The last time I watched Euphoria, I was a sophomore in high school. Now, I’m about to finish my sophomore year of college. A lot has changed in the years between these two seasons, especially culturally. I think that, even in just four years, the way we view and talk about the kinds of excess the show built its reputation on has shifted. So when I sat down on Sunday night to watch the long-awaited Season 3 premiere, I came in cautious, sort of nostalgic, but mostly with low expectations.
To be honest, I did nothing to prepare for this season. I didn’t rewatch a single episode, so I was relying mostly on memory. That hardly mattered, though, since the story jumps forward anyway. Part of Euphoria’s appeal was its high school setting, so I was already a bit skeptical about this change. I think I would have been more open to it if it didn’t feel so unnecessarily gratuitous.
Euphoria has always pushed the boundaries of sexuality and drug abuse. Maybe I was just 16, but I used to think that there was an art to the more disturbing scenes of Euphoria. That deeper meaning, mixed with the dreamlike, edgy, glitter-glam and the Labrinth soundtrack of the earlier seasons, was completely lost in this episode.Â
For me, it felt like a lot of the “gross,” for lack of a better term, scenes went on entirely too long. There was a part where Faye and Rue had to swallow these “balloons” of fentanyl to cross the border. I thought this was nauseating to watch, but I can understand the argument that maybe it was attempting to deglamorize drug use (especially with a main critique of the earlier seasons being that the show glamorizes sex, addiction, and drugs). I still think they could’ve gotten this point across earlier, but I could be possibly convinced that this was warranted.
However, I do wholeheartedly believe that Cassie’s scenes were obscene just for shock value. I hated watching her crawl around dressed as a dog under the guise of “making content.” Mind you, this was before she suggested making an Only Fans account, so who this content was for, I have no idea.Â
These types of scenes stretch on not because they have something to say, but because they seem determined to prove they can go further and be more explicit than before. After all of this time, that escalation feels less like storytelling and more like spectacle for its own sake.
That aside, though, Cassie and Nate Jacobs being engaged doesn’t really make sense to me anyways. Her drive for making an Only Fans is that she wants a fifty-thousand dollar flower arrangement for their wedding. This fight had me siding with Nate of all people, which is a terrible sign.
In my English classes, we discuss what we’re reading for. What kept us engaged? Why did we keep reading? For Euphoria, my “why” used to be the Nate/Jules storyline. We never really get any resolution to their story, and there is a widespread, unconfirmed fan theory that the intense storyline between Nate and Cassie in Season 2 was originally intended for Nate and Jules. I’m not sure if I really believe that, or care, but I was disappointed that it wasn’t carried on as much past Season 1.Â
The end of episode 1 has Rue telling this powerful pimp and drug kingpin that she thinks God brought them together. Now, I understand her wanting to escape Laurie. Fine. But, running from one dangerous boss to another just struck me as the worst idea she could have possibly come up with. This plotline seems much more interesting, though, than whatever’s going on with Cassie and Nate, so I’ll allow it. I think this will have to be my new “why,” though I’m still holding out hope that Nate and Jules’s story comes back into play.
Overall, this was not a pleasant watch. At all. But somehow, I’ll still be there next Sunday. Maybe it’s just the hope that Euphoria might find its way back to what made it worth watching in the first place. I think I’m still holding onto the possibility that the show might remember what it used to be trying to say.