Euphoria's Downfall Can Be Traced Back To One Moment
by Nina Starner · /FilmContent Warning: This article contains discussions of addiction and domestic violence.
Sam Levinson's hit HBO series "Euphoria" has faced its share of controversy over the years — some of it overblown, and some of it quite fair. Anyone who's ever watched the high school drama knows that, to put it generously, this show is absolutely bonkers. (I was admittedly pretty lame in high school, but I didn't even know what ketamine was.) The show's heightened nature comes with the territory, considering that it ostensibly centers on Zendaya's Rue Bennett, who begins the show leaving a rehabilitation facility for a hard-drug addiction and returning to high school. Still, the show jumped the proverbial shark really, really quickly in an incident between the series' resident bad boy, Nate Jacobs (recently minted Oscar nominee Jacob Elordi), and a random guy named Tyler (Lukas Gage). And the episode where the series story went completely off the rails happened in the show's second-ever episode, which aired all the way back in 2019.
After Nate and his on-again, off-again girlfriend Maddy Perez (Alexia Demie) split for the millionth time, she hooks up with Tyler in full view of everybody at a party to make Nate jealous. This works, and what happens next breaks the show. Nate goes to Tyler's house, accuses him of improper sexual conduct (because Maddy is 17), and violently assaults him to the point where Tyler needs medical attention. A few episodes later, after Nate attacks his own girlfriend and chokes her, he breaks into Tyler's house again and convinces him to take responsibility for Maddy's assault, too. So why does this break the show? Well, Nate beats a guy and gets him sent to prison, and nobody ever discusses it again, nor do cops ever question Nate about this. Seriously?
Euphoria continued to go off the rails in its second season
If you thought that after its admittedly solid first season (aside from the whole Nate and Tyler mess), "Euphoria" might try to buckle down and course-correct its own absurdity during season 2, you would be absolutely and incredibly wrong. Season 2 of "Euphoria" actually ratchets up the insanity considerably, which is really frustrating when you consider that there's some fascinating and grounded stuff in here too.
Not only is the episode "Stand Still Like a Hummingbird" the installment that won Zendaya her record-setting second Emmy Award for the show, a deeply moving and genuinely thrilling episode that sends Rue running around Los Angeles in a panic after she loses a suitcase full of drugs, the push-and-pull between Nate, Maddy, and Maddy's best friend Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney) makes for an exciting love triangle. Still, "Euphoria" manages to undercut all of this by being so patently absurd that it takes you right out of any real or emotional moments.
Take "Stand Still Like a Hummingbird," where, at the end, Rue has to tell a dangerous drug dealer named Laurie (Martha Kelly) that she lost that aforementioned suitcase full of drugs. Martha tells Rue, in no uncertain terms, that she's in massive debt, but Rue sneaks out and ... everything is fine for a suspiciously long time. Throw in a school play that has a budget of, I'm guessing, one million dollars (it has pyrotechnics and a revolving stage like "Hamilton," for Christ's sake!) and you've got so much disbelief to suspend that it becomes borderline impossible to do so.
Will any of this get resolved or fixed in season 3? We know that Rue does, in fact, tangle with Laurie again — but that's not the only way "Euphoria" needs to course-correct.
Can Euphoria remedy any of this in season 3?
When we, as a TV-watching society, look back on "Euphoria," we're not going to see it as grounded or realistic. We also likely won't look back on it as a particularly good one. Part of the problem is creator Sam Levinson, who reportedly doesn't use a writers' room and makes life on set wildly difficult (a point many outlets have covered, including The Hollywood Reporter). As someone who's watched "Euphoria" from the beginning, I feel uniquely qualified to say that I think Levinson is a man whose imagination for interesting or surprising storylines is so limited that he leans really hard on shock value, which is how we get here.
Even if season 3 of "Euphoria" does, as we saw in the trailer, address the situation with Laurie and Rue, we can't go back to the show's very beginning and undo the poor foundation it laid from the jump. There are several other questions to deal with, too. Where does Kat (Barbie Ferreira) go? What happened with Maddy and her boss, Samantha (Minka Kelly)? What will the show do with Fezco and Nate's dad, Cal, now that Angus Cloud and Eric Dane have passed away? In any case, the third season of "Euphoria" kicks off on April 12 at 9 P.M. EST on HBO and HBO Max.
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.