SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the first two episodes of Tell Me Lies, Season 2: “You Got a Reaction, Didn’t You?” and “I’m About to Do a 180-Degree Flip-Flop.” Both episodes are now streaming on Hulu.

Tell Me Lies is officially back — and the drama from Season 1 isn’t the same as what’s to come. In the first two episodes, which cover both the 2008 storyline and the 2015 flashback, everyone returns to college. Stephen (Jackson White) and Diana (Alicia Crowder) are still together after their dad gives him a job for the summer, but he immediately falls back into his old habits and bullies Lucy (Grace Van Patten), even joining one of her classes as a teaching assistant. While Lucy, who spent the summer with Lydia (Natalee Linez) and her brother Chris (Jacob Rodriguez), tells everyone she’s put Stephen and his drama behind her, it still gnaws at her.

She tries to move on with Leo (Thomas Doherty), but he has his own problems. Meanwhile, Pippa (Sonia Mena) feels lonelier than ever at college, as the entire football team ostracizes her and blames her for Wrigley’s (Spencer House) injury. Then, during a party, she is seemingly attacked by Lydia’s brother Chris. Luckily, Diana walks into the room at a party and finds her half-dressed and unconscious in bed while he is in the bathroom. Diana and Lucy put their differences aside long enough to get Pippa safely back to campus.

Bree (Catherine Missal), on the other hand, is in trouble. After learning that Evan (Branden Cook) cheated on her last year – he said it was a random girl, but didn’t reveal that it was Lucy – she starts flirting with a new man: a 45-year-old professor at the school who is married to Lucy’s teacher, Marianne. At the end of the second episode, she breaks up with Evan and goes to Oliver’s house, where they make out hard in his office!

However, in 2015, she is about to marry Evan – so only time will tell how they will find their way back to each other.

Speaking of the timeline, the flash forward reveals what Pippa is up to. Although she tells her friends that she is not involved in any series, she is actually lying; she is in a relationship with Diana. Also, Lydia tells Lucy at the engagement party that she will never forgive her for what she did.

diversity met with showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer to analyze the many bombshells that dropped during the first two episodes.

Let’s start with the end of episode 1: Pippa and Diana are together at the time of Evan and Bree’s wedding! When did you decide that would be the future?

We hadn’t started the writers’ room for Season 2 yet. I came up with the idea because I thought: Diana is the only person we didn’t see in 2015. Where is she? I also knew that Pippa was secretive about her love life. I loved the idea because these two people are such outsiders in different ways. I think it could be really nice to see these two girls find each other when they’re both at their lowest ebbs, which is over the course of the season. And I didn’t tell Hulu until we turned in the first script. I just wanted to surprise them.

Of course, we see how their friendship develops after the sexual assault in Episode 2. How did you come up with what you would and wouldn’t show in the bedroom scene at the party?

I knew early on that I didn’t want to show a lot of the assault. I think that’s difficult to do without somehow exploiting the actress. I just think that’s gross. We also wanted to leave a little bit of ambiguity about how far the assault went. I decided that Sonia should kind of decide that. I said, “Definitely something happened, something physical, and how far you think it went is what makes sense.” Only that character knows for sure. I think it was just very sensitive, and because it wasn’t the central story, I felt that if we showed anything too explicit or said that she was definitely raped, it would be disrespectful to the subject to make it a small story. It’s a big story, but it’s just one of many stories in the show.

What conversations did you have in the room about how Pippa would behave the day after the attack?

We talked a lot about the time. All of the writers in the room were in college at the time. Unfortunately, we didn’t have to consult an expert because we’re all experts in the field. Anyone who has a vagina — or doesn’t have one… it’s just something that happens to most women, especially at that time when the conversations about consent were very different. So we talked a lot about our college experiences, things that had happened to our friends and to us, and what the reactions were. One story was about a girl who had accused someone of rape, and she wasn’t believed. She ended up carrying her mattress around with her for the entire semester as if to say, “Fuck you,” and basically refused to keep quiet about it. And that’s one reaction.

Pippa already worries so much about what people think of her. It’s one of her biggest struggles. So many people are just ashamed and embarrassed. The idea that she didn’t want her friends to see her like that seemed like the most authentic response to her, based on what we all knew from our own experience. Plus, back then, a lot of people wouldn’t have seen it as rape. If you were a girl who was drunk and didn’t remember what happened, you were just having sloppy sex. So to some extent she’s telling herself that nothing happened because she’s not sure anything bad happened. did happen. She knows that her gut feeling is wrong, but she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to feel bad about it.

Unfortunately, in 2008, the conversations we are having today did not take place.

It was really interesting because our cast is about 10 years younger than all of us in the writers’ room. When we were doing sex scenes with them, it was so clear how different the conversation around consent is. I remember last year when we were doing the first sex scene with Jackson and Alicia, she said, “Stop.” She didn’t feel attacked or threatened, but she changed her mind. And Jackson was like, “If that happens in real life, I’m out right now.” He had some issues with not stopping right away and backing away. And I was like, “It’s 2008, it’s just different.” It’s so great that it’s gotten better.

Absolutely. Overall, Season 1 showed a much of sex. How does Season 2 compare in that regard?

In season 1, we saw Lucy’s sexual awakening and her falling in love with the way this guy can feel her body and having good sex for the first time. So we needed to engage the audience in that way and it needed to be sexier. That’s what we’re experiencing with Lucy. I think this year the sex scenes – some of them were more negative sex scenes and some of them were just more emotionally complicated, so they didn’t need to be sexy in that way.

Speaking of sex, there’s a big affair this season! Tom Ellis is in this season as Oliver, the teacher who has an affair with Bree. He also happens to be your husband in real life. How did you come up with that casting?

It’s funny because I didn’t even have him in mind at first. I knew it was going to be Marianne’s (Gabriella Pession) husband, but it was someone else who suggested Tom. At first I thought, this is crazy. He won’t want to do this. And then I couldn’t get it out of my head. I talked to the writers about it and they liked it. When he asked what the character was, he was really excited!

Why do you think he is the right actor for the role of Oliver?

Tom is quite dreamy, some would say. He’s so likable on screen and I think it needed to be someone who had an element of wish fulfillment in him. I wanted the audience to be swept up in the excitement and romance at the beginning of the season, like Bree was – before we started showing the little ugly moments. Of course, he’s a married 45-year-old. It’s bad from the start. But we needed someone who would make the audience fall in love with him. He did that so well and I was thrilled to see him do something very different to what he’d done before because I think he’s usually much kinder. This is a much cooler, more reserved character who withholds affection in order to manipulate him. Also, the idea of ​​him being there made me feel very safe because when you cast an older actor, you never know who you’re going to get. It’s such a tricky storyline. A lot is asked of Cat and with Tom I just knew we were getting a good guy. He’s confident, he’s kind, he’s very respectful and he already knew the cast.

New episodes of “Tell Me Lies” appear Wednesdays on Hulu.