In 2002, in the heady days of the reality TV boom, a blueblood playboy and an unlikely 9/11 hero team up to produce an ingeniously original cooking show. 

What they create is not just a runaway hit, but a bond of unexpected depth and complexity.

WE CREATE OUR OWN REALITY

We live in an age where everything is subjective. You can create a different persona for every social media platform, avoid any perspective that makes you uncomfortable, and anything you disagree with can be dismissed as “fake news.” Everything is subjective; there is no such thing as truth.

SO YOU MUST LIE is a dramatic television series that takes us back to the origins of this not-so-brave new world: the heady days of the early 2000s, when reality TV was a shiny new looking glass that reflected anything but reality, and America ate it up with a spoon. The American president led us into a brutal war based on manufactured evidence and insisted it was for our own good. We too easily forget when this rabbit hole was first dug, but it has consumed our culture.

New york City. JUNE, 2002

The series follows an unlikely pair - Tyler Preston, a blue blood playboy, and Alex Geary, an accidental 9/11 hero - as they team up to produce an ingeniously original upscale cooking show. What they create is not just a runaway hit, but a bond of unexpected depth and complexity.

SO YOU MUST LIE is a witty and insightful look at the time of Usher, of Paris Hilton, and Juicy Couture tracksuits. 

Befitting a story about two twentysomethings with all their drive and hubris, the series brims with playful visual energy - on par with the series ATLANTA and MASTER OF NONE. 

And just below its narcissism and somewhat tacky surface is a biting examination of an era when American culture crossed the Rubicon and became the choose-your-own-reality carnival that it is today.

ALEX GEARY

A Jersey kid turned skate rat and then hipster, Alex, now 26, is a living miracle. He's the sole survivor of Windows of the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center where he was working as a line chef on 9/11. His near impossible escape from the collapsing North Tower that day earns him a measure of fame as a local hero. The spotlight warms to him thanks to his easygoing charm and telegenic good looks, and in the months following the national tragedy he pivots from being a mere news item to serving as a guest chef at first responder events and morning TV cooking segments. Beneath the self-possessed and quietly magnetic exterior, though, is a young man who's racked by insecurities, self-contempt and a bitter envy of others. These frailties are especially corrosive as his fifteen minutes of fame tick away, and he struggles to maintain his notoriety and even make ends meet. He's in a rut far from any crossroads when Tyler Preston enters his life and puts him on the pedestal of a new cooking show specially fashioned for his hero persona.

TYLER PRESTON

Scion of the gilded family that made its fortune with the luxury hotel bearing its name, Tyler, 27, is the picture of New York blue blood. While he lives in the penthouse of the majestic Preston, he's never had any interest in actually running the place, leaving the executive duties to his older siblings and instead making a name for himself as impresario of the hottest Lower East Side nightclub, Mr. Box. That name turns toxic, though, when a club kid OD’s and dies on the premises, and Tyler is raked over the coals with a host of violations and a wrongful death suit. Thanks to the best legal team money can buy, he is exonerated by the skin of his teeth, dodging what could have been years in prison. Shaken but undeterred by the scandal, his entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He's in the midst of staging a comeback with a new nightclub when a lightning bolt of inspiration strikes: create a reality TV cooking show (the likes of which didn't exist in 2002) with Alex Geary as the star. Tyler's laser focus and brimming confidence are amplified by his transactional nature and vicious tongue, and while fiercely loyal to the few he loves, he suffers not a single fool in his field of vision. In the privacy of his own bubble, he's an inveterate hedonist with chemical indulgences and pleasures of the flesh not likely to be accepted (or understood) by his moneyed peers.

GENEVA KEENE

As the "coffee cake heiress," Geneva, 25, owes her life of luxury to Keene Kakes, the baked goods brand found in every supermarket on the eastern seaboard. But she has also become a celebrity in her own right. Her hit reality TV show, Keene of Hearts, depicts the travails of a young socialite looking for love in the big city and is one of the most talked about shows on cable. While it's obvious to the discerning viewer that she'll never choose a Mr. Right (effectively ending the series), such fickle failure to commit has little effect on the show's popularity. It's one of the first reality TV vehicles of its kind, and Geneva is shrewdly building her "brand," a term not yet commonly associated with one's persona and the ability to capitalize on it. On camera and in the tabloids she's a bubblehead with a preternatural pout and babydoll voice, but behind the scenes she's grounded, witty and well-read.

DEREK WHITEHALL

While Derek, 27, hasn't been blessed with looks, height or even social graces, his family's stratospheric wealth more than compensates for any deficits. His purported career is in finance, but he has little facility and even less passion for it. As Tyler's best prep school bro, Tyler's coattails are all that Derek needs to feel worthy and, most of all, cool. And as a minority partner in Tyler's new nightclub, Derek is counting the days until he's a big shot with the power to summon supermodels and decline bottle service to douchebags. In fact, he feels the future holds all sorts of promise. He's Geneva's current TV suitor, and the production of Keene of Hearts has overtaken his sprawling Amagansett manse, along with a few dozen models and mimbos bused in for background. He finds himself starstruck by all the fuss, and his amusement soon leads to delusions that he actually stands a chance of winning her affections.