Euphoria
S.02 E.05 – “Stand Still Like a Hummingbird” (2022)
Depending on who you ask, Euphoria’s second season is considered to be a bit underwhelming when compared to the first. It’s obviously not the fresh face on campus anymore, having to do a long set-up for whatever twists are coming in the back half of the season. While I have personally thought that it’s been a compelling escalation of events, there’s something to be said for this one. While I am still partial to the Jules special as the pinnacle of the show’s potential (and do believe that Sam Levinson would benefit from a co-writer), this is what the show could be doing to become something greater.
After all, the first season was about the painful struggles to stay sober. From the word go, Rue has spent the second season in a race to try and get as high as possible. She gives lectures on how to manipulate her friend group and acquire the most drugs possible. She even befriends Elliot, who is as much accountable for her intoxication despite being an overall more adjusted person – at least from what is seen. With that said, the high couldn’t last forever and Rue’s struggle to hide her pain behind a dazed expression is starting to come dwindling down. She could convince Jules that she loved her for only so long, but now the tragedies start. One by one, the very core of Euphoria is dismantled, replaced with the unrepentant portrait of an addict and the perfect sizzle reel not only for Zendaya’s second Emmy Award but also maybe her whole career.
The question has been if there was some benefit to having former Disney star Zendaya play the lead in this HBO drama. After all, it has been a cliché for decades now, and many have fallen victim to less successful transitions. What’s amazing is how she manages to play every card right, including appearances in Dune (2021) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). Here she is the least likable that she has EVER been, and the results are astounding. Her face becomes withered, pale, looking for every excuse to get out of trouble. She even outs Cassie at one point as dating Nate in front of Maddy. It’s an interesting moment of jerkiness, as Levinson feels like he writes Cassie’s good-intentioned “one day at a time” comment as a bit airheaded and comical to offset the darkness. To have it immediately weaponized is incredible, and the escalation is even stronger.
For that’s the magic of Levinson working in top form. His episodes that center around a confined period are always better. He has a gift for capturing claustrophobia very well, and Rue’s entire city feels too small for her. There is nowhere for her to turn. She is initially shipped off to rehab with her mother and Gia in tow, but that goes awry when she jumps out of the car and, metaphorically and literally, runs into problems from every direction. Does she care if she lives? Well according to a conversation set in the car, she was only weeks away from suicide. The pain on Gia’s face says it all. She’s likely going to be traumatized from all of this, and one can imagine that Levinson will finally give her character some expansion in season three.
What makes the execution work is that Levinson has always felt attached to Rue. Euphoria was designed as an exploration of teenage woes, which included his own conflicted history with drugs. Thankfully, he’s not too precious about it even if he may arguably be sensationalistic about a few things. Instead, he allows Rue to be ugly. At one point he cleverly incorporates Labrinth’s “Yeh I Fuckin' Did It” into the score as she’s running, itself mirroring Nate earlier that season moments before emotionally eviscerating his father with blackmail. That’s how Levinson sees Rue right now. She IS the villain, tearing apart everything with a force that may not be as akin to Nate’s on the surface, but emotionally she’ll have a lot of mending to do.
It's to Levinson’s credit that everything hits the ground running. Suddenly Rue is destroying her whole room looking for pills. Much like Laurie later, Rue is addicted to opioids. When she is confronted by Elliot and Jules, things don’t go any better. In a moment that stands to have the greatest impact on the show’s story so far, Rue calls Jules her biggest regret, a mistake. Even if Jules takes it with a brave face, there is a concern to be had. Anyone who has seen Jules’ special from 2021 will know that she has a history of trusting addicts, where she feels Rue’s sobriety is sort of her issue. Does Jules want to be in that toxic relationship, especially after this? Maybe it will be Elliot who tries to keep that line connected. Whatever the case may be, someone may need to keep her in close contact. As evident by the final shots of the previous episode, Jules has been cutting herself and there’s a good chance that things could get worse. Given that she has the haircut of Kurt Cobain, there may already be allusions to at least a suicide attempt if things continue going south.
This is Levinson’s best hour of, well, anything as a director. He has a way of making the audience discover some new piece of information every five minutes while raising tension. It just doesn’t seem like that because everyone is backseat to Rue’s problem. They’re all concerned about her safety, and yet Rue will break into homes for any fix. She’ll run from the police through neighborhoods and backyard parties. She even at one point jumps from a second-floor balcony and over a closing garage door. In the most symbolic piece of filmmaking he incorporates, Rue is seen multiple times running towards closing doors, as if she’s almost trapped in this predicament forever, that trouble has finally caught up with her.
But one by one the dominoes fall. There’s Fezco, the drug dealer with a heart of gold, who has Rue’s back no matter what. Even with a caring heart, he finds himself unable to help her as she raids his bathroom cabinet, doing whatever she can to get high. Then she seemingly loses all of her friends from East Highland when calling out Cassie’s affair. By the time that she gets to Laurie, it feels like a last ditch effort, and one that is the calmest scene in the whole series. Maybe it's to Martha Kelly’s credit, but the way she delivers an underwhelming performance tonally only adds haunting layers, like Rue has finally gotten the bargain she wants in the most unpleasant of ways. Laurie can’t give her anything without telling her story about being a former athlete and losing her life to addiction. It’s the talk of her body, the need for control, and realizing that there’s something more in store.
As the episode reaches its back half, it returns to a familiar theme of Rue confronting her dead father. She looks back at her life as a child, when Gia was born. There was happiness there and something that negates the fact that she thinks poorly of herself. She considers herself a terrible person, and yet there was once joy. There was something that gave her peace. Now she keeps chasing it with addictions that don’t last. As Laurie’s speech suggests, she will just deteriorate until she’s nothing unless she seeks help. The question is if anyone will have her after the past two episodes – remember, she turned on Ali last week in concerning ways. Then again, the greater question is if she will want to get better immediately.
The good news is that Rue at least returns home and there’s some sense of forgiveness there. The road to recovery starts over again, and the question is how long it will last. Will there be a relapse? Who will be there to help her and who has had enough of her foul behavior? The world no longer has that naïve hope that Rue is on an upward trajectory. Who even knows if Jules will end up a significant character by the end of the season? Some emotional baggage is likely to occur real soon here. Given that there are only three more episodes, it’s going to be fascinating to see if Levinson can pull any hat trick as masterful as this one.
Another amazing detail is that for the first time the Euphoria title card doesn’t appear on a colored backdrop. Here it’s presented over an image of Rue, running to her unknown fate. It feels like something different, like the furthest she’s come from that joy the title alludes to. There’s transparency here, that she’s no longer capable of hiding behind lies and acting like everything’s okay. It’s not. Save for the predictability that TV shows need their main characters to survive, there is no surety that Rue would even make it to the end of the episode in one piece. Even then, something about her feels changed.
To compare this moment to another TV series, Euphoria has officially reached a Breaking Bad “Ozymandias” moment. It’s one where those invested in the series will be rewarded with one of the most scorched earth tales imaginable. It’s not the end of the show nor is it the final straw, but it’s a moment where everything feels life or death, where jumping from plot to plot holds so much painful realization. So much is likely to become top tier Euphoria and maybe even define the show. Hopefully, it doesn’t stay on this level forever though. It’s exhausting to get through, though every now and then there’s no other way really to pull it off.
If there’s any sign of optimism, it does feel like Levinson is revealing his hand a bit cleverly here. As in the previous episode, there’s a moment where Rue confronts her father. It does feel like there’s going to be some sense of closure or acceptance there. For now, it’s the sense of isolation and not being able to be truthful with herself or others that drives her character. It’s the idea that had she not been caught, this would’ve been the end of her arc. She would’ve been a tragic figure whose demise was unknowing. Everyone would’ve thought she was doing better, and instead she died depressed.
That is the crazy part of the tale. Maybe there would be happier ways for her to recover and become a more likable person. However, there’s also the idea that maybe she needed to hit “rock bottom” in order to seek recovery and take it seriously. Is this rock bottom? Who knows. Whatever it is, there’s a good chance that this one vulgar act of defiance was necessary for her to notice what truly mattered. Because of it, the problem has been acknowledged and change can begin to be worked towards. That is, again, if she wants to do it and if she’s able to win back any friends and come up with a good excuse for why she shouldn’t be in jail right now.
For this week, anyway, Euphoria has landed on the upper echelon of HBO drama supremacy. It’s a moment that clearly defines Zendaya as a more charismatic actress and Levinson as capable of doing more than shock-value plots that rely on Cassie going crazy. There’s so much more to this series than melodrama. There’s actual heart and intention, and it feels like some of it was fully realized. What’s more exciting is that this was such a radical shift in the series that it’s impossible to know just where things are going next week. It honestly does feel like having a business as usual week will be boring yet necessary. It will be the chance to assess how everyone took that day. Again, keep an eye on Jules. Also, who knows what Cassie and Maddy will be up to and if Elliot will be abusing Rue’s friendship still or if they’ll part ways over being bad influences for each other. There’s so much to wonder about. Also, we don’t know if Nate and Cal have spiraled any more out of control. Bravo, Euphoria. You created one of the best damn cliffhangers of your entire run this week and it’s the cherry on top of an already splendid episode.
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