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Last season, Lucy falsely claims she was a victim of sexual assault in order to protect what actually happened to her best friend Pippa. What was important to you in advancing that controversial storyline for the third season?<\/strong><\/p>\n The main thing that I wanted to be very careful about was Lucy\u2019s intention behind it all, and continuing to remind the audience that she did not do this for attention. She didn\u2019t do it for any malicious reason. She didn\u2019t even do it just to get Chris in trouble. She did it to protect her friend. And it was a dumb thing to do, but it came from a good place. I really wanted to be careful that we weren\u2019t making any kind of statement that girls lie [about sexual assault] because I don\u2019t think that girls really do usually lie about this, but this is such a unique and specific situation. And making sure that Lucy continued to reject any public sympathy or public attention, so that it never got misconstrued with her liking it or seeking it.<\/p>\n Lucy\u2019s decision regarding Pippa\u2019s assault last season upset fans<\/a> and divided the writers\u2019 room. How much of her season two journey was informed by those intense reactions?<\/strong><\/p>\n It continued to be a divisive storyline in the room. I love our audience so much, but I do feel a bit hurt on Lucy\u2019s behalf at how hard they are on her. They have asked for a lot of punishment for her, which I don\u2019t think she deserves. Audiences are just harder on female characters. That has become very obvious to me while writing the show. So I was posing a question to them with this season: are you happy now? It was about getting her to a place where she was a caged animal. There can\u2019t be too much time to think of other escape routes for her. It has to be right then and there. He\u2019s going to call Bree right then. Otherwise, it falls apart.<\/p>\n The audience might think they know what they want, but it\u2019s not always what\u2019s best for the storytelling. But people send me all the memes, all the reaction videos, and I fucking love those. There are moments when you\u2019re in the trenches, so stressed, and then you get the funniest TikTok video ever about a reaction. It gives you a bit of bounce in your step.<\/p>\n