[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Tell Me Lies Season 2 Episodes 1-3.]
Tom Ellis has enrolled at Baird University. The Lucifer alum plays Oliver, an enigmatic (and very married) professor who crosses paths with sophomore student Bree (Cat Missal) in Tell Me Lies Season 2. What was just late-night flirtations has turned into a full-blown affair. Bree is at her most vulnerable after learning of Evan’s (Branden Cook) infidelity, so she falls right under Oliver’s spell. TV Insider spoke with Ellis and Missal about Oliver and Bree’s forbidden relationship and the massive power imbalance between them.
“I think she’s just very misunderstood, and it’s kind of the perfect storm,” Missal said about Bree and Oliver. “She’s cheated on and she retaliates, and I think this man is the perfect person for that. I think in doing that, she starts to feel like she’s entered this new world. I think she thinks that it’s amazing that this older, educated man is interested in her, and it’s really sad. It’s really heartbreaking.”
She added, “I think she also feels like she’s getting him to open up. I think she feels like it’s a two-way dynamic, which, obviously, we come to find out later down the line that maybe some things aren’t as they seem. But in that time and place, I think she’s feeling like there’s a real possibility for a relationship to continue.”
Disney / Josh Stringer
In order to play Oliver in the context of the storyline, Ellis initially approached the character’s view on the relationship as “two humans connecting and the age wasn’t an issue, and the power imbalance wasn’t an issue, and there was no abusive position or anything like that. Worst case scenario, I’m a guy cheating on my wife. That’s sort of how I had to be in order to kind of service the story, I suppose.”
He called many of Oliver’s actions “deplorable” and championed his real-life wife, Tell Me Lies showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer, for exploring “the power imbalance and about sexual dynamics within this environment, and also to sort of flag up that this happens in 2008, and since then, the conversation about these things has really evolved, and the nuance about these things has really evolved. But this is happening in a time when people were not encouraged to speak up, and when people do speak up, there are people that tell them they shouldn’t do or they invited this kind of behavior or all the other stuff and tropes that we used to hear about things like this.”
Ellis admitted that he had “disassociate a little bit and desensitize to that in order to kind of play this. But yeah, you look at it in retrospect, and it’s like, yeah, there is an element of grooming that happens here. He does know better. This person is, without even knowing the nuances of Bree’s character, they are in a vulnerable position in their life. They’re younger, they’re in education, and he knows better, but I had to sort of forget all of that in order to do it.”
The actor noted that Oliver is “very good at manipulating,” and “he does it in a way where it feels like the other person is making a discovery, and the other person is coming up with the ideas. I think that’s probably Oliver’s superpower in a really weird, f**ked up way.” After filming Season 2, the weight of the role made Ellis feel “sick to my stomach.”
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Missal pointed out that Bree is “very much an aware character” who is always looking for the truth. However, Missal acknowledged that when Bree gets the truth, she often “doesn’t want to actually hear it, or she doesn’t want to really pay attention, but she’s smart and she knows. I think that’s what’s so interesting about the show in general is that you watch these characters make the same mistakes over and over again, and it’s a really relatable thing because you see that play out in your own life and the lessons we have to learn take a couple times. Damage can be done before something is really learned there.”
At the moment, Bree still doesn’t know about Lucy’s (Grace Van Patten) secret hookup with Evan at the end of last semester, and it seems like she still doesn’t know the truth in the 2015 timeline. Is Bree the type of person who could forgive her best friend if she finds out about Lucy’s betrayal?
“That’s a tough question,” Missal told TV Insider. “I think forgiveness is tricky. I wouldn’t say necessarily that Bree forgives anyone for anything. I think she’s the type of person that represses and compartmentalizes. I think we’ll have to just watch and see what happens. Who knows? Maybe if there’s another season we’ll get to see that play out.”
Tell Me Lies, Season 2, New Episodes, Wednesdays, Hulu
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