‘One of Us Is Lying’ Stars Break Down What’s Going on With Bronwyn & Nate

[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for One of Us Is Lying Season 1, Episode 3, “One of Us Is Not Like the Others.”]

Things are heating up on Peacock’s YA-inspired murder mystery One of Us Is Lying, and not just on the investigation front.

After the first three episodes of the eight-episode drama dropped, we learned some interesting things about the Bayview Four: honors student Bronwyn (Marianly Tejada), drug dealer Nate (Cooper Van Grootel), baseball player Cooper (Chibuikem Uche) and cheerleader Addy (Annalisa Cochrane). Each of them definitely has plenty to hide — a fact that didn’t escape their late fellow student Simon (Mark McKenna), who was about to spill their darkest secrets on his app, About That, before he was poisoned.

Now, Bronwyn, Cooper, Addy, and Nate are suspects in a homicide case. How will they prove their innocence and protect their secrets? For some, it won’t be that simple. Addy’s fall from grace has already begun as her boyfriend Jake (Barrett Carnahan) now knows she cheated on him. Meanwhile, Bronwyn’s secret — that she cheated and stole papers — is out too, but her parents want her to deny the accusation to save her academic career. We also learned that Nate sold drugs to a girl who was already intoxicated, leading her to an overdose. And Cooper? Well, trouble is already building for the athlete as About That falsely accused him of using performance-enhancing drugs, instead of revealing that he is gay and his “girlfriend” Keeley (Zenia Marshall) is his beard, which is the secret Cooper was expecting (or was it?).

Nicola Dove/Peacock

Either way, now that their secrets are being exposed, the students will be even more compelled to solve the crime and find Simon’s killer. “In Episode 4 you really see the Bayview Four bond,” says Van Grootel. “They now really have to come together as friends because they’re the only ones who understand what [each other] is going through.”

Some — like Bronwyn and Nate — will get even closer than that. In the final scene of Episode 3, Bronwyn and Nate were in their homes on the phone with each other, having a pretty pleasant conversation for two murder suspects. A romance between these two, unsurprisingly, is totally on the table. “They’re attracted to each other, but the traumatic thing that happens in detention draws them closer,” says Tejada. “As the episodes go on, every circumstance, even their secrets dropping, that’s another layer that’s peeled. And they feel like they can own who they are a bit more and be honest about their feelings. They realize that there are deeper feelings there, and they get braver and braver about honoring that and being there for each other.”

Van Grootel adds: “From [that Season 3 scene] on, it just becomes more fruitful and deep [between them].”

That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty for them to overcome, including Bronwyn’s fractured relationship with her little sister, Maeve (Melissa Collazo), who was the culprit who had stolen Simon’s laptop from Bronwyn (who took it out of detention). Bronwyn learned that Maeve stole the computer to try and save her big sis’s secret from coming out, thinking she could log onto the app and shut it down because — dun dun dunnn — Maeve was in love with Simon and actually knew him pretty darn well.

“For Bronwyn, it’s just like the biggest bomb has been dropped on her,” says Tejada. “She has no idea. It’s really hard for Bronwyn to see her as not the fragile little sister who has been through a terminal illness and has overcome that and wants to live her life. I think it’s a bit of that older sister-younger sister dynamic where the younger sister wants to help out and be in on everything and Bronwyn’s like, ‘No, I have to protect you.'”

Nicola Dove/Peacock

And talking about protecting, Bronwyn and Nate have big plans in Episode 4 that might wind up making things worse for the Bayview Four. “Bronwyn and Nate do something really heroic that they think will save the day — and then it doesn’t,” Tejada teases. “I can’t wait for people to see it.”

Does it relate to who they have their eye on as Simon’s killer? That list is admittedly long, but Tejada notes: “We start noticing that Cooper Clay has been hiding some things from us.” Watch out, Coop!