If you’re anything like me, you’re a Euphoria super fan. I mean, I was more interested in the Cassie vs. Maddy showdown than the actual Super Bowl (I wish I was kidding). This season has been full of ups and downs, but the one that has caught my attention the most is Rue’s journey through her addiction in season two. Zendaya has portrayed addiction so well. It is absolutely mind-boggling to me. She has been able to perfectly capture all of the highs and the lows that accompany addiction.
We start off at the beginning of season two, where Rue meets Elliot for the first time. Say what you want about Elliot, but in my opinion, he’s nothing but an enabler. Rue nearly overdoses at a New Year’s party before Elliot brings her back, but that doesn’t stop them from continuing down the already dangerous path they were going down. They continue to hang out and enable each other throughout the season.
At this point, Rue realizes she has to manipulate everybody in her life besides Elliot into believing that she is sober. She does everything, and I mean everything, she can to get exactly what she wants. She manipulates her sister and all of her friends into believing she is just “smoking a little weed”, while simultaneously straining and potentially ruining her relationship with her sponsor, Ali.
Season two episode four is where everyone thinks Rue is bound to overdose. She is hallucinating to the point where she is imagining her father and a choir around her. I can confidently say when I watched this episode that I had little to no hope. I was hoping and praying for Rue to find that hope because I think I can confidently say this for everyone: we are all rooting for Rue at the end of the day. At the end of the episode, Elliot finally confesses to Jules that Rue is indeed not sober and that she has been taking all sorts of drugs for months right alongside him.
Episode five is where we see Rue hit rock bottom. It was honestly hard to watch. I had to frequently take breaks because of how intense it was. Jules did the right thing by coming to Rue’s mom with the information of her relapse and the suitcase. This prompts Rue to angrily cut ties with both Jules and Elliot, while also attempting to do so with her family. She has a violent breakdown, breaking anything that came in her way, whether it was a door, a dresser or her sister. The whole episode was basically an intervention that Rue was running from the entire time. In the process, she burned her bridges with a lot of her friends.
Eventually, Rue ended up back on her mom’s doorstep, agreeing to get sober. Episode six shows her going through withdrawal while her mom tries to get her into some sort of rehab facility, but is struggling to find one. Struggling and seeking redemption, will Rue stay sober? Will she make it out of this alive?
That’s the question we’re all asking.