Euphoria
S.01, E.02 – “Stuntin’ Like My Daddy”
To some extent, it’s easy to see every reason that people would consider Euphoria to be a show that was trying too hard from the jump. Following the first episode’s already salacious hour is one that ratchets up the discomfort and presents a series of even greater taboos to follow. Known purveyor Sam Levinson set up the dominoes and now the audience is going to watch them all fall, forming a greater vision of how addiction and influence can ultimately shape a person. In the case of most characters in this episode, it’s going to be rather negatively.
The most apparent is Nate. While it’s difficult to argue that he was ever likable, he quickly moves into villain territory this time around. To Levinson’s credit, he does so with a complicated form of sympathy, where a childhood of witnessing his father abusing women lead to him having an acidic view of love. At no point does his father Cal feel like he loves him, and instead forces him to fend for himself, letting out his aggression through sports and exercise. When he’s forced to name what he likes about women, it’s all physical and material. He loves the shape of women, what they wear… what he doesn’t ever mention or ever express interest in is their personality. They’re more status symbols, which even then feel undeserved because they could be bitches.
Add in plenty of homoerotic subtexts and Nate is off to a bizarre start on the show. While many could argue the barrage of male nudity that opens the episode may seem sensationalized, it’s argued that it’s more to reflect Nate’s insecurity. Even as he parties with shirtless buff men, he has a homophobic streak, a need to be seen as the default male. It’s the acceptance of his peers, the ability to take down any foe, which he does in a fairly tense way. To Levinson’s credit, the choice to mix this scene with Rue’s own forced drug inducement was a swift way to reflect how he mixes controversy with the sickening need to see what’s next. On the one hand, you can’t believe that Nate would assault a man who had sex with Maddy, but on the other you want to stick around for him to get his comeuppance. It’s to Jacob Elordi’s credit that he’s presented as such an awful person and yet he has this gross compellingness tied in part to his own potential repressed queerness.
As for Rue, it feels like “Pilot” was a preamble for everything that happens here. While it ends yet again with a cliffhanger overdose, the journey there is one that’s attempting to find euphoria in Jules. Cue the early drug trip, so full of purple glitter streaming from eyes as the voice track warbles, the bisexual lighting overwhelming the pillow fort. It’s a moment designed for maximum memorability, and it does so with a surrealness that may turn some off. Does Euphoria feel real? Many would argue it doesn’t and sometimes the conflict is too grand for any teenage story arc. Still, to pair it with such moments as Rue and Jules riding through an orange tree patch is a wonderful contrast, where the bright colors clash in vibrant ways. It fills the viewer with optimism, the open fields showing potential.
Even then, Rue keeps talking her way out of sobriety. She harasses an A.A. employee to sign off on her sheet. She fails to share a story after recalling her overdose with vivid visuals, eventually leading to her strolling out of the hospital with a smirk on her face. Everyone thought she was dead. Consider “Pilot” a rebirth, or at least a mulligan on life that only seeks to keep being done over and over. This episode also introduces the great Colman Domingo as Ali: a crack addict with pearls of wisdom. He will come into play more later, but it’s clear immediately that he’s working on clearing his conscience. There’s an effort to communicate, which Rue couldn’t do with anyone. In fact, her inability keeps landing her further into a hole.
It may be why of the supporting cast the one that comes across as the most boring (but for me most endearing) is Cassie’s sister. Our asexual-coded friend Lexi (come on Sam, I know you know what that is. I saw Malcolm & Marie (2021)) is always there to help her childhood friend. Along with Rue’s sister Gia, Lexi is that moral innocence that you can’t help but root for, the outsider looking at the corruption of her friends and wanting to shake them back to life. Unlike Cal with Nate, there is an effort to help Rue. It’s tragic, especially given that even a few that enable her don’t do it out of vindictiveness, but sometimes just pure naivety.
That’s the problem with youth, especially those who aren’t aware of bigger consequences. Rue probably didn’t know that sticking around Fezco’s place would land in a horrifying drug deal that ended with the house $600 in debt. Maddy doesn’t know that dating Nate will have potentially negative consequences. Even for Kat, her realization that the only way to fight leaked videos of inappropriate acts is to get ahead of it and make her own.
What is both amusing and almost necessary is Levinson’s need to preface every one of these plots seemingly with age verification. When Rue gets sexual advances, she states that she’s 17. There’s other conversations with Chris about the moral code of other underage activities. As much as the show vibes with controversial behavior, it’s at times amusing how much Levinson needs to clarify what is and isn’t supposed to be straight-up taboo. Given that it opens with a flashback of Nate seeing inappropriate videos of his father, it’s impressive to think that the show wants to get away with any of this. It truly is the most HBO show imaginable.
Again, the shock is not the sole factor here. Even as Jules flirts with strange men on the internet, there is a commentary on loneliness, of the next generation being led astray. At every turn, there is a parent who is missing one piece of communication. Ali’s struggle reflects how he overcame that while everyone else feels like they’re at the start of it. They have years of hard times to work through, and the audience will likely shiver from them going down these preventable roads. Even then, the sometimes necessity of finding euphoria overpowers reason and the immediate gratification is often better than working towards something more healthy and sane.
An added benefit of the second episode is that a lot of the overcompensation feels toned down. With “Pilot,” there was a need to rely on details coming so rapidly that sometimes a scene was more traumatic than informative. Without established sympathy, how were these characters supposed to be perceived? The slow unraveling of Jules as a more compelling character helps the second time around, finding her healing contrasting with Rue’s addiction. They balance each other out, being intimate in ways she isn’t with anybody else. Her Family Dinner (with capital F’s and D’s) is more an excuse to text and plan for a moment beyond now. There’s no living in the present, appreciating what is already there.
With that said, Levinson can’t help but make the episode as visually flashy as he could. The scenes with Nate especially shine with a liveliness this time around. For instance, a scene where he is with Maddy at a bowling alley (almost exclusively in blue lighting) is painted like a neon-fused love story, where the flashing lights of a recent strike come across as romantic as he lifts her. This is a fantasy. The camera spins around in every direction before landing on their face. Nate is only using her, but in that moment it feels like something greater.
If there is any issue with the episode, it’s that everything is moving so quickly. No pun intended, there’s no breathing room at times. Every character is in a perpetual state of anxiety, constantly trying to escape it but coming up even more claustrophobic. Rue in particular can’t catch a break, even though she sort of had one in the closing minutes of the previous episode. Everything keeps falling downward, into something more shocking and strange. It’s a hole you want to see the characters dig out of, but Levinson is almost daring you to stick around and see if they will do it before selling the shovel for another quick fix.
To be fair, Euphoria was – despite its name – not selling itself as a feel-good series. Even then, the first two episodes have an emotionally exhausting crux to deal with. While it elevates Rue and Jules’ fractured relationship, there’s already the sense that this show has a short shelf life. Who wants to see Nate continually struggle with his demons? Who wants Rue to keep hitting the same depressing beat? There has to be growth and, quite frankly, a happy episode eventually. Maybe not one unrealistic to the show’s trajectory, but something to keep it from feeling so suffocating, especially given that the cinematography already makes the walls feel like they’re caving in at every turn when they’re not joyously riding outside.
It’s an impressive episode for sure that finds Levinson building a fascinating TV villain. For all of his faults, Nate fits into the strange crux of oddball characters. He has an unrepentant streak that shows the nadir of what humanity can do to a person. He’s not empathetic, and yet it’s hard to not recognize why he’s acting out. It’s sad and it’s only going to get sadder. It’s in part why somebody needs to lighten it up soon. To Levinson’s credit, having Ali reflect the light at the other end of the tunnel is sort of brilliant. There is room for redemption, of trials and errors building to something greater. It may not fix the bridges you burned, but it will help build a path forward, hopefully towards forgiveness.
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