It’s a regular old Slapsgiving this week on Tell Me Lies!
While most of the 2008 portion of the show takes place during an uncomfortable and physically violent Turkey day, we begin in 2015, where the gang is still playing mind games with each other at Bree and Evan’s wedding festivities. Rather than ignoring each other like mature adults, Stephen (Jackson White) and Lucy (Grace Van Patten) are still trying to psychologically destroy each other, and that’s only the start of it. We also get to see Pippa (Sonia Mena) introduce her new girlfriend to everyone (“Guys, meet Diana, the woman that I’ve been seeing,” she jokes when she walks into Bree and Evan’s rehearsal dinner with Stephen’s ex and Lucy’s nemesis on her arm). It’s a wonder this friend group hasn’t imploded from how toxic it is.
The episode begins with Bree (Cat Missal) speaking to someone on the phone in private, explaining cryptically to a mystery caller that she just wants a chance at happiness and she wants to feel like a good person again. She’s interrupted by Evan who insists she join the party. That’s where Pippa shocks everyone by bringing Diana (Alicia Crowder) with the big hair to the event, and where Stephen delivers a toast honoring Bree and Evan’s love by explaining that he himself has finally found his lobster after making a few “mistakes” – Lucy and Diana exchange knowing, annoyed looks – and he wishes them well.
After the dinner ends, Lucy, who is obviously feeling a lot of things in this situation, texts Stephen to meet her at the hotel pool. For a moment, we’re all like, is she going to confront him and put him in his place or what? But it turns out, she beats him to the pool and when he arrives, he gets to watch her having sex with her boyfriend Max while she makes eye contact with him. Just super normal, non-manipulative behavior over here!
We cut from Lucy having sex with Max in 2015 to Lucy having sex in 2008 with Leo (Thomas Doherty). It’s Thanksgiving weekend and the school is snowed in, so everyone is stuck on campus, some by choice, and some because they didn’t get out in time. Evan invites them all to his place for a Friendsgiving feast, and it’s an assemblage of all of our major cast members, plus the people they’re hooking up with: there’s Lucy, who only agrees to go when she confirms Stephen won’t be there, her boyfriend Leo, Pippa, who is still snuggling with Wrigley who is also there, Bree, Evan, and Evan’s current hookup partner Molly who arrives unexpectedly. And then, to everyone’s surprise, Stephen and Diana arrive unannounced after basically being disinvited from Diana’s home when her dad gets mad at her for failing the LSAT.
We all know how Stephen has manipulated and harassed Lucy, but Diana is finally seeing his true colors (I mean, he has truly been showing her who he is for years, but now she is finally beginning to believe him). He is relentlessly cruel to her, telling her she’s got “daddy issues” and saying she’s turning into her mother (an insult that Diana resents). Pippa, who has been shocked by Diana’s kindness after her assault, senses their tension and tries to extract Diana from it with mashed potatoes, as one does on Thanksgiving.
But Stephen and Diana’s relationship isn’t the only one fraught with tension. Lucy is annoyed that Pippa is bring friendly to Diana. Evan is trying to keep Bree and Molly apart. Stephen tries to sow drama with Lucy and Leo when he brings up Leo’s old girlfriend, Becca, and tries to hint to Lucy about some uncomfortable history with Leo and Becca that Leo clearly doesn’t want to get into. The entire house needs to be cleansed with sage, the energy inside it is so bad. Cleansed with sage or sanitized with alcohol, which is what Wrigley does when he tells everyone they’re going to play a drinking game called slapshot where someone takes a shot and the person who pours it for them gets to slap them. College!
For some people, this is all in good fun, but tensions rise when Stephen repeatedly pours shots for Leo and slaps him multiple times. Knowing that the two have some kind of unspoken friction and Leo has anger issues, it feels like this could blow up, but Leo composes himself, and when he pours Stephen a shot to retaliate, instead of slapping him, he pinches his cheek and calls him adorable.
This stings worse than a slap, you can tell that Stephen finds it emasculating, but the moment is overshadowed when, as Bree takes the next shot, Evan can’t bring himself to slap her, and instead he caresses her cheek. Molly doesn’t like this one bit, and she slaps Evan and it wasn’t even her turn. It was obvious that someone was going to turn slapshot into something personal, but I didn’t expect Molly to be that person. But the slapping doesn’t end there.
After Molly runs out of the house (and into the snow? Good luck, Molly!) Stephen starts in again on Leo and Becca’s relationship. It turns out, Becca cheated on Leo with Stephen, and that’s why the two men have bad blood. Stephen then tells Leo that Lucy’s no angel, and he tells him that she verbally assaulted his sister on Halloween. Lucy goes in on Stephen, telling him that he’s going to hurt and alienate everyone he knows, including, eventually, Diana, saying “You think this guy who has treated every other girl like shit is gonna treat you differently? and Diana then tells Lucy, “Some girls make it easy to treat them like shit.” Lucy loses it and slaps Diana, shocking everyone including Leo, who runs out.
It feels like a double standard that Leo is allowed to headbutt strangers and yet he flips out on Lucy for slapping Diana (even though violence is never the answer!), and she calls him on that. She even accuses him of hiding things from her and calling out his anger issues, forcing him to explain that his father abused him as a kid and fighting back was the only way he would be left alone. Leo accuses Lucy of fighting dirty, using people’s vulnerabilities against them (if anything, she learned that from Stephen), and he breaks up with her and leaves. Embarrassed, she leaves Evan’s, too.
Inside, Evan takes Bree aside to talk, and asks her if she’s seeing someone new, which she admits because apparently she truly doesn’t care about Oliver’s marriage or livelihood. She tells Evan she’s dating a 45-year-old and it’s serious. Evan asks, “A normal 45-year-old man does not want to date a 19-year-old,” adding that “he can probably tell that you’re looking for a father figure.” A father figure she sends sexy pictures to!
But seriously, methinks the armchair psychologist is a little on the nose here. But also seriously, now that Bree’s blabbing about her relationship with Oliver, how many more episodes till his life is well and truly blown up?
With only Wrigley, Pippa, Diana, Stephen and Evan left at Evan’s apartment, things are awkward and tense, but Diana and Pippa’s friendship just keeps blossoming. Pippa tries to convince Diana that Stephen is a jerk, but Diana defends his behavior toward her saying he’s just mad about things with her dad. Then she tells Pippa, “We can be friends because we like each other, not just because we worry about each other right?” They fall asleep texting one another as they lie on opposite couches, and it’s a tender moment reflecting maybe the only semi-functional relationship on the show.
The next day, Lucy sees Stephen on campus and he roadblocks her to talk. Through tears, she tells him, “You win. I didn’t want to be at war with you, Stephen. I loved you even though I knew exactly who you were, all the worst things about you. So why are you punishing me for that?” As she walks away distraught, Stephen is at a loss for words. If only that could last forever.
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.
