Is There A Tell Me Lies Spinoff In The Works? Fans Blindsided as Meaghan Oppenheimer Announces Show Is Over

Fans of Tell Me Lies spent weeks bracing for an emotional finale. What they got instead was an emotional gut punch before they'd even pressed play.

Creator and showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer took to Instagram on 16 February to confirm that the Hulu drama would not be returning for a fourth season. The post went up just hours before the season three finale dropped at 9:00 p.m. PT. No advance warning. No press tour. Just an Instagram caption and a cast photo.

'After three amazing seasons of Tell Me Lies, tonight's episode will be the series finale,' she wrote. 'This was always the ending my writing team and I had in mind, and we are insanely proud of it.'

Why Tell Me Lies Ended at Its Peak

What makes the cancellation so striking is the timing. This was not a show limping towards irrelevance. Season three's premiere pulled 5 million views globally across Disney+ and Hulu in its first seven days - up 150% from the September 2022 debut, according to Deadline. Social conversation jumped 220% over the previous season, and total engagement on the show's handles grew 580%. By any streaming metric, Tell Me Lies was winning.

Oppenheimer framed the decision as a creative one, telling TheWrap it was a 'joint decision' with Hulu. But her reasoning, laid out in a separate Deadline interview, was blunt. 'Lucy's not in school anymore. Most of the cast are graduating from college in the future. They're all living in different places. They're not in the same industry. There's not a lot connecting them.'

She said three seasons felt like 'the perfect amount' and that pushing further risked turning Tell Me Lies into 'a completely different show.'

The series, based on Carola Lovering's 2018 bestselling novel, follows the addictive, toxic relationship between Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) across two timelines at fictional Baird College. Van Patten and White are a real-life couple who started dating after meeting during auditions. The third season's build towards a wedding was always meant to be the final act.

Tell Me Lies Fans Had No Time to Prepare

The backlash was instant. Season three was never formally marketed as the final run, so Oppenheimer's post hit like cold water.

'You tell me the week of the episode, nay, THE NIGHT, that it's the series finale?!?!' one viewer vented, according to Parade. 'Do they not like money?' another demanded. 'This is literally the most popular and talked about show right now.' One simply wrote: 'I feel like I just got shot.'

The cast appeared to take it in their stride. Van Patten told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the finale that she 'loved the ending' and called it 'an amazing ending, if it was the end.' She added that Oppenheimer could always 'think something up to continue the story' and that she'd 'be very happy either way.'

Could a Tell Me Lies Spinoff Still Happen?

For all the finality of her announcement, Oppenheimer left one thread dangling. She told TheWrap there is 'definitely a possibility of spinoffs in this world,' and that the broader theme of obsessive, unhealthy relationships is 'a very timeless, universal theme' worth revisiting with new characters.

She is already developing something new under her overall deal with 20th Television. She told Deadline the next project revolves around 'dark, twisted relationships' between adult siblings. A separate series called Second Wife, which would have starred her husband, Tom Ellis, alongside executive producer Emma Roberts, was not picked up by Hulu. Oppenheimer said it may yet be redeveloped as a feature film.

She described herself as 'a perverse Nora Ephron' whose goal is making content for 'depressed perverts.' That brand of dark, compulsive storytelling clearly has an audience. Whether it returns to the Tell Me Lies universe remains to be seen.

The series finale is now streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ internationally.