'Tell Me a Story' Season 2 Episode 4: Are Tucker, Kyle cut from the same cloth of predators? Both are deranged
Spoilers for ‘Tell Me a Story’ Season 2 Episode 4, ‘Number One Fan’
The storyline of the second season of ‘Tell Me a Story’ has introduced two creepy men. Both are stalkers. Both are violent. And both have unique justifications for their actions. But are they both the same? Is one more dangerous than the other? This is what we’ll try to figure out.
The first is Tucker Reed (Paul Wesley), a writer who stalks and later captures and imprisons a woman called Olivia Moon (Danielle Campbell). He feeds her. Talks to her warmly. And with the exception of one occasion where he loses his temper after she tries to escape, he is nice to her (all things considering). He treats her like a muse of sorts. He needs her help with writing. Not just for material, but also as a form of addiction. He likes that he can see her trapped in his basement. He can sleep better knowing that she’s there.
But there’s a deeper, more complex reason behind why he does what he does. We see in episode 4 that he tries to recreate his life with his now-dead twin sister with her. He decorates her prison with artifacts from his childhood. He needs to hold her to sleep. There is nothing sexual about his feelings for her at all (as of yet). He just wants to have what he lost as a young boy.
But we also know that he has tried this before. It is implied that he has killed two women before Olivia and presumably, he tried to find the same relationship with them as well. He was unsuccessful and that kind of sets a path for us to chart -- at what point will he break again, and at what point would that prove to be fatal for Olivia.
The other person is a man called Kyle Verafield (Casey Thomas Brown). Kyle is depicted as an unhinged fan of the singer Ashley Rose (Natalie Alyn Lind). We see him burn himself after Ashley gets burnt when a car-bomb explodes. We see him torture himself to feel the same pain Ashley feels. And we see him go to tremendous lengths to get to Ashley. He feels moved by her music and this feels it okay to assume that they have a connection. He stalks her. He enters her home after seducing her friend and manager. He attacks the private security guards. And ultimately, gets shot to death by Beau (Eka Darville), Ashley’s personal security guard.
But even before his death, it seemed unlikely that he meant to harm Ashley. Sure, he could and would have. But those were not his intentions -- at least in his head. So, are Kyle and Tucker any different from each other?
Both show a high degree of intelligence that’s marred by their emotional traumas. Both seem to be guided by their sole focus to satiate a deep personal need. And both go to whatever means necessary to achieve what they want. So, while Kyle’s story has ended, is it fair to say that he was any more or any less dangerous than Tucker?
No. In many ways, both men are the same. They have different methods. And they have different emotional disabilities. And they have different ideas about what they want. But ultimately, they display the same characteristics and tendencies. And even though Kyle is no longer in the picture, things could have been different had Beau not intervened in time. Ashley Rose could have been locked in his basement. And both would have then been trying to fix themselves in the most perverse manner possible.
New episodes of ‘Tell Me a Story’ Season 2 air every Tuesday at 9 pm ET, only on The CW.