Euphoria
S.01, E.01 – “Pilot”
When looking back at the legacy, one particular quote comes to mind. It’s not from the show itself, but it feels like one that can easily be applied to every episode. In the Kevin Smith film Clerks (1994), there is a debate as to whether The Empire Strikes Back (1980) or The Return of the Jedi (1983) is a better movie. Dante, the main cynic, suggests that it’s Empire mostly because it’s a series of down notes and that life is nothing but a series of down endings. For people like him, that’s just how they’re capable of viewing life: as things just going from bad to worse.
Considering that this will be my third time working through the show in preparation for season two, I think it’s easy to argue that Euphoria thinks the same way. It isn’t even that the series starts on a happy note and events spiral out of control. From the first frame, it appears that creator and often writer/director Sam Levinson is going for titillation, playing into the wide-held belief that the 21st century has been one long down ending. For a generation born in a Post-9/11 America, it’s hard to know a time where prosperity and innocence ever existed, where they weren’t prescribed medication, or had a chance to ignore global climate change. Everything has been awful and the trajectory would suggest that, even at 17, they’re in for one very long down ending.
Given that this predated COVID-19 (the first season finale aired in August 2019), it’s fascinating to see the prophecy continuing to be true. In fact, one has to wonder how this will inform season two, which itself was postponed due to health protocols, replaced with two phenomenal specials that aired in 2020 and 2021. They were more restrained, limiting the expansiveness of the HBO ensemble in favor of more intimate character explorations.
To be honest, the pandemic was one of the better things to happen to the show, at least creatively, because it does feel like Levinson’s restrictive potential made him a much more interesting filmmaker. This isn’t to gripe on his previous work, but there’s a world of difference between where things began in “Pilot” and even in “Fuck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob.” They actually have a ton of the same dour DNA, but their approach is very different.
The thing about assessing Levinson is that he is, for better or worse, a transgressive filmmaker who is at times way too obsessed with style. Assassination Nation (2018) in some ways set the template with a splatterfest of hot-button issues that were presented in an uncomfortable, confrontational way. He is the type of filmmaker who hates subtlety and… I don’t entirely know if I want him to study nuance. There is something thrilling about his form of trash, finding sincerity in genres and approaches that are repugnant. It may be annoying in the sense that it all feels like he’s only doing it for attention, never reaching his story’s full potential, but it can’t be faulted that he makes you feel something.
Even if it hasn’t been fully addressed, it does feel like the initial point of Euphoria was to turn protagonist Rue’s drug addiction tale into a neo-noir for this mythic version of the Gen-Z generation. It’s there in the stylized lighting, the way that he’s able to hold the camera beautifully on these night shots as Rue and Jules ride through the night, stuck in the rare moment of bliss. Even the opening exists as the unraveling of the mystery “Why is Rue so depressed?” It’s not necessarily a complex mystery, but it’s one rooted in attention-grabbing emotion, where seeing Rue passed out in her room by her younger sister horrifies the viewer. All of this is done in voice-over, providing context for everything that’s happening.
To some extent, the voice-over is necessary at first to introduce characters. It’s done efficiently as the world expands, finding Rue entering gas stations fronting as drug dens or even driving by Jules as her mother says that she’s beginning a new chapter post-sobriety. It’s rich with style, reflecting her disconnect from the world. While this episode isn’t her story alone, it feels like the audience spends most of it understanding her P.O.V., where the camera spins 360 degrees (Michael Bay-style) to reflect her dizziness, an inability to be stable. In this world, the drug dealer Fezco is the one with the heart of gold, a rational mindset where even at a party filled with debauchery, he’s wanting to promote sobriety.
More than anything, Euphoria may be the MOST HBO show that’s aired in many years. It can be argued that there are better, more acclaimed series, but there’s no doubt that Levinson has created exactly what people expect from the network. There’s drugs, sex, violence, controversial subject matter, and so much more. Not since Oz has there been a show that so openly addresses these matters, mixing foreboding darkness with style and purpose featuring an ensemble that is way too good for the material. The only difference is that Oz *maybe* had more fun tonally, but it’s still something that demands headlines, asking the audience “Did you see that?” and hoping it can sustain to next week.
The following series of essays are not to be seen as a thorough recap of the series, but more a chance to form a dialogue. Seeing as I was 29 when the show premiered, I recognize that I am far removed from the target audience (though some would argue it’s not for teens either). Even then, it’s a show that has this strange effect on me, where I can’t stop studying it and coming to terms with every plot.
It may be in part because the “controversial” teen entertainment of my generation feels tame by comparison. Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen (2003) is by no means a squeaky clean tale, but even with alcoholism and self-harm, it feels tame compared to an hour of Euphoria. It makes me feel old, maybe even concerned for the future. Even if the show does a fantastic job of opening more conversations around sexuality and our complicated relationship with the internet, it still ends on those down notes in ways that leave you distraught, not entirely sure how any character will escape their miseries.
Most of all, I’m curious about Levinson as a “visionary.” That is a crass analogy, I’m sure, but there has to be a reason he constructed the show like this. I am not a teen drama expert, but it does feel like “Pilot” is a bit too wieldy at times, relying on voice-over and shock value to cover something up. We barely know these characters. By the end, there’s some shock about Jules having connections with two very toxic male characters, one of which leads to one of the ickier scenes of the episode. There were a ton of them, but given that this show deals with high schoolers, it’s more difficult to just get away with the more explicit scenes. To some extent, it feels cheap. Even then, counterbalancing a rough sex scene with Rue giving commentary on how porn disenfranchised her generation feels like a moment that’s trying to get at something greater.
It’s at times exploitative, playing off of raw emotion. Levinson claims that he wrote the show as a chance to explore his own teenage struggles with addiction. It took him many years to be able to write it authentically. This isn’t to say that he’s not getting somewhere with it. The harrowing scenes definitely hit, but the show lacks a respite that makes it all anything more than down notes, one after the other. Sure there are brief moments of, ahem, “euphoria,” but maybe that’s the issue. It’s a temporary high. How does one sustain it when the whole world feels like it’s going to implode? As Rue says to Fezco, there’s no use being sober because we’re all going to die anyway.
I’m sure in later entries that I will dive more into characters. For now, I will say that I go back and forth on how I feel about the opening. Is the narration and shocking parallels of birth and death really as effective as they could be? It definitely gets attention and the following scene where she’s misdiagnosed (counting ceiling tiles feels more autistic, but that’s just me) has a tragic weight. It’s evidence of a whole generation misunderstood. What chances do they have of survival when so much of their behavior was learned elsewhere?
On some level, this was the only way that Euphoria could’ve started. It needed to be so over the top that it felt alarming. There was a need for concern as characters crossed the line from simple childhood into scary adulthood. Some were already there, others carried bad behaviors over that were childish. Maybe they will outgrow those behaviors. Maybe they will get worse. So much depends on the individual, and yet it feels like Levinson is mostly interested in conflict. To be fair, conflict drives TV series like this. Still, given how many moments feel designed to widen eyeballs, it’s more amazing to wonder how far they can go, what they can get away with.
Maybe setting them in high school was a bit disingenuous. So much of the series exists on this taboo line. A need to specify age almost feels necessary for the audience’s sake. Still, when the show gets moments right, it has the potential to grow. The closing image of Rue bandaging Jules’ arm has a sweet if doomed symbolism, not unlike the (somehow) more upbeat The End of the F**king World. There is a belief that they will repair each other, that outside of a world of toxic masculinity like Nate and overbearing parents, they will have each other. It’s Levinson’s masterstroke, the reason to keep going.
In a sea of characters that will only grow into something more diverse and compelling, Jules and Rue are at the center, holding each other safely. If one is going to experience a down ending well into the uncertain adulthood, you might as well do it with someone who has the same warped perspective that you do. It’s a love story unlike anything else airing on HBO, and it’s amazing that former Disney star Zendaya is capable of pulling it off. It’s edgy, maybe sometimes too much so, but so long as it has a heart somewhere in the mix, it will never be the most abhorrent, repulsive version of itself. There will always be that search for an upbeat, a moment that will change the trajectory of everything that came before. Maybe it will be in season two. Maybe it will never be. Wherever that answer is, it’s going to be euphoric when Levinson finally reveals it.
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