Euphoria (HBO) (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Good to have this one back.

Who would have thought that the drug dealer at the convenience mart would have such an engrossing backstory?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I think this show might be even more intense and fucked up this season than it was last season.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I don't know if the second episode for this season dropped yet, but the first was pretty good. Once again, the show is filled with drugs and soft porn.

Decent start to the second season. I am enjoying this show.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This week's episode really drove home the fact that we're watching a slow motion car crash: we know what's coming, but we can't look away.

It's no coincidence that Rue so thoroughly alienates Ali, her sponsor and the only adult authority figure in her life who has had any recent positive effect on her choices and her wellbeing. On some level, Rue knows that her becoming a drug dealer is going to end spectacularly badly. And Rue knows that Ali knows that and will tell her that. So she drives him away before he gets the chance to.

The Rue/Jules/Elliot triangle is interesting, because there's all sorts of weird layers of attraction built in there. Rue and Elliot bond over drug use, which Jules doesn't know about. Jules and Elliot have a sexual undercurrent, which Rue doesn't know about. And when they three of them are together, they have a good time but don't really trust one another.

Eric Dane does really great work as Cal. We met Cal in the series premiere as a literal child rapist, and then so much of Dane's performance since then has been about humanizing him. This episode goes a lot further down that path, with us learning that he was in love in high school, right on the cusp of embracing his sexuality, and then Marsha's pregnancy shoved him back into the closet. And that gap that has persisted since, between who he really is and who he's forced himself to be, drives so much of his abhorrent behavior. And Dane is terrific at the reaction shot, as his preversity -- and his son's sociopathy -- put him in one unbelievable situation after another.

I wasn't a huge fan of all the deconstruction this week. When a TV character acknowledges that they're a TV character, it makes it harder for me to invest in their story. That being said, I hope we get to see the highlights from Lexie's play. She's been one of the few more or less well-adjusted characters on this show, and she's had a front row seat for a lot of the craziness.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I'm beginning to think they had a running dare to see how many penises they could pack into this season.

Cal's meltdown was entirely foreseeable given his journey so far. What was revealing in this episode was that his cruelty is baked into his "true" self. His morality and his ethical principles are part of the civilized public persona he has spent the last few decades perfecting.

When Rue overdosed (again), it was telling that the thought that was left after the drugs had pushed out everything else is her lingering grief over her father's death. She was genetically predestined to be an addict, but I'm not sure I'm as confident as she is that she would have turned to drugs even if her father hadn't succumbed to a terminal illness. Part of why her grief is still so unresolved is because of how consistently she's used drugs to avoid grappling with it.

I don't know how I thought the love triangle was going to come to a head at Maddy's birthday party, but that gross out extravaganza in the hot tub definitely wasn't it. Does Maddy only find out about Cassie and Nate at opening night of Lexi's play?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Adam,

Are you and I the only two on this forum watching this show?

I just finished watching this week's episode which was one of the strongest of the entire series thus far.

I thought your recap summary was spot-on.

Euphoria remains an exceptional, well-acted, and lensed series that I look forward to watching each week. In particular, I have downloaded a lot of the exceptional music that has been used in the show.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Nah I'm also here. I just don't comment on the show in this thread.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Nah I'm also here. I just don't comment on the show in this thread.

Joel, good to know you are among us. Are you at least enjoying the series?

 

[Lord Dalek]

Joel, good to know you are among us. Are you at least enjoying the series?

Oh I love it. Even with all the penii!

 

[Steve Armbrust]

I love the show too. I have no idea whether it accurately reflects today's teenage experience (and, if it does, I'm so thankful I don't have teens). But it is really powerful. And the music is great too. I can't remember the last time I heard Gerry Rafferty.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I wouldn't say the first season glamorized addiction, because there was plenty of darkness then too, but it did center around beautiful people enjoying one another under magical lighting.

This season has steered much more directly into the grimness, though. I'd like to think that tonight's episode was Rue's rock bottom moment, but I'm not so sure that it was. Zendaya was fearless, though, revealing the addict within Rue stripped away of all the more sympathetic layers. She said some truly unforgivable shit as she lashed out at anyone in her path.

That Jules would react to learning that Rue has relapsed by telling Rue's mom was honestly something that never occurred to me as an option, mainly because the adults in this show are mostly non-entities. That Jules would do that, knowing that Rue would hate her for it, showed a level of maturity that I wasn't sure Jules had reached yet.

The scene at Cassie and Lexi's house was darted back and forth between hilarious and harrowing. Cassie wandering carelessly into Rue's intervention, and that being the reason her tryst with Nate was exposed, was another unexpected choice.

And then the rest of the episode was just Rue sprinting into the heart of darkness. There's something about Laurie's monotone matter-of-factness that is far more chilling than if she was a screamer and a yeller. Rue waking up and finding herself locked inside Laurie's apartment should have been a wake up call. Rue got a number of lucky breaks this episode, which to a rational thinking person would be a sign that it's time to straighten up. But Rue is not in a rational state of mind right now.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Earlier this week, HBO renewed the show for a third season. While I think the entire ensemble is really good, there is no question that Rue/Zendaya is the center of the story. So on some level we know that she can't die as long as the show continues, because I don't know how the show would function if she weren't in it. But the show sure goes as far up to the line of Rue being in mortal danger as it can without ending itself.

I was getting kind of tired a while ago and I thought "It's probably best to go to bed after I finish Euphoria." Although of course the episode is going to stay on HBO Max indefinitely, so I could have watched tomorrow, I wanted to make sure to watch it tonight so I didn't run across a spoiler.

As soon as the episode started, I woke right up. Now, suddenly, I'm less tired. This episode was completely emotionally draining. I found it deeply disturbing and utterly terrifying.

I also think it might just be the best episode they've ever had. It is certainly the best thing since the specials, which I absolutely loved.

I might be in the minority here, but the sex and nudity is not why I watch the show. I loved the first season because I was engaged in the characters. There might very well have been drugs and sex among classmates at my high school, but if so I didn't encounter it. This does not reflect my teenage experience at all. But the characters were really well-drawn, so I found them and their dilemmas interesting and investable. The R-rated stuff is of course part of the show and that's fine, but it was never the main appeal to me. I loved watching Rue and Jules, which is probably why I thought the two specials were fantastic. I loved that Rue's episode was primarily her talking to Ali, and I loved that Jules had her therapy session in a chair, because it allowed for us to really sit with those characters. The second season has felt a little busy in comparison.

It has been up and down for me so far; there have been some great moments, but it hasn't seemed particularly focused. This episode changed that with its laser focus on Rue and her intervention, and the result is just shattering. Zendaya already has one Emmy for this show, but I would not be surprised in the least if this episode gets her another one. The show was firing on all cylinders tonight -- the writing, the craftsmanship, the performances, especially hers. I almost felt at times like this was so ugly and awful and private that maybe I shouldn't be watching it. But I also didn't want to look away because I was so intensely into what I was seeing on screen.

I think most people expected that Maddie would eventually find out about Cassie and Nate, but I didn't see that coming. This essentially felt like a bottle episode with Rue, even though she goes through a lot of different locations in it. But the fact that it also found a natural and surprising way to bring in that other plot thread was a really great piece of writing. I wish that the whole season was that cohesive.

On another note, Zendaya has really been having a moment lately between the relatively compressed releases of this season of Euphoria, plus Spider-Man and Dune. I can look at all three of those performances and see that it's Zendaya; they didn't drastically alter her basic appearance for them. But she has been really great at centering herself as each character and finding different ways to portray each of them. I don't look at Rue and think about MJ, and I don't look at MJ and think about Chani. I know that performing a variety of different types of roles is the job of an actor, but sometimes certain characters seem to run together. So, it is an especially notable achievement for her to have done so well with each of these recently.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Give Zendaya all the Emmys.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Entertainment Weekly published an interview with Zendaya about this episode. Obviously, I wouldn't recommend reading it if you haven't seen the episode yet.

'Euphoria' star Zendaya breaks down Rue's 'painful' intervention scene: 'It's like a war zone'

Euphoria star and EP Zendaya unpacks the intense scene opening the season 2 episode "Stand Still Like the Hummingbird."

ew.com

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Between the Superbowl and the Olympics, I didn't get to last tonight's episode until this evening.

I really, really liked it. It's the first time we've gotten glimmers of Rue looking at her life with any sort of objectivity. Even during the first season, while she was staying sober for Jules, her narration always had layers of self-deception and self-justification. The phone call to Ali was beautiful, because Rue was truly and openly sincere in her apology. And then Ali, despite the horrible things she'd said to him, had the grace to accept her apology. And then, when he came over later, he was just perfect and sized up the family's needs quickly: Rue would keep for the time being, since she was being watched. Rue's mom needed a break after the hell Rue had just put her through. That left Rue's little sister Gia, who's never the problem and so is never the focus. So Ali gives her a little bit of that focus that she needs and has been lacking. And he gives her permission to be angry at Rue. Unless Gia can accept and come to terms with her anger toward Rue, she's never going to have a healthy relationship with Rue again. I love Colman Domingo, who always brings such depth and presence to his characters.

I'm also loving the growing relationship between Fezco and Lexi, which doesn't make any sense at all on paper but is innocent and warm and lovely in practice. In the midst of incredibly fucked up lives, they're carving out this little island or bubble of happiness for themselves, for as long as it lasts.

Setting aside Cal, the one parent who's gotten a lot of screentime and character development since the beginning, I think we saw more from the other parents in meaningful ways this week than all of the other episodes combined.

The conversations between Nate and his mom were particularly illuminating. Her marriage has just blown apart, and her first feeling is relief. And in the relief, and sense of liberation, she's drinking heavily. And that makes her more honest than she might have otherwise been. And while her and Cal clearly have not been the most successful of parents, it's interesting that they both -- in their moment of honesty -- zero in on the same concerns when it comes to Nate. And the tension underlying that conversation is whether Nate is ready to listen or whether Nate is going to lash out. And it sort of ping pongs between the two as the conversation goes forward. We also get more information: Whatever happened to change Nate from a sweet, kind kid into something much darker happened when he was around eight or nine. The most obvious answer is that he was molested then -- perhaps by Cal. But Cal, despite the incident with Jules, doesn't present as a pedophile. And knowing this show, it's probably going to be something more complex and less expected.

Either way, the scene where Nate gets the disc (with the recording of Cal's hookup with Jules from the series premiere) back from Maddy is absolutely horrific. Nate is an expert at being cruel and vicious in the most intimate and personal ways.

And yet, I believed the sincerity of the following scene too, when he turns over the disc to Jules. It's a frank conversation, and doesn't fix any of immensely cruel shit he did to her. But it's still a positive step he wouldn't have taken before Cal moved out.

Kat's breakup with her boring boyfriend was some cowardly, manipulative shit. I was glad the show let him see through her BS and reflect it back at her in a frank and assertive and clearheaded way.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Whatever happened to change Nate from a sweet, kind kid into something much darker happened when he was around eight or nine.

It's been a long time since I watched season one, so I might not be totally correct on this point. But I think that is when Nate found the collection of videos of Cal with people other than his mom. If I recall correctly, we got a Rue-narrated flashback at some point during season one which showed Nate becoming aware of his dad's collection. So that's what I thought it was. I'd have to go back and look to find it, though.

Edit: I found it, @Adam Lenhardt. Here it is from a quick YouTube search. Rue says he was 11 here, but this might still work.

 

[Lord Dalek]

This is downright hillarious in its flatout tonedeafness.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Holy shit. We've been building toward Lexi's play for a few episodes now, and it definitely did not disappoint.

My favorite part was all of the reactions from the audience of the various people being depicted, and what it said about them:

• When Lexi and Cassie's mom realized that she was being played by a dude in drag, and absolutely fucking loved it, I'm not going to lie it made me like her a lot more. We've seen a lot of school play scenes where parents are there to support their children, but I'm not sure we've ever seen a parent genuinely enjoy what their child was putting on as much as Lexi's mom.
• Maddy at first being suspicious when she realizes the play is a thinly fictionalized retelling of their lives, and then getting what Lexi was going for, and then enjoying the sheer audacity with which she humiliated Nate.
• The way Rue smiled during the scenes recounting her middle school friendship with Lexi, it's clear that they really meant something to her too. And then the surprise and respect at the show's figurative and literal climax.
• Kat watching Ethan, who she'd dumped because he was too boring, just fucking totally commit to the most homoerotic dance number of this century, and the shock and delight of it.
• Nate's steadily growing rage as he comes to realize that the joke's on him.
• Cassie, more focused on managing Nate's reaction that hearing what Lexi is trying to say to her. She's going to be furious at Lexi, but not necessarily for the reasons she should be.

All of the scenes we'd gotten with Cassie and Lexi's father previously had been from Cassie's point of view, and she'd kind of idolized him so she remembered those moments through rose-colored glasses. Clearly, Lexi remembers them differently. I don't know that we knew their dad was a heroin addict before this episode.

Part of why the "Hero" dance sequence was so wounded is because it pokes at a question the show's been asking since Nate tormented Jules during the first season: Is Nate gay, and just really, really in denial about it? His nightmare during one of the real world moments intercut with the play also raised questions: Nate goes from fucking Cassie to fucking Jules to his father fucking Jules to his father fucking him. That might add fuel to the theory that Nate was sexually abused by Cal. But it might also just speak to his hatred for Cal, and how his feelings for Jules have been so ardently repressed because he's repulsed by anything that makes him feel like his father.

The scenes at Fezco's place as he gets ready for Lexi's play are also ominous. Clearly whatever trap Custer is laying for Fezco is very close to being sprung. And clearly Faye's loyalties are conflicted. And clearly Ash knows something's up now, even if he doesn't know what. And I'm not sure Custer and Faye are smart enough to know that Ash is on to them. All we know heading into next week's finale is that Fezco never made it to Lexi's play, and he adores Lexi so it couldn't have been his choice.

Speaking of next week's finale: How the hell are we to the finale already? I know HBO's seasons are short but it feels like this season just started. Definitely glad the show's been renewed for Season 3.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

A tragic ending for Fezo and Ash, who were condemned to their fates by their upbringing.

But a surprisingly optimistic ending for Rue; she may very well relapse next season, but for the first time in the series she's clean for herself rather than for some external reason. That's an important corner turned, mentally.

 

[Jake Lipson]

But a surprisingly optimistic ending for Rue

Somewhat, for the reason you stated. However, there is still the looming threat of Laurie the drug dealer and the suitcase of drugs that Rue's mom flushed. I'm really surprised that Sam Levinson didn't touch on that plot line this week. Her threat to Rue earlier in the season about having her kidnapped seemed very serious and I figured it would come back around. Instead, we haven't seen Laurie since Rue's intervention/running around town rock bottom episode, and that storyline feels very much like it is dangling.

The fact that Rue told us she stayed clean for the rest of the school year would also seem to indicate that there will be some kind of time jump at the beginning of next season.