There is a common thread between all the characters Tell me lies: toxicity. The Hulu drama, which had its season 2 finale on October 16, is full of teens making a slew of unhealthy choices, whether it’s a grueling tit-for-tat with a manipulative ex-boyfriend or a scandalous relationship with the husband of a professor. .
For Jenny Lin, the show’s lead makeup artist, it’s all about visually translating the toll these choices take on the characters.
Tell me lies centers on Lucy (Grace Van Patten) and her decades-long relationship with narcissistic upperclassman Stephen (Jackson White), whom she first meets during her freshman year at the fictional Baird College in 2007.
Lin, who was in college in the early 2000s, cites MTV reality series The hillswhich spotlighted its star, Lauren Conrad, as her “main” source of beauty inspiration. Britney Spears is also a great reference.
“Grace and I would say, ‘Oh, that’s the iconic Lucy right there,’” Lin told Yahoo Entertainment about Conrad and Spears’ looks that inspired the show.
More than just a mid-range nostalgic piece, Tell me lies shows the evolving relationship girls have with makeup as they mature. Each shade of eye shadow, lip gloss or blush is chosen with purpose. It is intended to tell a story, nuanced or otherwise.
Season 2, now streaming in its entirety on Hulu, continues into its second year, with Lucy ready to start over after her very public divorce from Stephen at the end of last school year. She’s ditched the beauty cues of lined lips and bronzy, smoky eyes that marked the height of that relationship for a more “retired” look, returning to her neutral, pinker palette from early Season 1.
“[Lucy] went from super preppy, clean and straight from New York… to wearing so much makeup [when] she tried so hard and spiraled,” Lin recalled of the first season. “At the beginning of season 2, she’s still wearing makeup, but she’s wearing it like armor.”
Lucy can’t seem to escape Stephen even if she tries. He berates her via voicemail, humiliates her in front of their friends, and even goes so far as to drive away her new boyfriend Leo (Thomas Doherty)… twice. But in the season finale, Lucy and Stephen appear to be giving their toxic romance another try.
Should Tell me lies is renewed for season 3, Lin doesn’t think Lucy and Stephen’s reunion will affect the way she does Lucy’s makeup.
“It won’t be as extreme as before because she’ll feel more comfortable with it,” she said of Lucy. “It will be very subtle.”
But in Season 2, not every “makeup storyline,” as Lin calls it, is so nuanced.
Lucy’s friend Bree (Catherine Missal) is increasingly leaning toward a heavier, sultrier makeup style — punctuated by a deep red lip — as a direct result of her increasingly intense affair with Oliver (Tom Ellis), the husband of her English professor. She deliberately tries to mirror Oliver’s wife, Marianne (Gabriella Pession), in the hopes of appearing older and more mature than she actually is.
“[Bree] trying to impress Oliver,” Lin said. “Every time she’s in Marianne’s classroom, she just looks at her. She stares at Marianne’s dark nail polish, and in the next episode we see that she also has dark nail polish… and then she’s actually wearing the same smoky purple eye look as Marianne, just for that one episode… She’s trying to be her own version of Marianne.”
There’s a moment in one episode where Bree, on Oliver’s instruction, immediately wipes off her red lipstick and meets him privately at the party he and Marianne are hosting. The use of red lipstick in this scene, Lin told Yahoo, illustrates the tragedy of Bree’s situation – and the lengths she will go to for him.
“The red lip moment is the highlight of everything. [It’s] the ultimate demonstration of what she is willing to do,” she said. “It’s just really sad that she is [succumbing] to his dominance.”
For Pippa (Sonia Mena), Lucy and Bree’s other best friend, a natural, bare face takes on a different meaning. The victim of an attack earlier this season, Pippa deliberately retreats from her typically glamorous, full-makeup face. Instead, she takes comfort in a simpler appearance, as if to avoid unwanted attention.
“[Pippa] is always the one to do the other girls’ makeup in season 1,” Lin said. “It was completely intentional [to pull back on her makeup] because she was struggling with the trauma of what had happened… She withdraws a little. She came in hot at the height of the school year, and then she got kicked down pretty hard for the rest of the school year.
Pippa finds an unlikely friend in Stephen’s on-off girlfriend Diana (Alicia Crowder) as she deals with the aftermath of the attack. Although Stephen and Diana start the season as a seemingly solid couple, Diana begins to see cracks in the stories he has told her. Her whole world is falling apart, but you don’t notice it just looking at her. Diana, like Lucy, uses makeup to protect herself from Stephen.
“Her makeup has always stayed the same because she has to look good,” Lin explained. “She’s starting to realize what kind of person [Stephen] is, but she protects herself… She’s still going to make it [him] feeling like everything is okay.”
For Lin, makeup reflects the chaos and complexity of these emotions and relationships.
“It’s a way for girls to express themselves,” she said. “I think that’s why so many people connect with the show.”
Tell me lies is available to stream on Hulu.
