Why Stephen Just Handed Lucy the Tape Back on 'Tell Me Lies'

If there’s one thing viewers have concluded about Stephen (Jackson White) in Tell Me Lies, it’s that he’s manipulative, narcissistic, and takes pleasure in causing harm to others to get what he wants. So, it’s safe to assume a person like that doesn’t have a single thread of empathy or sympathy in their DNA … or does he?

In Episode 7 of Season 3, Stephen unexpectedly gives Lucy (Grace Van Patten) the tape back that he’s been hanging over her head since she recorded it in Episode 3.

The gesture was truly out of character for Stephen, and viewers can’t seem to understand why he’d do it. Afterall, it’s Stephen we’re talking about here. Well, the show’s creator, Meaghan Oppenheimer, has opened up about the moment, and both she and Jackson suggest you shouldn’t be too quick to assume Stephen is suddenly a “good guy.”

In Season 3, Episode 7, Stephen shockingly just hands Lucy back the tape he’s been threatening to blackmail her with, and it seems like there are no strings attached. He gives it to her, and that’s it. But why? And is that really it? Is the blackmail threat actually over?

For context, the tape contains a confession from Lucy admitting she lied about being sexually assaulted for attention. But when she comes groveling to Stephen in Episode 7, clearly unable to take the waiting anymore and finally reaching a point where she doesn’t care what he does with the tape, he doesn’t seem to get the same thrill out of it.

At least, that’s what Meaghan Oppenheimer, the show’s creator, suggests might be the reason. “There’s no shame anymore. She’s giving up, and she’s saying, ‘Just release it,’ and it’s taken the fun away from him. I think that’s where his head is at. That’s how his psyche works,” Oppenheimer told Decider.

But Oppenheimer also admitted her answer was pretty “cynical,” adding that she thinks Stephen is “just so disgusted by seeing her like this and seeing her grovel that it’s no longer fun.”

And it makes sense because in the scene where the moment happens, Lucy is clearly at rock bottom, begging Stephen to finally release the tape. “I can’t do this anymore. I really can’t. The waiting. The not knowing when you’re gonna do it. I need this part to be over. Please. Please. I need it to be over,” Lucy tearfully pleads.

And then … he actually does it. Jackson White shared a similar explanation, telling Decider, “When he wins the game, he doesn’t have any fun anymore. And any time Lucy truly loses the thread, he gets bored. He surrenders. Maybe that’s his humanity, but he’s also over it. So I don’t know how unexpected that is. I think it’s more like, ‘Of course he resigns, because he already won.’”

Still, there may be more to the story. Because even though it looks like Stephen gives Lucy the tape back because she’s officially over it, and the game is over for him too, it might not actually be.

After getting the tape back from Stephen, she once again shows just how forgetful she can be during her conversation with Tegan. That moment, coupled with other slip-ups, like when she walked into Stephen’s room and later seemed to forget, suggests the whole tape handoff may not have played out exactly the way it appeared.

It’s also possible that Stephen made a copy and only handed Lucy one version, just so he could later pull her back into the game. Only time will tell, and Season 3, Episode 8 might just reveal what really went down, and what’s to come.