Note: This story contains spoilers from “Tell Me Lies” Season 2 finale.
While the “Tell Me Lies” Season 2 finale wrecked havoc for nearly all of its main cast, Alicia Crowder’s Diana somehow managed to end up on top.
“She got really lucky,” Crowder told TheWrap of Diana’s clever escape from Stephen. “She’s very smart and she knows when to call it quits,” she said, contrasting Diana’s end to her relationship with Stephen (Jackson White) to Lucy (Grace Van Patten), who Crowder notes is “engrossed in this terrible person” for the “long haul.”
After Stephen watches Diana’s value to him slowly fade this season as she bombs the LSAT, alienates her father and gets cut off financially from her family, Stephen breaks up with Diana in the Season 2 finale and jumps right back to Lucy. By the end of the finale, however, Diana’s ending gets turned on its head as she lovingly greets her father after the breakup, telling him she had to make their split Stephen’s idea. As it turns out, Diana is on track to get into Yale Law School, and has a new lease on life without Stephen to drag her down.
“Diana has got a really good head on her shoulders, and she has her priorities straight,” Crowder said. “She loved him, but she understands that he’s a bad person, and her life and safety and her quality of life is more important than staying with someone you love just because you love them.”
Below, Crowder unpacks Diana’s plot to get away from Stephen and the start of Diana and Pippa’s romance, and shares her Season 3 hopes for Diana.
TheWrap: You have had quite a storyline this season, what did you first think of it, especially the relationship between Diana and Pippa when Meaghan told you?
At first, it was a total jaw-drop shock. I reacted to the news, I think the same way that the audience did when watching it, which is fun to think of that parallel. I was really taken off-guard — I did not expect it or see it coming in any kind of way. It ended up making so much sense and being a really beautiful, very wholesome relationship, which is a nice layer and it makes it more interesting, not being like the typical toxic “Tell Me Lies” relationship, even though obviously Diana and Pippa do have their issues in college and in present-day. They’re really nice together, and I think people are rooting for them.
The finale saw Stephen break up with Diana, which we learn later was actually her idea. Why do you think she ultimately needed to plant the idea in his head rather than just break up with him?
After she finds the pictures of Macy, she realizes that he was not only in the car with her when she when she died, and that he left her, but that he was also the one driving. She realizes he’s an extremely dangerous person and, coupled with the fact that he’s not the kind of person that lets people leave him, he has to be the one to do it. He has to be in total control of the situation and … not that he would necessarily kill Diana if she tried to break up with him, but he would definitely try to ruin her, so she kind of ends up ruining her [and] doing the charade of ruining herself [with] the LSAT score and everything. I think she’s just deeply scared of him and has to play it really safe and smart and do the long game.
Earlier this season, Lucy tells Diana that Stephen was in the car when Macy died, but Diana barely reacts. Can you walk us through that moment and how it impacted Diana?
I don’t think that she necessarily immediately believed her, but I think she was definitely like, “What the f–k?” but didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing Diana freak out, because Diana thinks that Lucy is saying all this not to help or protect her in any way, but to f–k with her. Diana’s thought process was like, “even if this is true, she’s not saying this to help me out,” so she didn’t want to give Lucy the satisfaction of seeing Diana be shaken by what she was saying.
How long do you think Diana been plotting getting away from Stephen?
After she saw the photos … I don’t think that she knew in that moment, “okay, I’m gonna fake my LSAT score” … but she definitely knew, “Okay, I have to end this, and I have to figure out a way how to do that, how to orchestrate that.” There’s a big time jump from the day that they take the LSATs to the next episode where they find the scores, and I think in the those weeks is when she is figuring it out and plotting.
Do you think Diana is bothered that Stephen went back to Lucy?
There’s definitely a part of her that is upset by that — he was kind of cheating on Diana with Lucy — and I think it stings. It’d be nice if it was someone else, but I think it’s also so predictable. I think that she knew in the back of her mind that this [was] possibility all along, especially, after planning on having him break up with her. I think she sees it coming, but I think it’s annoying.
This season we see the start of Diana and Pippa’s relationship as a friendship, which unfortunately starts from a sexual assault situation. How does the incident impact Diana and why does she feel particularly drawn to Pippa in the aftermath?
It’s the first time that Diana experiences something like this — I don’t think that she herself has had any experience with sexual assault or abuse. We’ve seen her align herself with men, and she sees the other side of men and how awful they can be. It makes it a reality for her, a reality to that I don’t think that she ever really had to look at or think about, and then playing this role of caretaker I think comes naturally to Diana. She is used to taking care of Stephen like that, but not necessarily other women or friends. She just she sees Pippa in this extreme, vulnerable state that she’s never seen anyone in before, and her instinct is to protect and care for her. I don’t think that she even knew that that would be her instinct.
I don’t think Diana [starts becoming aware of romantic feelings for Pippa] until probably when Diana walks in on Pippa and Wrigley in bed together. This happens off-screen, but I think it’s a moment of like, “Why am I upset by that? Why does that bother me? It shouldn’t, Wrigley is a nice guy, he’s not hurting her.
Showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer mentioned Diana’s family, who are pretty rigid in their beliefs, might pose a challenge to her potentially coming out. What do you make of that?
She hasn’t formed the thought of like, “Oh, I’m possibly gay.” I don’t think that she’s ever really questioned her sexuality until this relationship with Pippa starts, and I think it’s deeply confusing for her. Her family is very conservative, not necessarily politically, but like “this is a life you lead — you have a career, you get married, you have kids,” and I think that especially her father has a very clear plan for what a good life is. I think it definitely takes Diana a number of years before she is even able to really come to terms with it herself. Hopefully if we get a Season 3, we’ll be able to explore that a little bit more. I think it takes a really long time — it could go so many different ways, and it’s not something that we’ve really hammered out yet, but I can imagine a world in which Pippa is the only woman that Diana is necessarily ever intimate or sexually attracted to. Maybe it’s not necessarily about the gender, it’s her as a person that she falls in love with.
What are your hopes for Diana in a potential Season 3 and how would you imagine Pippa and Diana’s relationship continues to grow?
I think there’s no way that Stephen doesn’t find out eventually that Diana lied about her [LSAT] score because they announced at schools like, “she’s going Yale Law School or whatever.” That would be really interesting — seeing how he reacts to finding out that he got totally duped, and that she’s actually fine, and also that because they’re broken up now that he’s not gonna have access to like her dad and her resources.
I can imagine for Pippa having this struggle of kind of being back with Wrigley, but, because of what happens with Drew, feeling like, “If there’s any time that he needs me and that I can’t leave him, it’s now.” That conflict of being torn between Diana and Wrigley — we would have to see that. Maybe Diana tries to start dating someone else again, because she’s single now, and if she meets another guy, and things seem off, and she’s thinking about Pippa — I can see that happening and kind of feeling like this doesn’t feel quite right.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“Tell Me Lies” Seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Hulu.
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