- - Who is Alex on Hulu's 'Tell Me Lies'? Meet rising actor Costa D'Angelo

Pamela Avila, USA TODAYJanuary 14, 2026 at 8:11 AM

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After Stephen (Jackson White) and Lucy (Grace Van Patten) get back together and then break up again in Season 3 (streaming on Hulu Tuesdays at 9 p.m. PT/12 a.m. ET), Lucy begins to unravel.

Spoiler alert: The following contains details from Season 3, Episodes 1 & 2, but specifically Episode 3 of "Tell Me Lies." Beware if you haven't seen it and don't want to know.

Lucy's story in the new season of "Tell Me Lies" is about to get darker and more twisted than ever before.

After Stephen (Jackson White) and Lucy (Grace Van Patten) get back together and then break up again in Season 3 (streaming on Hulu Tuesdays at 9 p.m. PT/12 a.m. ET), Lucy begins to unravel.

"I realized how much she may not like herself, which was a very sad realization," Van Patten tells USA TODAY about her character's journey. "For the first two seasons, she's been very dignified in what her actions are, and she's stubborn, and this season is the first time you see that shell disintegrate."

Now, enter Alex (Costa D'Angelo), a brooding and charming drug dealer and college student studying psychology, who knows Bree (Cat Missal) from their time in the foster care system. D'Angelo was cast as a series regular in May, and his character is already taking the Internet by storm after Hulu released a surprise third episode during the Tuesday season premiere.

"You have these characters that people already know and love, so how do you make them care about someone new?" says series creator Meaghan Oppenheimer. "We needed a storyline for Lucy that felt different than her past romantic relationships," and it was important to set the tone that Alex is "not a love interest."

Costa D'Angelo attends the premiere of "The Deb" during the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall on Sept. 14, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario.

Season 3 picks up on Bree's wedding day in 2015 as she listens to Stephen's voicemail recording, revealing that her soon-to-be husband, Evan (Branden Cook), cheated on her with her best friend Lucy back in college. Back in the 2009 timeline, Lucy is seen returning to campus from break with a sense of hope that she and Stephen are finally leaving the emotional warfare and manipulation behind. But when Stephen continues to hold Lucy's secrets over her head, things start to get uglier than ever.

Episodes 1-3 of "Tell Me Lies" Season 3 unravel the web of lies between Lucy's friend group, and fans can expect major reveals, the start of new friendships, the fizzling out of other relationships, a new romantic pairing, a surprise pregnancy, and so much more deranged drama.

Ahead of the Season 3 premiere, USA TODAY caught up with Van Patten, Oppenheimer and D'Angelo to break down the twisted relationship between Lucy and Alex.

Who is Alex on 'Tell Me Lies'? Meet actor Costa D'Angelo

Lucy meets a new boy, Alex, in Season 3 of "Tell Me Lies."

Lucy and Alex first meet when Bree and Pippa (Sonia Mena) buy anxiety pills from him to help Lucy because she's having a panic attack. What brought on the panic attack, you ask? Stephen's manipulation tactics.

In Episode 3, titled "Repent," Bree invites Alex to a house party where she and Pippa encourage Lucy to hook up with someone new and find a rebound after her latest fallout with Stephen. According to Bree, Alex isn't the relationship type anyway. Although Lucy feels Alex "could not be less interested in me," she runs after him as he's leaving the party, "I'm coming with you."

At Alex's apartment, as the two are mid-hookup, Lucy's insecurities peek through: "Are you actually into this?" Alex responds and says he can't be "that guy" if she needs someone to be reassuring after her breakup with Stephen. The two go back and forth, and Lucy ends up walking out of his apartment.

"He's definitely a sexual interest," Oppenheimer says. "They're never trying to be in a relationship, so that cleared up the challenge of making us root for them as a couple; that was off the table."

For Van Patten, Episode 3 of "Tell Me Lies" was "really intense." She adds that the new storyline with Lucy and Alex has spun "the show into a completely different vibe that is very overt and tangible as opposed to before, when it's been kind of just more ambiguous and sneaky, and you can't put your finger on it." The rest of the season will end up a completely "different vibe," Van Patten says.

From left: Spencer House, Catherine Missal, Sonia Mena, Alicia Crowder, Jackson White, Meaghan Oppenheimer, Grace Van Patten, and Branden Cook attend the "Tell Me Lies" Season 3 screening at The Corner Store on Jan. 12, 2026 in New York City.Costa D'Angelo on filming those 'Tell Me Lies' sex scenes with Grace Van Patten

In the final minutes of the episode, after a heated conversation with Stephen, Lucy is visibly out of sorts, and as a way to avoid her feelings, she runs back to Alex. "I know you think I'm pathetic," Lucy tells Alex when she gets there. "It's fine if you think I'm pathetic." Fully ignoring the red flags, she has sex with him.

"For me, there were so many different kinds of sex scenes that Alex and Lucy had" in Season 3, D'Angelo teases. "It started very transactional, and you know, it's an agreement." But "lines are blurred, and people are lying, and things come out, and it becomes a different kind of physical interaction," he says.

For Van Patten, those emotionally loaded and intense sex scenes become a turning point for Lucy. "She's actually really vulnerable and kind of thinks she might be getting what she deserves," she says, "And you see her punishing herself a lot."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who is Alex on Hulu's 'Tell Me Lies'?

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