Euphoria

[Never Cursed]

Interview with Sam Levinson on Season 3, which begins Sunday. Main takeaway: this season was going to focus on Angus Cloud's character, and the first of several rewrites occurred when he died. Though it is difficult not to read a lot into his pregnant pauses and word choices.

[Mr Sausage]

Has it been that long since season 2? I never finished it—watched two episodes and never went back, I forget why (no time? too stressful?). Maybe I can use this as motivation to finally get through it.

[Never Cursed]

Obviously I think it's worth viewing, and by this time 9 weeks from now I may be the only fan left. If you haven't seen the two covid episodes, you should also watch those - they're among the best things the show did, along with the fifth episode of Season 2.

[therewillbeblus]

Has it been that long since season 2? I never finished it—watched two episodes and never went back, I forget why (no time? too stressful?). Maybe I can use this as motivation to finally get through it.

I think Season 2 is so much better than Season 1. It's one of the best single-seasons of TV I've ever seen across my lifetime, especially if you count the two specials that kick it off. It gets better as it goes on, and I think you'll appreciate the inventiveness, especially in episodes five and seven. Revolutionary television.

[dda1996a]

The only thing revolutionary about Euphoria was its casting of Hunter and its very humanistic and non judgmentic look on her character and trans-identity.

Beyond that, this is simply a more expensive Larry Clark/Skins (the TV show) being directed by someone trying to emulate early PTA emulating Scorsese.

I don't expect an HBO show about high schoolers to be realistic, but this was too in love with its style and edginess to copletely forget to write compelling arcs. The first season at least had some weight to it in lieu of introducing us to all the characters and the world building of absent-parents teens run amuck, but the 2nd season showed there was nothing really left for Levinson to say about them, and the cliched arc for Eric Dane (giving it all, must be said [and RIP]).

I might give this 3rd season a chance as trash watching, but I never felt any remorse skipping The Idol and we'll see how long I'll last this time.

(Those 2 Clvid episode were pretty good because they did the opposite of the regular ones; having characters actually talk about their feelings, in a mostly single location. Never saw Malcolm & Marie so don't know if that works for Levinson beyond the show)

[Never Cursed]

Hmm, not sure how much this cohered, but even if at the worst end the season turns out to be complete pulp nonsense it's nonetheless wildly entertaining pulp nonsense. I have certainly never seen a more expensive-looking episode of television, and I don't mean in the sense of a high amount of visual effects (which are minimal and mostly invisible, far as I can tell), but in terms of the sheer variety of locations, city shooting, and everything being shot on film (including a lot of it on 65mm!!). There's definitely some more Scorsese envy going on, that's for sure, though I appreciated how many of the typical Scorsese protagonist negative masculinity traits are embraced by Rue with gusto (down to the shameless womanizing and gaze!). After the minute investigation of specific juvenile emotional reactions in the previous two seasons, there is quite a bit of necessary connective tissue missing between high school and the present day (it almost does feel like Godard's cutting between Bonjour Tristesse and Breathless with a title card), but the first couple seasons took a little while to gel into what they were anyway, so I'll give it some time. Then again, that's what I said for The Idol, which I gave up on, but that wasn't nearly as entertaining from the outset.

And where else are you going to see Colleen Camp, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Sharon Stone in anything nowadays?

[therewillbeblus]

I have faith that it’s going to head towards something deeper in time as strands collect, but for now Levinson has deliberately emptied the show of context. Which is also why the Scorsese/PTA aping feels more pronounced

[therewillbeblus]

Ep 2 didn't help reshape my feelings towards this season. The narrative strategy is strange - it's slapdash, and doesn't imbue the cleverness nor style of the other seasons' creative narration, which always opened interesting pathways to explore character and uncover emotion. Here Rue's voiceover just exists to move things along, nothing more. I particularly disliked the end of this episode - it felt imposed and clichéd. The season is starting to feel like a wrap-up that’s rather forced. And clearly it was going to be build around Cloud's Fezco, after season two basically made him the star - and without him as the heart, the series is really showing some of its vapid corners bleeding into the center. The saving grace is Elordi - I'm really curious to see where his character goes. It's a departure from the powerful Nate Jacobs we've come to know, and he gets to shine with the funniest moments in this episode.

[therewillbeblus]

Ep 3 is both better and worse than its preceding eps this season. On the one hand, we get obnoxious moments like a parent commenting on-the-nose about problematic marriages at the worst possible time, or a toast where a parent shames an old flame for no reason other than to remember that she wasn't liked by that tertiary character. And a lot of the characters have turned into caricatures, like Cassie - who, even if funny in the film's final moments, has still been reduced from an interesting character study to a thin slice of superficiality. The writing in general this season is a huge step down. But then we get great developments with Nate, and the whole wedding set piece is pleasantly grating. I have a theory about Fezco's role in this season:

Spoiler

That he's working with the DEA as part of a rehabilitation process, and intentionally got Rue arrested so that she could get help. Either that or they were tapping/listening to the line when they had a phone call earlier. I see no reason for him to be absently featured if not to somehow wedge in Levinson's plan to focus on his character's rehabilitation, and it would be in line with that dream to have him help his friends, in loving memory of Angus Cloud

I feel like the first two seasons used enhanced style to emphasize the emotional states in social environments for these teenagers to great effect, whereas season three just uses style for the sake of it. It's kind of a bummer. I still find the show enjoyable, but it's definitely a different thing altogether, and I fear its form is being utilized in a manner that detractors have accused earlier seasons of embodying: empty, shallow technique; which simply wasn't true then, but might be now.

[Altair]

Yes, the writing is weaker this time around, and the supporting characters feel trapped in the roles that have been assigned to them: it's a pleasure though, in E3, to see Hunter Schaefer's character return and take centre stage, as she is far more compelling than the satirical portrayal of empty materialism which Levinson is having far too much fun with.

[okcmaxk]

Huge problem at the ground level—does Levinson care if characters track from season to season? Since Rue’s his self-insert/Zendaya’s #1, her arc’s hammered in, but he’s barely interested in anyone else. Nate’s a different character altogether, can’t tell if it’s Elordi checking out or Levinson not caring to remember the past two seasons. Cassie’s a lost cause, Levinson (and Sweeney?) doubling down on the S2 turn. The big hangup of Sunday’s episode:

Spoiler

why are Cal and Jules reminiscing like they’re buddies?

[therewillbeblus]

I think Nate’s character trajectory makes sense. He’s no longer in high school, prom king is contending with the real world. His character’s still cocky but

Spoiler

finally getting his comeuppance

Nate’s dad and Jules have been playing nonverbal communication games since the start of season one, so it’s somewhat cathartic to see them actually connect after Cal received his own consequences. Jules has moved on, so they have a chance to have an earnest conversation around their “intimate” past. And it’s an opportunity to remind us, on his wedding day, that Nate not only kept the tape but has been in love with Jules all along (as a later scene between the two makes a bit overly clear)

[Never Cursed]

Spoiler

Yeah, Nate is now a pathetic figure rather than the master manipulator/source of danger as in the previous seasons because he (like Cassie) was never forced to mature, and now inhabits a world where he is not privileged and he cannot openly deploy violence. He is surrounded by (mortgaged) opulent aesthetics at their tackiest and most juvenile: a McMansion, a Cybertruck, a gigantic kitchen in which he eats hamburgers and boxed spaghetti and meatballs. His father's worst nightmare has come true: Nate has inherited Cal's anger and mendacity, but not the sense of control derived from an "uncontrolled" double life. The final scene with him in the most recent episode leverages the image of the wedding night in an obscene way: he is deflowered and covered in (hymeneal) blood, his wife left screaming and helpless.

While I also think this season is the least of the three so far, I'm not as down on it as TWBB is, and think it has an overarching theme of maturation connecting the (wildly diverging, uncontrolled, overstylized) plot threads. Nate and Cassie haven't grown up because they were never forced to; Rue hasn't become a functioning, emotionally complete adult because she' still badly affected by addiction (abstracted as her journey towards faith/her third step as alternately hinted at and spelled out by Ali and the Bible verses). Maddy, Lexi, and Jules by definition have less going on because they have been forced by circumstance and comparative neurotypicality to live as adults in a "real" world. Now, Levinson's version of that real world is just as phantasmagoric as his depiction of teenaged emotion in the first two seasons, which alternately does and does not work. But even in its emptier parts, I still find the show compelling. Even at its point of closest resemblance to the fun-house-mirror version of the show that the hate-watchers have always seen, it is still electrifying to watch. Maybe I'm still up on the show because I'm not much of a "TV" guy and I've always liked the show best when it's been "bad" TV. But I still like it.

And weirdly enough I liked all of the "parents" stuff mentioned above, even if Suze's monologue is overplayed for comedy/to make the wedding as nauseating as possible (which, mission accomplished). None of these people were good or emotionally well-balanced parents, and their outbursts/Cal's astonishing frankness with Jules are acknowledgements of that. I honestly find Hunter Schafer the most interesting actor so far in the season. She has played Jules with a simmering fury that has yet to relent in the episodes we've seen so far. It's going to boil over at some point, and the question becomes what Levinson does with her relationship with Jules. Are they fated in the typical sense, or in the sense that characters with the initials R and J are usually fated?

[JamesF]

I feel like the first two seasons used enhanced style to emphasize the emotional states in social environments for these teenagers to great effect, whereas season three just uses style for the sake of it. It's kind of a bummer. I still find the show enjoyable, but it's definitely a different thing altogether, and I fear its form is being utilized in a manner that detractors have accused earlier seasons of embodying: empty, shallow technique; which simply wasn't true then, but might be now.

This sums up my experience of Season 3 pretty bang-on so far. If the first two seasons merited comparisons with coked-up 80s Scorsese and (to a lesser extent) PTA, then so far this season seems to be channeling early-90s Tony Scott, and not just through the use of Hans Zimmer.

[redbill]

and (to a lesser extent) PTA,

or to a 'greater' extent in the carnival episode.

[therewillbeblus]

Episode 5 is one of the worst episodes of TV I’ve ever seen. Almost every single element felt contrived and cliché. I’d list examples but that’d be more or less giving a play by play of the script. I’ve been a consistently vocal supporter of this show and Sam Levinson’s work as a whole, so it’s an even greater shame when he shows a side of him that affirms what so many people have unfairly hated on him for for so long

[TechnicolorAcid]

Episode 5 is one of the worst episodes of TV I’ve ever seen. Almost every single element felt contrived and cliché. I’d list examples but that’d be more or less giving a play by play of the script. I’ve been a consistently vocal supporter of this show and Sam Levinson’s work as a whole, so it’s an even greater shame when he shows a side of him that affirms what so many people have unfairly hated on him for for so long

It is however a big day for people with very oddly specific fetishes (pun intended)

[therewillbeblus]

Episode 6 was better, I guess, but I was even more annoyed at the way the plot is moving forward: so rapidly, in a manner that seems to think it's secured our emotional investment when it simply hasn't. The Jules/Rue stuff needed to be rebuilt (just a little bit!) in the time-jump present in order for the stakes/any future payoffs to feel real or appreciated. The same goes for Rue's addiction storyline (she's admitted to continued use, but there's been no symptoms or signs of it outside of her acting frazzled, completely nullifying the stakes set in earlier seasons), ultimately leading to a spiritual awakening that sadly feels silly. It's simply not earned, and her whole arc this season is the nadir of recovery representation, the polar opposite of Levinson's dynamic special Trouble Don't Last Always. I was also deeply frustrated by Rue's concoction of a Higher Power in the form of a relationship that's the number one "Don't" rule in recovery. Even if it's treated as such, it's also just so unclear what Levinson is trying to provoke the audience to get from this show anymore. I simply do not care about any of these characters anymore, who are now caricatures, when I once did on an extremely deep level.

[Never Cursed]

For anyone at all that is still aboard this train: do not go on social media if the algorithm thinks you like this show before you watch the season finale. Like not even a little bit. The second I checked Twitter tonight literally every post in the feed/trending topic/whatever was a colossal spoiler for it. The timing on some of these posts indicates that the second the episode released people skipped through it with the intention of posting the ending, as the pertinent information appeared before viewers should have been able to encounter the relevant material naturally.

[domino harvey]

the season finale.

Quite optimistic!

[Never Cursed]

the season finale.

Quite optimistic!

Spoiler

Not optimistic, just trying to be cagey/not repeat the mistakes of those twitter users.

[domino harvey]

Spoiler

Didnt realize it was a spoiler, I just naturally assumed that since season three only eventually happened because all the stars were contractually obligated and given the long delay they prob would have filmed a fourth season at the same time if one was similarly mandated

[Never Cursed]

Spoiler

Didnt realize it was a spoiler, I just naturally assumed that since season three only eventually happened because all the stars were contractually obligated and given the long delay they prob would have filmed a fourth season at the same time if one was similarly mandated

Spoiler

The third season had a long gestation for a lot of reasons, including the death of one of its principal actors, which forced a rewrite, as the season was evidently structured around him. Season 2 was similarly troubled (though more because of COVID than anything - the day of the first table read of the script was the day that the lockdowns were announced in California, I believe). Suffice it to say that they ended this series in such a way as to guarantee no follow-up - but the denizens of Twitter didn’t need to tell me that

[therewillbeblus]

I didn't like the season at all, but I thought the controversial decision is fair when you read Levinson's defense

Spoiler

as a tribute to the Angus Clouds who don't make it

[therewillbeblus]

Okay, the second half of the finale is just embarrassing. It legit felt like a Simpsons McBain sketch. I can't believe the same person that created this also had the intelligence and insight shown in Trouble Don't Last Always. What happened?

Spoiler

The audacity to use a funky version of the theme for The Godfather only to then try and replicate the door-closing bit but in a lazy, messy edit sums up the season perfectly