“Tell Me Lies” viewers weren’t the only ones who bawled like babies during the Season 2 finale when Wrigley (Spencer House) found his little brother, Drew (Benjamin Wadsworth) — spoiler alert — dead from an overdose after a night of partying together.
The Post spoke to newcomer Tom Ellis, a k a Oliver, the mysterious married professor who has an infectious affair with Bree (Catherine Missal), and he exclusively shared that he cried several times watching the “heartbreaking” scene.
Ellis, who’s married to the show’s creator, Meaghan Oppenheimer, also gave his co-star House kudos for his dynamic job of making the death scene come to life.
“I really felt for Wrigley. I want Wrigley to be happy,” Ellis, 45, told The Post in September. “He really made me cry. It’s heartbreaking. Spencer House does such an amazing job. I rewatched the finale today. I mean, he really got me. I started weeping this morning again.”
House’s character Wrigley is the happy-go-lucky jock at Baird College who spirals after injuring himself from falling off a frat house balcony. Unable to play football with his team, Wrigley gets prescribed painkillers as he recovers but begins mixing the medication and alcohol.
However, he’s fighting even bigger demons because he’s been holding onto a life-altering secret since Season 1.
You see, Drew was involved in a car accident that killed the dorm roommate of Lucy (Grace Van Patten), and only Wrigley and Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) know — until word spreads.
Wrigley told his girlfriend, Pippa (Sonia Mena), who also kept it a secret; however, deceptive Stephen ended up spilling the news to his on-again, off-again romance, Lucy, and she secretly writes a note to the dean, exposing Drew as the drunk-driving hit-and-run assailant who killed her friend.
After the dean and police question a panicked Drew, Stephen tells him that Wrigley turned on him and told Pippa while failing to mention he shared the secret with Lucy, causing a fallout between the brothers.
But here’s the kicker — “Tell Me Lies” fans later discover Stephen was sleeping with Lucy’s roommate, was driving her when the accident happened, and left her dead in the passenger seat.
While that was shocking on its own, Wrigley and Drew end up making up and decide to go out for a night on the town. At the bar, Wrigley convinces his deeply depressed brother to take his painkillers and mix the pills with alcohol.
The brothers have a great night before returning to Wrigley’s dorm to sleep it off — then tragedy strikes. Wrigley wakes up to find Drew on the couch, dead from overdosing.
Wrigley (House) has a powerful scene responding to Drew’s death, a side of the athlete that viewers usually don’t see.
“Tell Me Lies” — based on Carola Lovering’s best-selling novel by the same name — is about the tumultuous relationship between Lucy and Stephen that unfolds over eight years. It also follows the stories of their college friends during that timeframe.
House shared that he looks back at previous storylines with different lenses now that his TV brother is dead.
“I figured Drew was going to die — I think we all did — but they kept that from me for a while,” the actor told Us Weekly. “Then once I learned how he dies, it did affect the 2015 storyline. Just with how we talked about [Wrigley] being drunk is a little darker, and there’s a lot more weight to it.”
House believes Wrigley will blame himself for the rest of his life.
“He does kill him. It’s not on purpose. And people who work on the show will disagree with me, but Wrigley is with his brother at a bar. He gives him a pill that he’s not prescribed and it kills him. So he does kill his brother. He doesn’t mean to, but that is a thing he’s always going to carry with him for the rest of his life.”
“Tell Me Lies” Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Hulu.