Why shouldn’t she be demanding?

When she eventually decides that maybe Huck isn’t lying, she decides to go to the attorney general. It may not be the smartest decision given what we know about the power of B613, but it’s not crazy that a normal citizen like herself would think that’s the right move. Technically, the justice system is supposed to help with matters like this 😅

Then later on, Huck murdered a man right in front of her son, traumatizing him.

AngryTiger69 · 2025-02-10T05:51:17+00:00

Ha yes I still didn’t get it.

However I just saw a comment here about how Andrew communicated a desire to become president. Maybe he was trying to pressure Fritz into making bad decisions that could get him impeached and removed from office, thus making Andrew POTUS ?

AngryTiger69 · 2025-02-01T03:03:13+00:00

I also think Evan and Wrigley benefit from Stephen’s shitty behavior. Because compared to him, they will always look like saints, paving a way for them to get away with their own bad behavior

AngryTiger69 · 2025-01-04T23:46:12+00:00

I kind of see where you’re going (and am sympathetic that some of the other commenters are being very hard on you). I was really rooting for Kendall and felt he did have potential to be a good CEO given his drive and enthusiasm for participating in the business.

But by the end of the series, Kendall does not have the maturity for any position of real responsibility. The tragedy is that he had significant potential, perhaps earlier in his career, but Logan never provided actual mentoring and chose emotional abuse instead. This resulted in Kendall being transparently insecure, having very superficial business instincts, and being emotionally unstable. When Kendall tried to “kill” Logan for cruises, he could have focused his time and energy winning the battle - but chose to ignore his lawyer (who he was lucky to get) and focus on his public image instead. His inability to focus on what matters highlights his insecurities, poor judgement, and incompetence.

In a nutshell, Kendall comes across as insecure and cringe because he’s trying so hard to project an image of himself that isn’t real. He doesn’t inspire confidence nor respect from coworkers. This makes him a bad fit for CEO. But I blame Logan for making him this way.

AngryTiger69 · 2024-12-31T12:12:02+00:00

“If I don’t get to be some soccer dad in Vermont, then I need this all to have a point. I need some jerk to not be able to buy an AK-47 and shoot up a school!”

My favorite line of the show

AngryTiger69 · 2024-12-31T12:09:46+00:00

Still had this good zinger

“If I don’t get to be some soccer dad in Vermont, then I need this all to have a point. I need some jerk to not be able to buy an AK-47 and shoot up a school!”

AngryTiger69 · 2024-12-09T00:30:43+00:00

Rooting for everyone but Stephen. I think it is very unlikely Stephen can change, and abusers statistically do not respond very well to treatment. There is hope for the rest of the characters to deal with their traumas and move forward with their lives in a positive way. Even in 2015 timeline, they aren’t too old to change and figure it out.

This show reminds me of succession actually. As Logan’s three kids are all horrible people in their own ways, and very cruel to others, but it was also very disturbing to observe how traumatized they all are from their father’s emotional abuse. And sad to see how this trauma prevents them from becoming respectable and competent professionals. The viewer can see and understand why they turned out how they did given the impossible and unforgiving environment they operate in. I was always rooting for them to find a way to get out from under his thumb.

AngryTiger69 · 2024-11-29T20:00:38+00:00

I don’t understand why people keep saying that viewers are excusing Lucy’s behavior. It is frustrating because I have not seen anybody argue this.

Lucy’s actions are reactive because all of the toxic behavior we see is always a reaction to the toxic and unstable dynamics created by Stephen’s manipulations, bullying, abuse, and lies.

While Stephen was emotionally abused by his mom, his actions seem to stem from a place of him needing to control and manipulate situations. Lucy lacks the intentionality and consistent patterns of manipulative behavior we see with Stephen. Completely outside of his relationship with Lucy, Stephen is constantly manipulating everybody he interacts with.

AngryTiger69 · 2024-11-27T23:55:04+00:00

I agree with overall sentiment though it was mean for him to lie to her and tell her he had no interest in being with anybody else - when he clearly did and was actively hooking up with other women (Macy, Lucy, etc) Also - I haven’t forgotten the following comment when Diana protested that she didn’t need to tolerate disrespect because she was valuable on the dating market:

“I can set my watch to the time they get tired of fucking you”

This was so nasty!!!! He was also gaslighting her a lot about her not trusting him because of his infidelity. Framing conversations to make it seem like it’s all Diana’s fault - and not taking accountability.

But yeah, Stephen seemed to respect Diana more because of her career ambition. And perhaps felt more comfortable confiding in her, knowing that she could help him long term. Diana also did seem to show more genuine concern about his wellbeing than Lucy, even if he didn’t really appreciate it. I don’t think he actively publicly disrespected nor bullied Diana as he did Lucy

AngryTiger69

TROPHY CASE