‘Tell Me A Story’ Season 2 Episode 3 leads to shocking revelations about Tucker Reed
The review contains spoilers for episode 3. So, if you have not caught up with the latest happenings on ‘Tell Me A Story’ Season 2, then catch it right away!
What do we know about Tucker Reed? For one, he is a struggling author, striving to finish his novel. But much to the disappointment of his publisher, he has not been able to keep up with his speed, nor the quality of his writing. Slacking in his work is not only frustrating him but also affecting his relationship with his fiancée, Maddie.
Imagine, if you are working hard to finish your story and you don’t seem to get anywhere close to completing it, how would it affect your state of mind? Tucker has problems that only he can solve.
So, what does he do? He decides to go all organic and create ‘real experiences’ for himself that would inspire him to develop his story better. He takes the path of what many authors would have taken at some point, and gets into ‘method writing’.
Quite like method acting, method writing uses a technique of writing in which the author identifies emotionally with a character in the story and assumes that character's persona in the telling. To fulfill the requirements of what method writing entails, Tucker starts stalking a new girl in the city, Olivia Moon.
He learns about her background, why she has moved from Oklahoma to Nashville, where she stays, and everything about her personal life.
With the pretext of returning her lost cat, Tucker meets Olivia at her house and kidnaps her. At first look, it appears to us that Tucker might have some past score to settle, which would probably come to light later in the series. But as episode 3 unravels, we are shocked to find the real reasons behind such a violent act.
Tucker has no sexual or emotional interest in Olivia. To him, she is just a subject, a subject she can use for his story. Kidnapping her will only make her reactions so real that it will reflect perfectly in his writing. This is even proven when we see him watching his captive and penning down simultaneously.
But what was most disturbing was the rose garden Tucker showed to Olivia, while torturing her. We cannot help but think that ‘Kate’ and ‘Melanie’, as he had named his rose bushes, are nothing but dead bodies buried. And we will also not be surprised if we ever learn that those two women were at one point kidnapped by Tucker, just so he could find inspirations for his work.
While method writing might be the most natural way to get inspired, Tucker’s ‘method’ is a few notches above and beyond of what might be considered legitimate.
'Tell Me A Story' Season 2 airs every Thursday midnight, only on CBS All Access.