Television series

Tell Me Lies

Name: Tell Me Lies
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Released: 2022
Cast: Grace Van Patten, Jackson White, Catherine Missal, Spencer House, Sonia Mena

A college romance that curdles into obsession. Tell Me Lies tracks the intoxicating and corrosive relationship between Lucy and Stephen across two seasons, moving backward and forward in time to show how charm becomes manipulation and love becomes damage. It's intimate, propulsive, and unflinching about how smart people make terrible choices for the right emotional reasons.

TVMaze rating

3.0

If you liked this

Normal People2020

Two seasons of raw, unglamorous intimacy between people who can't quite quit each other. It shares Tell Me Lies' willingness to sit with the mundane cruelty of loving someone you shouldn't, and its frank physicality—sex isn't heroic here, it's complicated.

But Glacial pacing that asks you to absorb long silences and unspoken feelings. If you want plot momentum, this will feel like watching paint dry.

Euphoria2019

College-age characters navigating desire, trauma, and self-destruction with visual audacity and emotional recklessness. Like Tell Me Lies, it refuses to moralize and finds the seductive danger in bad choices made by people we understand.

But The visual maximalism and subject matter—addiction, sexual violence, mental health crisis—can feel punishing rather than cathartic. It's relentless in ways some find exploitative.

You2018

A slick, propulsive dive into obsession from inside a manipulator's head. Both shows understand that charm is a weapon and that the line between romantic fixation and psychological damage is terrifyingly thin.

But The protagonist's narration can feel designed to seduce you into rooting for him, which some find morally queasy. It borders on glorifying its own villain.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Tell Me Lies

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both are ultimately about obsession as delusion, about how the person you're fixated on becomes a mirror for your own damage rather than a separate human being. Both leave you uncertain what you actually witnessed.

A 2.5-hour descent into a woman's obsession with another woman, shot by David Lynch. It's about the stories we tell ourselves to survive what we want, and what happens when fantasy and reality collide. Visually hypnotic and emotionally devastating.

But Surrealist and deliberately obtuse—it actively resists being understood. Some find it pretentious; others find clarity impossible. It demands you sit with ambiguity and possibly watch it twice.

Fleabag2016

Snappy, self-aware characters who use wit as armor and sabotage their own relationships in real time. It has Tell Me Lies' dark humor and its understanding that the people who hurt us most are often the ones we choose again and again.

But It's British, smaller in scale, and funnier—if you're after the psychological weight rather than the sparkle, this might feel slight.

The Summer I Turned Pretty2022

A love triangle that actually grapples with the difference between wanting someone and being good for each other. It has a similar summer-locked fever dream quality and isn't afraid of genuine messiness beneath the romance.

But Leaning toward YA sensibility and wish fulfillment in ways Tell Me Lies explicitly rejects. It's softer and less willing to let its characters suffer real consequences.

Killing Eve2018

Two seasons of a relationship built on obsession, mirrors, and mutual destruction between hunter and hunted. It understands that the most compelling connections are often toxic, and dresses that insight in style and dark humor.

But The show becomes increasingly stylized and loses narrative coherence as it goes. The back half prioritizes mood over sense.

Daisy Jones & the Six2023

Ambitious, charismatic people with deep wounds who weaponize their talent and charm against each other. It captures the addictive toxicity of creative collaboration with someone you're tangled up with.

But The documentary-interview format feels gimmicky and keeps you emotionally distant. The 1970s setting and music industry focus may not land if you're after contemporary college-world specificity.

Scandal2012

Olivia and Fitz's relationship is the engine of the show: intense, secretive, corrosive. Like Tell Me Lies, it never pretends their affair is noble—it's an addiction, a mutual destruction dressed as romance.

But Seasons wear on and the plot mechanics become baroque. After a few years it trades psychological depth for soap-opera melodrama and loses the thread that made it matter.

The Politician2019

Ambitious young people performing versions of themselves and occasionally believing their own performance. It has moments of genuine insight about ambition, desire, and the masks we wear for each other.

But Scattered and uneven, mixing tonal registers that don't always cohere. It's often too clever for its own good and sometimes forgets to care about its characters beneath the satire.

After the Wedding2019

Like Tell Me Lies, it's interested in how a single relationship can be told two contradictory ways, and in whether love and harm can coexist in the same person's memory.

A chamber piece where two people who once loved each other are forced back into proximity, and in 115 minutes we watch them negotiate memory, resentment, and the gap between who they were and who they've become. Juliette Binoche and Lars Eidinger are heartbreaking.

But Quiet and claustrophobic, with minimal plot. It trusts you to find the drama in dialogue and glances. If you want external stakes, there are none.