‘Tell Me Rise’ Recap, Episodes 1-3: Stephen’s Darkest Moves

Tell Me Rise

You did it, friend / We can’t help it if there’s a problem / Repent

Season 3 Episodes 1-3

Editor’s rating 4 stars ****

Stephen blackmails Lucy and remains the undisputed villain of the series, but why does he get to give the toast at the rehearsal dinner? Photo: Ian Watson/Disney

This recap covers episodes 1-3: “You F*cked It, Friend,” “We Can’t Help It If We Are a Problem,” and “Repentance.”

hello everyone! Welcome to a new weekly recap of Tell Me Rise. This is a show about horrible people doing horrible things to each other and somehow ending up in 2015 with all of them in the same bridal party. How this group of college friends developed their apparently off-kilter relationship is the central mystery of Tell Me Rise, which centers on Lucy and Stephen’s toxic relationship. It started in 2007 when the two met at Baird College, merged their friend groups and had too good sex, and it took Lucy a full year to realize that Stephen’s manipulation was destroying everyone’s lives.

Some people think it’s hard to enjoy a show without at least one likable character, but I disagree. I like shows where everyone behaves badly all the time, and you can freely pick and choose who to root for without caring too much about who cheated first or who did what to cover up that their boyfriend killed the girl during Welcome Week. But if you’re keeping score, at the top of season 3, Pippa isn’t the meanest, but Stephen is still himself.

To summarize, Wrigley accidentally kills his brother with painkillers. Bree has just gotten out of a complicated relationship with an ethically non-monogamous professor. An evil mastermind orchestrated Diana’s breakup with Stephen. Lucy lied about being sexually assaulted by Chris to protect Pippa. And Evan makes the devastatingly stupid decision to confess to Stephen that he slept with Lucy. None of it had been resolved at the time of Evan and Bree’s wedding in 2015.

I wonder how Stephen managed to get an invitation to this wedding when he hasn’t done anything even remotely redeemable yet. Even his brothers were disgusted by his 2009 shenanigans, so why was he allowed to make a toast at the 2015 rehearsal dinner? They should arrest him. Just before Bree walks down the aisle, Stephen sends her a secret recording of Evan’s confession from seven years ago, so we learn that Stephen hasn’t really changed one bit. But instead of calling off the wedding and telling Lucy that she’s dead, Bree tells Lucy that she – like Bree – is a horrible person. For this group, this can only mean one of two things. Either Bree committed manslaughter or had an affair with one of her friends.

But that’s a 2015 problem. In January 2009, Brie wore her hair in a bob with bangs after their breakup, clearly indicating that she’s not in a healthy place when it comes to her sleazy ex-professor. It’s hard to argue that you have a new lease on life when you’re abusing the sanctity of the women’s bathroom to befriend Professor Oliver’s latest conquest, but Bree is doing just that. The latest, a timid 18-year-old with an eating disorder, makes Bree wonder if she too was so vulnerable when her relationship with Oliver began. Perhaps that’s why he chose her in the first place. In the end, Bree berates the girl with a technically correct but hypocritical speech about how sleeping with a middle-aged married man is disgusting and embarrassing and shouldn’t be talked about.

Still, it’s hard to stay angry at Bree. Bree is the kind of friend who saves Lucy when her toxic boyfriend leaves her alone to sing an embarrassing duet at karaoke. And as Lucy runs to her next emotionally abusive session with Stephen, she’s the only one to ask, “Is it worth it?”

Bree is the only one who intuitively knows how to give Wrigley the emotional support he needs without suffocating him. In the wake of his brother’s death, Wrigley not only got a haircut, but his personality improved a bit, and he suffered from severe depression. He now makes dark jokes about his suicidal thoughts, but Pippa is determined to stop him from taking that action. At the first party of the semester, there is no specific theme of “10 Years”, but the gang tries to lighten the atmosphere by purchasing MDMA from Bree’s former foster brother, Alex. However, Wrigley is so depressed that he is immune to it. It’s only when he and Bree, dressed in fur-trimmed suede and rainbow sequins, are sitting at the bus stop on the way back to their dorm that he begins to open up. Bree is so sweet and understanding that she probably starts to feel a little something. Then they fall asleep at the bus stop. It’s all very skin-coded.

By the way, Wrigley and Pippa are back together for good, but this is just a problem since Pippa and Diana ultimately acted on their mutual attraction. Like all great romances in Tell Me Lies, it begins with Pippa falling head over heels in love with Diana. Diana then suggests, “Maybe we should kiss.” And they do! If this show weren’t a case study in moral relativism, we’d be a little appalled by Pippa’s betrayal of her grieving boyfriend. But this romance is so discordant and healthy that I can’t really blame her. Someone here has to be a little happy.

Despite all the challenges, Evan’s symptoms were relatively mild. He finds out that his economics professor is an older married man who has been sleeping with Bree, his one true love, and it’s disappointing. He also lives under Steven’s constant threats to tell Bree about Lucy, but that’s a bit of a life with Steven. At least he has wealthy parents who can pay Stephen back for his sister’s boarding school tuition. After all, it’s only $28,000 a year.

Like Evan, Lucy also feels the need to protect Bree at all costs, but she can’t afford boarding school tuition. All she has to repay Stephen is her dignity.

Clearly, Stephen isn’t content to just sulk about the fact that Evan and Lucy once had sex. First, he takes advantage of Lucy’s infatuation with Molly and tries to extort a confession from her. Do you find any of my friends attractive? Come on, tell me the truth. She replies “No”. She loves only Steven, but this is a failed test and psychological punishment follows. After a panic attack (“Isn’t there something wrong with my tongue?!”), Lucy has to confront Stephen about why he keeps treating her so badly. God, I’m so depressed, but let’s go.

Stephen’s argument is that he gave Lucy every chance to tell the truth about Evan, but she didn’t, and he simply can’t get over that betrayal. Lucy’s argument is that Stephen would not react normally to such a confession because he is a monster. He says he will forgive her on the condition that she tells Bree that she had sex with Evan. After regaining consciousness for a moment, she refused. “It’s not forgiveness, it’s punishment,” she says. Plus, none of that would have happened if Stephen hadn’t left her at the party in Hawaii. “You left me in a coconut bra! A coconut bra!” she cried. This is a great point. Telling Bree at this point would not only hurt Lucy, it would hurt Bree, and Lucy can’t do that. Does that mean she chose Bree over Steven? Yes, actually. If Steven is going to make Lucy choose one, she chooses Bree. They part again. Let’s hear about the power of female friendship! At least temporarily.

Everyone is relieved that Lucy and Stephen have broken up, but Lucy is naive and thinks everything will be fine if she hooks up with Bree’s drug dealer and graduate student adoptive brother at an après-ski party. it’s not. First, Lucy can’t even get off anymore without being actively degraded. And have we forgotten that Stephen never lied, unless it was to the girl he killed while driving drunk? He continues to make creepy phone calls to Bree and manages to lure Lucy back to the dorm. Lucy demands to know what he’s doing. He says he’s going to tell Bree that she had sex with Evan. Lucy insists that Bree could never survive such a devastation, so there must be something Stephen can do that can hurt and humiliate her without causing collateral damage to Bree.

Does Lucy honestly think Bree won’t survive everything she’s been through in her life, including the horrific events in foster care, and her ex-boyfriend cheating on her with her best friend? Maybe it’s just a poor decision on Lucy’s part. Perhaps it’s real masochism. It’s almost certainly a trauma response, and probably all of the above. Whatever the reason, Lucy suddenly begins feverishly brainstorming ways to help Stephen destroy her life. They decide that Lucy should confess on videotape that Lydia’s brother Chris raped her. Stephen wrote and directed the video, in which Lucy says she lied about the assault to get attention. Then, put the disc away for future use. It only gets darker from here, folks.

• Princess Diana is pregnant and desperately wants something done quickly.

• At one point, we leave Stephen harassing Lucy’s ex-boyfriend Max at a bar, but there’s still no word on how the interaction ended. Thanks to flash-forwards, all we know for sure is that he’s not dead.

• Wrigley and Bree have been getting very close lately and I don’t know how to feel about it.