Euphoria - A Realist's Review

From Zendaya's Emmy award-winning performance to its use of makeup, music and cinematography, Euphoria has taken the media by storm. Though this show may be guided towards an older teen audience, the meaning behind each scene is much deeper than it looks. Euphoria is narrated by Rue Bennett (played by Zendaya), who is a Queer teen suffering from addiction after the death of her father. Through Rue’s narration, we are taken through the lives of her friends, from her childhood best friend Lexi to her drug dealer Fez. Through Sam Levinson’s use of cinematography in this HBO series, we are able to make connections to each character and ourselves, especially as teens. When first watching Euphoria, you may expect this “teeny-bop” TV show full of drama and “he said, she said'' when in reality viewers are faced with teens reality: the ups and downs of mental illness along with drug addiction, abuse, homophobia and much more, in a way that doesn't sugarcoat it. Euphoria is raw and risky, which is why I believe my peers enjoy it so much. Some adults and parents have a different view of the show, deeming it “too much.” They say Euphoria is normalizing and romanticizing nudity, sex, and drugs when it's actually raising awareness and giving teens are real show to relate to, no bullshit, if anything.

After Euphoria premiered in 2019 we were left wanting more, but unfortunately, with the COVID outbreak, the filming of Euphoria had to be postponed. However, the wait was definitely worth it as Season 2 premiered on January 9th, 2022 and has had five amazing episodes so far. “Stand Still Like A Hummingbird,” the latest episode of Euphoria, has already sparked a lot of controversies. With the season already past its midpoint, each character's story has been connecting and interloping into each other, but in the recent episode, we took a dive into focusing on Rue and what she has been going through. Though Rue is the narrator, a lot of the episodes in Season 2 have been focused on Cassie and Maddy’s dynamic (two best friends in a constant power struggle), Nate (Maddy’s abusive ex and Cassie's hookup-buddy), Jules (Rue’s recent ex-girlfriend) and Elliot (Jules and Rue’s new friend, and Jules recent hookup-buddy); It's complicated, I know. But instead of focusing on top layer high school drama, we took a deeper dive into the reality of addiction and how family dynamics are influenced by grief.

Instead of these major plot points happening over the course of days within the show, everything takes place in one day/night, which at first I thought was very overwhelming, until I realized that's what adds to the experience of watching the show. Zendaya does a jaw-dropping job at portraying the anger, sadness, fear and pain Rue goes through while going through withdrawal. This is one of the things I enjoyed about this episode: it was real. Euphoria is real, and isn’t afraid to show Rue how she is, not romanticizing the reality of being an addict and suffering with mental health problems. The episode opens with Leslie (Rue's mother) telling Rue that she knows that she has been using again after telling her that she has been sober. Rue automatically blames her younger sister Gia for “rating her out.” As the scene progresses into a full-blown argument, we see Rue gaslighting and attempting to manipulate her mom into believing that she was just smoking weed, when in reality she had a whole suitcase full of pills and other drugs that she also manipulated someone else into getting. Rue is told that Jules was actually the one who told her mother about the drugs which then sets Rue off, for the next five minutes we see Rue go from cursing her mother out to crying on the floor in physical pain because she doesn't know where the suitcase is. As the episode progresses Rue is seen running over town to find drugs and avoid her mother from taking her to rehab. She stops by Cassie and Lexi’s house (who are sisters), casually outs Cassie for having sex with Nate in front of Maddy and then tries to steal pills from their bathroom. When I saw this scene, I genuinely gasped. The audacity Rue had to drop that big of a bomb on their whole friend group just to distract everyone from the fact that she was running away from her mother was a side of her we have never seen before. After running away from their house, she also heads to her ex-drug-dealer and friend Fez’s house, where she attempts to steal drugs from his comatose grandmother and he has to kick her out. She has officially hit rock bottom when she shows up at a dangerous drug dealer's house after running from the police in a very well-directed chase scene.

Although this episode is a win, in my opinion, others’ opinions varied. When asked the question “How did you feel about the last episode of Euphoria?” through a poll on Instagram, these were the responses I collected.

“I felt like everyone was overhyping, I was disappointed”

“Best ep of s2, Rue had an amazing and emotional performance”

“I loved it so much I was crying within the first like 5 minutes the acting was fucking incredible”

“It's the first episode this season without nudity and it's the best one so far”

“It reveals how addiction affects everyone around you“

As you can see, our peers have pretty similar opinions about this new episode. It was raunchy, raw, and real, definitely worth watching. Instead of focusing on the top layer drama of Cassie and Maddy, it dove deep into the reality of what this show is really supposed to be about, not a teen drama show, a real show that speaks the unspoken and brings light to the uncomfortable struggles we deem taboo. In conclusion, I absolutely loved the latest episode, giving it a 10 out of 10, and cannot wait to see what the next episode has in store for us this Sunday.