"It’s going to be different this Sunday.” I tell myself, as I sit in front of HBOMax, an app that requires a software engineering degree to be efficiently navigated. “It’s all going down tonight, people!” I claim to no one, as things unrelentingly fail to go down (except for Jules).
Despite the success of its first season and two stand-alone episodes, Euphoria season 2 is an unrelenting disappointment. From set-ups with 0 payoffs to baffling backstories, all the long-anticipated climaxes are so unearned that they feel faked, just like Zendaya's orgasms. Things never cum to a head. Were you expecting a Maddie vs. Cassie showdown on Superbowl Sunday? That’s a FUMBLE. Will Nate ever get the CD back? Yeah, he did, AND JUST LIKE THAT(!) a season-long plot point dissipates into the rainy night. Sam Levinson gets his rocks off through a series of visually stunning cinematographic stills that would’ve had the 2013 Tumblr girlies in a chokehold, but don’t make up for lack of script and leave the audience with major blue balls.
An episode of Euphoria clocks in (on average) at 45mins, and only 1 single event occurs in each of them--the rest is just fodder. “But episode 5 was so good!” I hear you say-- Rue playing Temple Run through some Californian suburbs isn’t my idea of compelling story-telling. The most jarring thing is that none of her actions have any consequences: Rue performed an emotional 9/11 on her household in one episode, and in the next they're all having dinner like it's Norman F******* Rockwell. She respawns every Sunday, our Lord and Savior Zendaya, and nothing that happened before has any bearing on what will happen next. Lucky her!
This is true of every supporting character on the show, who have a plethora of compelling traits and backstories that are mentioned once and never revisited: remember Cassie was like an Olympic-level ice-skater? What ever happened with that? Also, can someone PLEASE conduct a wellness check on McKay?! The cast's purpose is reduced to modelling some outfits that would render a Victorian child absolutely catatonic, when they’re not all but written out of the show for daring to be themselves (Kat has spoken 12 lines this season, I counted-- this is following some alleged major behind-the-scenes drama).
Perhaps I'm being too harsh, and this TV series isn’t for me, or anyone passed the age of 19 and/or from an immigrant household. While I’m not one of the parents fretting that my precious little Maickaelaya is snorting up pills she keeps stored in her socks or sucking off middle-aged men in motel bedrooms, Euphoria couldn’t be more removed from my personal high school experience. My teenage years feel closer to that of young tribesman in Ancient Mesopotamia than they do to the Howard sisters. People were calling each other gay slurs in gym class, we all thought Hot Topic was the height of fashion, and I just remember doing a lot of homework. Here, Sam Levinson will make sure to share many gratuitous shots of Sydney Sweeney’s (admittedly amazing) boobs, but he has yet to set a singular scene of a show centering the lives of high schoolers during 3rd period AP Bio!
Why do I keep watching? I don’t know. Every time that the credits roll, I feel like I've wasted my time, like "is that it?". I'm writing this review and lowkey deeping that I don't really enjoy the show. So WHY?
It’s maybe because, much like the realities of addiction it seeks to depict, Euphoria is kind of like a drug. Watching Euphoria is an act of self-harm: you’re chasing the high of genuinely great scenes, like Laurie (played by Martha Kelly, who simply does not miss) locking Rue up in a demonic bird room, and for that, you’re willing to go through an entire episode dedicated to Cal Jacobs' decades-long Derek dick cravings. It’s maybe because Euphoria, is, unfortunately, that bitch: the show of the season, utterly unavoidable, being discussed and dissected everywhere online to ward off the withdrawal symptoms for one week more.
I want to piss on the floor with my flaccid dick and walk out on Euphoria forever, but where will I be this Sunday? Waiting for Fexi to potentially, briefly, hold hands again on what appeared to be the worst date of all time.
But it's all going down this week, people! And I have never, ever been happier.
SCORE
Mallory
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