As I begin writing this almost immediately after finishing the season two finale of “Euphoria,” I can’t help but feel an incredibly strange amount of relief. There’s something uniquely personal and all-consuming about sitting down and watching “Euphoria,” so the narrated reassurance that Rue continues to do okay just before the credits roll feels like a deep exhale. We don’t have to worry anymore, at least until season three.
The episode starts by unraveling that “what happened to Fez?” question that last week left unanswered. As fellow sketchy criminal Custer, the guy who helped cover up Mouse’s murder in episode one, begins to ask questions about said murder, Faye subtly tells Fez to be quiet – Custer is recording the conversation and the police are listening. Ashtray, getting suspicious, stabs Custer in the throat and kills him. Fez says he’ll take the blame, since the police will be there in a matter of minutes. Ashtray refuses and locks himself in the bathroom with an exorbitant amount of guns and ammunition. In the ensuing struggle, Ashtray kills an officer after playing dead and is subsequently shot himself. Fez also sustained a gunshot, and it’s unclear whether he survived.
In the second most violent scene of the episode, an irate Cassie crashes the play and begins to yell at her sister on stage. Maddy yells at Cassie, and it escalates into a physical fight on stage. Cassie and Lexi’s mom has to intervene and pause the play. It’s only after Rue gets the crowd to chant Lexi’s name does she feel inspired to continue the show. I’ll admit I got a bit annoyed with the show’s antics this time around that made it increasingly hard to figure out what scenes were real and which only existed in the universe of the play. I’m talking specifically about the incredibly emotional conversation between Rue and Lexi seemingly after the play, in which the pair discuss their fathers. As they share a cathartic hug, we cut to the same scene happening in the play. Did that conversation really happen? Has their friendship been mended after years of neglect? It was both confusing and maddening.
Similarly frustrating was the Nate / Cal reunion. After storming out of the play, Nate enters an warehouse owned by his father. Cal is in there with a few younger companions, but they are quickly asked to leave when Nate begins to speak about his incestuous nightmares. Nate points a gun at his father but then shows him a flash drive that supposedly contains “everything.” We hear cars approaching and can see the flash of police lights. The police thank Nate and arrest Cal. The writing felt uninspired and flat and, rather surprisingly for “Euphoria,” the production felt pulled from a late season of some unspecific network crime drama. That said, it was about the ending I expected from easily the worst storyline of the season.
At the end of the play, Jules approaches Rue and tells her that she loves her and misses her. Rue doesn’t say anything but hugs her and kisses her on the head before getting up and leaving. It’s an unclear resolution, but it was the only way to address their fight without being at least a little bit grounded in reality. It felt exactly appropriate without overdoing it.
After the brilliant special episode co-written by Hunter Schafer, I think it’s likely that any season two storyline for Jules would have been disappointing. That said, it seems that Jules’ character went nowhere and did nothing this season besides hooking up with Elliot and telling Rue’s mom about the drugs. It feels as if the incredible depth of her character and identity was sidelined in favor of the superficial and “Riverdale”-esque Maddy/Cassie/Nate triangle.
This season was an exercise in extremes. On the one hand, Rue’s scenes were hard to watch with their excruciating emotional weight. On the other, the show more or less dropped essential characters (like the aforementioned Jules, but also the more glaring absences of Kat and McKay) in favor of the grotesque relationship between Cassie and Nate. I think the relief I mentioned earlier has to do with both of these extremes: the emotional baggage of Rue is over, but so is the painfully shallow slog of Maddy, Cassie, Nate, and frankly Cal. It was a mistake to go in expecting a similar caliber as the special episodes, but the season was a narrative mess that couldn’t be saved by flashy cinematography. It had its moments: Kat being assaulted by a legion of self-help women, Elliot and Jules playfully discussing identity, and the brilliant artifice of the first play episode, especially the homoerotic locker room musical number. That said, the cringeworthy moments vastly outnumber the good ones, and I’m left feeling a tinge of disappointment alongside that relief.
“Euphoria” has already been renewed for season three, but the finale didn’t leave me wanting more. Perhaps when the next season airs I’ll be able to overcome the significant cultural pressure to watch it, because I’m almost sure it will be similarly disappointing as this one if backstage tensions aren’t addressed and Sam Levinson doesn’t hire a writing team.
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Emmy is a big fan of all things TV and movies. Among her current favorites are The Matrix, Midsommar, Titane, and Fleabag. Catch her on Letterboxd @ewenstrup !
