Drew is arguably the most tragic character in Tell Me Lies, and by the end of Season 2, we find out exactly what happened to him in those traumatizing college years.
While Hulu and Disney Plus’ TV show revolves around Lucy (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen’s (Jackson White) turbulent relationship, the tendrils of their drama wrap around everyone in their orbit.
However, Drew (Benjamin Wadsworth) is a singularly troubled character in the series. Courtesy of Stephen, he bore the brunt of the blame for Macy’s death, and Lucy sent a letter to the Dean asking them to investigate Drew’s involvement in the accident. Of course, Stephen was the one who was truly responsible.
It caused a lot of irreparable drama: Lucy and Stephen broke up, his brother Wrigley broke up with Pippa, and in a fist fight with Drew, Wrigley fell off the balcony and injured himself so badly he couldn’t take the quarterback position. Now, we know exactly what happened to him.
Drew’s death in Tell Me Lies Season 2 explained
Drew dies after overdosing on painkillers at a party, explaining why he’s never appeared in the present-day timeline of Tell Me Lies.
After being absent for the whole season, Drew returns to campus in Episode 8 to patch things up with Wrigley. They make up and head out for a party, drinking and popping pills all night long.
When Wrigley wakes up, they’re both lying on the couch and Drew is covered in sick. Wrigley tries to wake him up and quickly realizes that he’s died in his sleep. “I had these painkillers. I gave him a couple and he was splitting them in half, but they were time-release… I guess you can’t do that with a time-release pill, I guess that can kill you,” he explains to his friends.
“I’m the one who ruined his life last year,” Wrigley adds, but Lucy feels overwhelmed with guilt. She wrote the letter to the Dean, and she effectively started the chain of events that led to this moment. Stephen takes the blame and tells Wrigley he wrote the letter, and he forgives him (feel free to scream “No!” right now).
This adds much-needed context, especially after Evan told Lucy off for calling Wrigley a “coked-up gorilla” in Season 1. “It was his brother’s birthday yesterday, so maybe take it easy on him,” he said.
Drew nearly died in Season 1
Drew was nearly killed off in Season 1 of Tell Me Lies, but the show’s creator Meghan Oppenheimer didn’t want to overstuff the first season’s finale.
“During Season 1, I thought that it would be the ending of Season 1, and then there was too much, and we didn’t need it,” she explained to Variety.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
However, make no mistake, Drew’s fate was set in stone. “I always knew he was going to die. Ben is so great and so lovely that when we started the writers’ room for Season 2, I was like, ‘Is there any way we can have him around?’ It didn’t make sense any other way,” Oppenheimer added.
“I really wanted Wrigley to be destroyed by the end of the season. I know that’s so terrible to say! We’ve seen him in the future, and I wanted to understand why he’d gotten to that point, because he is clearly a mess in the future years.”
How did Tell Me Lies Season 2 end?
In the final seconds of Tell Me Lies Season 2, Bree listens to a recording of Evan confessing to sleeping with Lucy – gasp!
It’s one hell of a cliffhanger that sets up a taut, conflict-ridden Season 3, but it comes off the back of a hectic finale.
As well as Drew’s inevitable death in the college timeline, Stephen and Diana break up, and then he sleeps with Lucy right after… who then has sex with Leo without even changing her underwear! When Leo finds out, he gives Stephen an almighty beating and leaves his face bruised and swollen.
What about Bree, Olivier, and Marianne? After all, in the closing seconds of Episode 7, Marianne appeared in class with Bree’s earrings the morning after she had sex with Oliver. To the shock of nobody, Marianne knew all along, because she and Oliver are in an open relationship.
In Oppenheimer’s eyes, we’re in “uncharted territory” from Carola Lovering’s source material, and the next chapter would likely pivot largely to the present day.
“I did map that out way in advance when I just thought about what the structure of the show was. And I thought, we’ll get more and more of the future as time goes on,” she said.
“I think by the third season, we will still have some 2008 because there’s stuff that we have to wrap up there. But I think it would be a little bit shifted in the sense that there will probably be more 2015 than 2008.”
If you’re still in denial about Tell Me Lies Episode 9, find out what else we know about Tell Me Lies Season 3. You can check out our list of other TV shows streaming this month and the best binge-worthy shows you should watch.