The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Euphoria’ Season 2, Episode 2 Recap

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Joanna and Nora rejoin to discuss the delightful teen romp that is 'Euphoria' Season 2, Episode 2. They discuss the fascinating montage involving Cassy and Nate (13:42). they also discuss the newly introduced character this season and much more! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Nora Princiotti Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Nice. You talking to me. Kayak. Got that right. Welcome into the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me here to talk about Euphoria Season 2, episode two. It's Nora Princeati. Hello, Nora. How are you? Hello, Joanna. Good. I'm doing very well.

I heard from a few people that are so excited that we're covering Euphoria this season. There's a lot of people who need like a hand to hold as we go through high school hell. I need a hand to hold. But I also heard from a couple people that they told me they're like, oh, if I knew you were doing euphoria, I would have caught up sooner and gotten ready to watch with you. So they're sort of scrambling to catch up. So I thought I would give people who are dipping in and out of the prestige TV feed. A heads up that Van Lathen and I are going to be covering Ozark, season four, which is dropping on Netflix next week. So if you need to freshen up on Ozark, we'll have a couple prestige TV episodes for you around that show.

It's a binge drop. So it's going to be like a little, there's some question marks on how many episodes we're going to do, how we're going to cover it. But that is on the horizon. Are you an Ozark head, Nora? Yeah, Ozark was a quarantine watch. I no longer live in Boston with my beloved former roommate, Anna. But Anna and I watched a lot of episodes of Ozark in a short period of time together. Amazing. So yeah, so dip into the crime stylings of that family.

with us over a Nozark if you if you care to also in the feed this past week we had a yellow jackets check in with bill chris ryan and myself and then sean fantasy and i did a like station 11 series wrap-up uh episode so a lot of a lot of prestige uv happening all at once but we're here to talk about some teens who are in trouble aren't we nora the teens are not all right the teens the kids are not all right before we get into sort of what happened in this specific episode i'm going to do a little mailbag segment for us. And then maybe you're listening home and saying, I didn't know we could write in, Joanna.

Well, the truth is I got some Instagram DMs, some text messages from some ringer pals, and some tweets. So basically, anyway, you can try to find me. That's how you can send you your for you thoughts. And I might surprise you by reading them a lot on air. Like, for example, this is some feedback from our social god Jomey,

Dinaran, who does great work with me over on the ringer. And he texted me about Euphoria. And he said, I think I figured out why I don't love Euphoria as much as everyone else. The great shows like The Wire Succession, the first six seasons of Game of Thrones were special because everything mattered, the relationships, the settings, all of it comes together in worlds that are, for most of us, very unfamiliar. Euphoria isn't a bad show by any means, I like it. But when there's a very familiar world and the show gives you questions and people, an answer that people say, whatever, don't think about it too hard, then the the show is not doing his job, we shouldn't be okay with that. We got mad when they did that on Game

of Thrones. We shouldn't let it slide here. I enjoy Nate getting the shit beat out of him, of course, but also Fez is a grown man, stay away from Lexi. So a couple critiques from Jomey, mostly maybe coming at us for our Lexi, Fez emotions. How do you feel about that, Nora? Well, so it's interesting because I think we're going to talk a little bit about early reviews of season two and some of the reactions to the premiere. And it seems like all of the reviews that I've read basically exist on a spectrum of almost everyone who's consumed any of this show acknowledges that there are certain things about it that are magnificent. There are incredible performances. There's an amazing aesthetic. But it also just has a lot of extreme graphic,

disturbing content. And everybody is somewhere on the spectrum of, I can handle it and it adds something to this is distracting and over the top and maybe a little bit. You feel like people are being exploited in certain instances. I'm like sort of in the middle. I wish there was less of it. But I read Alan Seppenwall's review in Rolling Stone and I'll just read a piece of of it that I thought was really, really insightful. He wrote, among the things that euphoria

best captures is the sense that in adolescence, everything that happens to you, no matter how major or minor, can carry the same hyperbolic weight, that anything positive somehow feels like a trip to paradise and anything negative is an Armageddon. That is, I think, the central argument for why euphoria needs to do some of this stuff is that flattening of stakes where something that is literally life and death is processed by a teenager, by a really young person, not so differently than something that is

what somebody says to you in the hallway at school. I wish that fewer horrible things happened or were explicitly displayed in this show. But I do think that that is the central argument for... So I understand Jomi's point of being sort of like, Fez, you're a grown man, stay away from Lexi. If there is an argument for why we have to accept some of that from Euphoria, I think that is it. Right.

It's so interesting because I do think that the Lexi-Fez thing, again in this episode, is being presented as one of the sort of pure options, but even a pure, purer option in the land of Euphoria comes with really messy strings attached. So I don't know that we know exactly how. old fuzz is because the implication is he dropped out of school, like, very young. So he could be, I mean, early 20s is probably what we would guess in Lexi 17. So that's, you know, that's something to put out there. The other responses we got were actually chiefly about the music. And this is, I'm going to read one response we got from Taylor, who's a high school teacher.

And she says, I want to confirm that the kids do in fact listen to all that 90s rap. Gen Z is obsessed with all things 90s. I don't think they've gotten quite to juvenile, but definitely Tupac and Biggie. So, Nora, do you feel like the kids are maybe, okay, first of all, you have a skeptical face on, so you don't believe this. But secondly, do you think the kids are more all right if they are listening to Tupac and Biggie? What do you think? No, I think that. So Taylor would know better than I am if Taylor is the teacher.

Also, thank you, Taylor. It is not my experience that that age group, like my... Okay, so these kids are not my age, but they are a lot of my friend's younger siblings age. They're not listening to that is all I will say. But maybe there is more variation in that than I am aware of. I do think, though, that we got a pretty good in-joke about that idea in this show when Ollie asks Rue, you ever listen to Thelonious Monk? Yeah.

When they're driving in the car, like, no! And she doesn't listen to DMX either. So I do, I wonder. I mean, maybe older generations will always feel like the kids would be better off if they listened to, you know, the classics. They should do what they want to do. Listen to anything and everything that you like to listen to. This should be an ongoing investigation. I would like to hear from more, hopefully actual literal teens letting us know if there is any accuracy here.

Yeah. Genzi, like, hop in the comments, please. We know you're listening to podcasts, right? No, there is an interesting musical element in this episode because we find out that Elliot, how he makes his money is he sells music stems on the internet. So the fact that Elliot, like, whatever's playing in Elliott room at any given time, I am willing to sort of really expand my idea of what that kid might play. You know what I mean?

Yeah. All right. Is there anything else you wanted to say, like reviews or reactions-wise about the premiere? Well, yeah, I think the general reaction seems, at least as far as stuff that I've consumed, to have been one of have they gone too far? And that took place to the extent that, I mean, I don't know if this was a response to anybody else's response or if this was just organically something she wanted to do. But Zendaya did post on social media where she, basically a PSA about how intense season two is and reminding people that if it's difficult for them, basically they

don't have to watch. She said, I know I've said this before, but I do want to reiterate to everyone that euphoria is for mature audiences. This season, maybe even more so than the last, is deeply emotional and deals with subject matter that can be triggering and difficult to watch. Please only watch if you feel comfortable, take care of yourself and know that either way, you are still loved, and I can still feel your support. It's interesting that she felt compelled to do that because obviously I'm sure she hopes that as many people watch it as possible. But it does seem like at least, you know, I don't think that we've heard from Sam Levinson really, all that recently about this idea, but someone centrally involved in the show is very aware of the pushpole between,

well, euphoria really makes me feel a lot of things, but some of those things are incredibly uncomfortable. borderline disturbing and it would be fair to not want that from television. Yeah, and I think, I mean, Zendaya knows that she has like a lot of younger fans. So younger or I like that she's giving her younger and or more sensitive fans like the out. Like, you can still be my fan and still support me and not watch this thing that I do. That's fine. I thought it was interesting. There was an interview with Heidi Bivens, who is the costumer on season one and season

to in interview magazine. There's an interesting quote. It's her quoting Zendaya. Zendaya says to her, there's two versions of euphoria, the TikTok version, and the real story that digs a lot deeper. And then this is Heidi again. Heidi says part of the motivation behind the storyline this season was to get really deep and to move away from some of the social media versions of what euphoria was becoming.

So this idea, we talked a lot last week about the euphoria aesthetic and how, yeah, that becomes almost like a TikTok, you know, meme aesthetic and people adopting the, you know, eye makeup looks or the nail looks or the style or the lighting or the music. And that maybe the creators behind the show are, why do you really make sure this season people know that they're not just an aesthetic show, that there is much more substance here. And in doing so, like, based on the interviews they've given, maybe they felt like they really need to push the envelope on certain things to be taken more seriously, question mark? I mean, how do you interpret that reaction?

Well, it's funny because I guess in the first couple episodes, the costumes are a little bit more muted. In particular, it seems like they show a little bit less skin. It is a little funny, though, because right now, if you go on TikTok, a very active trend is like you're going to school, except that right before you're walking out the door, you forgot that you actually go to the Euphoria High School and then whoever does the trend turns around and when they come back on screen they are wearing like a ridiculous strappy like a maddy dress. A full maddy dress. Yeah. It's really interesting because Heidi was

saying that in season one she tried really hard to make the costumes, if not like realistic to anyone we would see go to high school, at least achievable financially for these kids. kids. She didn't put them in designer clothing. She sourced all the clothing really carefully. Then she's like, season two, I threw that at the window. And everyone's just wearing designer stuff because I think it looks great. And I think it's more of that sort of unanchoring from reality that Euphoria does. So if you see extreme design wear on middle class high school students who have to babysit to make the ends meet, then, you know, that might be what you see. We should say that Heidi also, she's a costume mirror on Eternal Sunshed and Spotless Mind, Spring Breakers, which makes a lot of sense to me. The Spring Breakers, Sythetic. Spring Break forever. And she styles Billy Elish, or she did at least recently. So that's something that's a whole vibe. It's a whole thing, as you would say. There's just some more omniscient, unreliable narrator stuff I want to talk about. But we can get into that maybe when we get back to the rue of it all. So let's start.

here with Norris' favorite TV couple, Cassie and Nate. I don't weird you out or anything. I can imagine starting a family with you. Nate began to wonder if he had brain damage. Can you hear me? How would he know? Oh, my goodness gracious. Okay, we start with this incredible.

I don't mean I loved it. And I mean, like, I couldn't believe it was happening montage of Nate. like, imagining his life with Cassie, including like a lot of sex everywhere and babies and all kinds of things. As Nate's number one fan or how did you enjoy this montage? I really hated it. I had a bad time.

I had an actively bad time. Here's the weirdest thing, though. And this, again, it just puts me in this place where I'm like, is this intentional? Is it trying to make me feel this? There are some incredibly explicit moments. moments in this montage, not just concerning Cassie and Nate.

The parts that made me most uncomfortable were just Cassie, either, you know, being shown naked or when they, whatever effect they do to make her look pregnant or whatever, it was something about it, the really violent stuff, I do like cover my eyes. so take that with a grain of salt. I guess in theory that could have been worse for me. But part of why I reacted to that was it is so hard for me to see her explicitly vulnerable. So it's not just shock value that's sort of hurting my eyes and my feelings through that montage. Part of it is like I know this character and I don't like I don't like seeing her make a bad choice and the stakes of that feel more extreme.

dream when, you know, you're actually sort of seeing her body in that moment. Like that, that was another time when I sort of couldn't shake. Like, oh, these are supposed to be really young people. Like, this is weird. So I had a tough time with that, even though the very opening shot of that sequence where the narration is Nate Jacobs was in love. And then you see first an amazing shot of Cassie's face. like looking down at him after he's been almost beaten to death,

and then Maddie slides in from the side? I thought that was incredible, but I had a tough time with what followed. Did you also struggle through that? I did. I struggled through the whole thing, and I struggled until we got to the brain damage line, which we'll talk about in a second.

But my first reaction was, am I supposed to be taking this seriously? Am I supposed to be taking this seriously? as like a serious love-struck montage moment from Nate, a character that I don't really care that much about who he loves

or what he thinks might have cured his ills. And I think that what is interesting are the flashes of jewels. Like there's two shots of jewels that flash into the montage of shots of Cassie.

And then the interesting of his dad on this fantasy. Like, you hear Cal in the hospital say, like, you know, are you okay or whatever? Can you hear me? And then all of a sudden he's in the fantasy, I don't know, floating Cassie, pregnant Cassie in the pool. It's very, and then dying.

Yeah, very, very, like, creepy and upsetting. But I think that part at least makes it interesting. Like the inclusion of jewels and the intrusion of his dad makes it less of just a teenage boy fantasy. and more of like that dark sticky psychology that is Nate that I am interested in as much as I am repulsed by. Yeah, that's where I am on that. What do you make of the brain damage caper to that montage?

Well, it was, that line was interesting because even before Rue as narrator says Nate began to wonder if he had brain damage, I was already questioning if something that's being introduced here is the idea that not only is ruin unreliable narrator when it comes to her own life, if she's simultaneously omniscient, but also projects sort of the distorted ways that these people see themselves through her narration and is equally unreliable when she talks about other people. because even before then, he goes, maybe Maddie was the problem. Maybe it all would have been different if he'd started dating Cassie instead of Maddie. And as soon as I heard that, I went, okay, we can't, this isn't, this, this isn't right. Right, right. Nate Jacobs is not like a nice stand-up guy if he just dates Cassie instead.

Not all of his problems are solved by this. It's not Maddie's fault. So, but it's not like Nate saying that. We're hearing Roo say that. So the idea that we simultaneously can't trust Rue about Roo, but we can't necessarily trust Rue about other people, although maybe we can trust her to be narrating their inner monologues, sort of. It's really wild because, you know, we talked about that unreliable narrator thing last week,

and I'll just like zoom ahead to, there's two instances in this episode where Roo says, like, but I didn't know that at the time. You know, and again, it's just like you have to question when she's not only narrating her life, but talking about Lexi's feelings and all these other stuff, it's like, how would you know? You barely pay attention to your own life, let alone what's going on with these peripheral characters. And so I don't know what it's trying to achieve with that layer of unreliability, you know? Yeah, because we get it again. I mean, the reason that obviously Nate then thinking about it. about does he have brain damage puts into, you know, sharp relief the idea that he might not

be processing everything accurately. But it's not just with him when we get it. When Rue is narrating for Cassie, she says she never would have said yes to Nate if Maddie and Nate were still together. I'm not so sure about that. Yeah. It's interesting. Sydney, Sweeney gave this interview where she was talking about how Sam Levinson called her between seasons and was like, what's the wildest thing that Cassie might do? And she's like, I don't know, she guessed a couple things. And he's like, no, sleep with Nate. So I think this is that sort of wild storyline that Sidney was teasing this season, this idea that like Cassie betraying her best friend to sleep with her boyfriend is the wildest thing that she might do. But, you know, we certainly

get north laughing, but we certainly get some. It's just not that wild. It doesn't mean it's not good. I think this is like this, this storyline has totally hooked me. And I think Sydney's meeting's performance so far has been amazing. I really want to see where it goes. The idea of a high school girl in a teen drama having her best friend's boyfriend cheat with her. Yeah. It's not, it's classic 902. It's classic 902 and everything that came after. Come on, Sam. It's true. It's true. And we see that Nate has his whole fantasy And then he wakes up and sends And I love you text to Maddie

And Maddie then calls her best friend Cassie to tell her I got this beautiful text from Nate Well and he also as part of it This is during that sequence right He's like it can't But it doesn't matter because Maddie has the tape Yeah so you think he's sending her that Just because of the leverage that she has over him

I just don't think the leverage that she has over him Is absent from it Even when Nate is in fantasy land Or at least quasi fantasy land what's he's not he feels trapped by this or at least he's still responding to the leverage that he thinks Maddie has. So I guess we don't know how he would operate if none of that were the case if he might actually end up with Cassie. But I did think it was interesting that not everything was just sort of how do I feel about X, Y, Z? Who do I

really love more, is the Maddie-Nate relationship just sort of so toxic but so codependent that they can never separate one from the other. There's still this sort of mechanical device that's keeping them together and that's sort of forcing him from not actually trying it with Cassie. Maybe. I mean, that's certainly a good reason why Cal might have intruded on the fantasy here is like the whole thing with his dad that's unresolved, that it's on the disc that Maddie has. is part of it. But I think also the way in which he relates to his dad's queerness, which is something that, you know,

season one was interested in. I think that's all wrapped up in it too. It's so interesting. Like there's this, there's this terrible, awful psychological game that Nate's playing with Cassie, unsurprising because he's Nate. But this idea, you know, he meets up with her again.

They go to this sort of abandoned housing development. He tells her how much power she, he says he can't be with her. her, then he tells her how much power she has, and then he says, how are you going to look Maddie? How are you ever going to look Maddie in the eye after this? And so it's just this, if they're going for like a pretty heavy-handed drug metaphor with Nate, that Nate is this like drug that Maddie, that Cassie's trying, that comes with

all this shame associated with the euphoric feeling of being loved, I would guess that that's where we're starting here this season. But that idea that he, like, tells her how powerful she is, which is something I think that, I think that a drug might tell you as it enters your system. And then here's the shame that comes right after that. What do you think of that? Well, it's actually hadn't thought about it that way, but that makes sense. And he does say that Maddie would kill her. He says, Maddie would try to kill me, but she would actually kill you, which I guess, you know, it would raise the potential consequences of their trist to the same ones that

we think about with Rue and drugs. I do have to say, I spent a lot of time during the scene where they're driving before Maddie gets out of the car and runs away and then they're in the housing development. And Nate comes and finds her and says all of that. When Maddie is calling both of them and FaceTiming both of them, thinking to myself, Maddie has find my friends on her phone. I think these kids' locations share. Here's what I'll say about Maddie.

Alexa Demi, who plays Maddie, does such a good job of letting us know, I feel like Maddie is so smart. When she, like, narrows her eyes and is, like, looks around her and is suspicious, like, I'm scared of her powers of cognition. So, you know, if I were Cassie, I would be terrified. Totally. And I would quit it now, but I don't know that that's going to. to be what happens for her.

Lex. What? What's going on with your sister? I think she's having a nervous breakdown. About what? I don't know, being single or something. All right, let's go to Maddie and talk about the fact that we get a babysitting montage. We get a new season two character.

Minka Kelly. Lila Garrity herself, Minka Kelly is here with an incredible closet. Maddie doesn't have like a ton to do this episode. There's this babysitting plot line that's introduced with a full montage. And then she goes on the, you know, she crashes the bowling date. And we'll talk about Kat in a second. But, and then she tells Jules of all people that she's thinking of getting back together with Nate. And Jules says, you know, I wish you could see yourself like the rest of the world sees you.

Like extremely powerful and all this sort of stuff. You don't have to be with someone like Nate. And I like, I like that Jules is involved in that. It sort of pays off on the promise of episode. one of Jules saying, you know, my role got too small is centered on Rue, so putting Jules with these other characters. I really like that. What do you make of Maddie's closet fantasy other than it was just a really fun style

montage? I loved it. I love a montage. I absolutely loved it. And I thought it was cool to see her play dress up. If they have totally abandoned sort of, you know, attainable items of clothing. it makes sense to have the extremely visual fashion-oriented sequence, be in somebody else's closet.

And Maddie's the perfect character to do it. I totally loved it. I don't know what Mika Kelly is going to be doing this season, but as, you know, the world's third biggest Friday Night Lights fan, I'm thrilled to have Lila in the mix. It's been a while, Minka. How do you feel? What are your Lila feeling?

I'm just so excited. I'm so excited for wherever that goes. Let's talk about Kat then. Again, we only get like, so we get like a morsel of Maddie. We get a morsel of Kat in this episode. It's basically like the Cassie Nate and Rue show. But Kat is having a straight up bad time with her very nice boyfriend. And that is basically her storyline so far the season.

We didn't get it in episode one. Except that there's like one shot of her sort of. of at midnight as they zoom on on everyone and Kat looks slightly less than euphoric with Ethan. But this whole idea of like, I thought her storyline last season was so interesting and then it casts with this sort of like, and then she gets together with a nice guy. And I was wondering what they were going to do with Kat this season if she got her sort of happily ever after at the end of season one. And the truth is it's like, but maybe this isn't for her.

And I died laughing at the bathtub scene where it's like, love you. love you more, love you more. And she hangs up and she's just like, oh, Jesus. Like, no, not for me. We get it. We get another death rocky fantasy from Kat, one of my favorite of her fantasies. Yeah. What's up with Kat for you, Nora?

First of all, we stand a nice boy. I love Ethan. I do, I will, I do appreciate that when she did the pro and con list, she had nothing in her con column. She didn't have cons. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was expecting her to write something on the con list that was like, you know, doesn't blow my mind or like, is in sort of. sort of powerful enough or something. And I agree with you. I like that that wasn't part of it and that she sort of looks inward a little bit. I also, I'm not, if I'm skeptical about anything,

it's sort of how it's all fitting together in terms of count storyline. But I thought the the getting yelled at by influencers to love herself sequence was amazing. hysterical and really funny and really good. And I just, I was, I was tipping my cap during that. Are you, like, deeply familiar with any of these influencers that they got here? No, not at all. Yeah. Not a one for me.

But I could tell, like, I knew what they were. I was like, these are clearly. If she was getting yelled at by, like, dog accounts, I would be intimately familiar. Yeah, yeah. However, yes, I agree. Like, by the, a few of them in, I was like, oh, I get it. And I liked it very much. much. No, I love that aggressive, like, aggressive love yourself thing. I have a good friend who is

forever furious at the Rupal, like, if you can't love yourself, how the hell you're going to love anyone else line? She's just like, that's too high of a barrier of entry for me to navigate this world if you're forcing me to love myself entirely before I get to do anything else. Thanks so much. It's also like everything is just sort of like repackaged live, laugh, love. Yeah, exactly. just in a different font in neon. Yeah, exactly. One thing I will say about,

so, you know, Kat, we see the reality that Kat is facing that in the bathroom, she's telling her friends that, like, everything's great, and she subs Ethan Inferred the fantasy death rocky

and all of that. I want to shout out the return of Beebe, who's a character that I really love, who got, who's like the fifth friend, who is only there sometimes, played by Sophia Rose Wilson,

I think, And she's like Angus Cloud who plays Fez, she's like a non-actor. And it's kind of clear, but I really love how I think her delivery is so weird. And I just really love her. And I would happily have more of her. She doesn't have to have a central storyline. She's just like not there enough for me. I want more of her just weighing in.

I thought she was going to be one of the main characters when she showed up at the beginning of season one. And they just kind of backgrounded her in favor of the other girls. So this is this is a be. B-Stan account is my point. And she said that, well, she said that she was pregnant at one point. So it is interesting that it's like, you know, this person has a story and whether or not we're ever going to know anything about it or not. She either, it's either planting a seed or it's just a reminder that people actually do move past things in this world. Like you think she said that and we're never going to follow up on it and it's it's in purpose of background. I don't know. We could follow up on it and then she gets a little bit more screen time or it's just like a split second reminder.

Oh yeah. Like there are people who have had major things and we don't know if they've come out the other side in a good place or a bad place. but not everyone is actively in their moment of crisis and there is a broader world outside of these kids. I mean, I know, like, I've seen people tweet things and comment things like, these kids are never in class. Like, don't you guys have homework? Maybe that's all that is. It's just a, you know. Didn't the Harry Potter kids have homework? I mean, you know, who wants to watch them do homework?

You usually ask this many questions, man. Just you. She'd she tell you who I am? Nah, man. Are you a cop? No. I want to talk about Fez and Lexi and Cal and that whole tense standoff in the store. But I want to start with the fact that Angus, so Angus Cloud gave this interview to GQ, you know, about his big episode.

And he said that they were planning to kill him off in season one. That they cast, you know, they cast him. like off the street like he wasn't an actor like a casting director saw him and was like hey come on in for this euphoria thing and then they were just going to kill him off

and he doesn't know where or when but he knows that it was supposed to happen and then they just liked him so much they kept him around this has happened a million times of the million different beloved characters Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad Boy Crowder unjustified like all those characters

were supposed to die in season one and they were just so delightful that they stayed and then became like central to the shows that they were on. And, you know, Fez became such a fan favorite. I'm delighted to see him more centralized this season. Nora, I know you're a Fez fan. Like, how broken would your heart be? If, would you even be watching Euphoria season two if Fez had died in season one?

I would be heartbroken, but would get over it because and Fez is used as one of the plot devices that sort of spins this wheel forward. we are starting to get answers about what's going to happen with Nate and his dad and that storyline. But I would be so sad if he's just, you know, so it's, I feel like there are these huge, like what euphoria's perspective on nature versus nurture is, is such a throughline for me. And Fez is a really interesting example because he's one where it seems like, they have a clear answer where this is like a fundamentally good person who has done bad things because he's been put in extreme circumstances. And I think that kind of weird purity is just so

wonderful and Angus Cloud is so good at it. And it made me so sad when he couldn't clearly articulate to Lexi that Fay is not like that he. He's not like, Fay's not his girlfriend. They're not in love. She's like this rando person. And it just broke my heart that he was not able to do that. And then Lexi sort of pulls back and she's not going to warn him. I just don't want anything bad to happen to Fez.

Or Lexi. Or Lexi. Yeah. Lexi puts on a bold lip and some like, you know, some plaid pants and some black. I feel like she, like, really spent time putting together the outfit she was going to wear. Totally. to go bike to the store. It's like Sandy at the end of Greece.

Yes. Oh, my God, yes. Someone sewed her into his pants and she's ready to go. Tell me about it, Stad. I mean, Lexi didn't do the full Olivia Newton John Perm, but everything else lines up for me. That's episode three. Okay. And so she bikes the store.

As you say, she gets a little weird out by Fay being there. Fay is, I mean, again, a really intriguing character. someone that I definitely thought was just going to be like a random drug doses, all this sort of stuff. She seems she seems kind of here to stay at least for a little while. Is what is her presence doing for you? What is it injecting into the show? Not going to lie, I was not happy to see Fay again. Seems like a bad influence.

Okay. We get the standoff. We get the standoff. Ash is there. Fes is there. Cal is there. Lexi's there. And Faye is there.

sort of side-eyeing each other and this very tense to standoff in the store. Eric Dana's Cal is actually stealthily one of my favorite things about this show, and I couldn't exactly tell you why. I don't know if it's like him blowing up his Grey's Anatomy reputation by doing this or what it is, but the way that Cal sort of Alpha Mills his way around the store and tries to intimidate Fez, and Fez seems like ready, but not. not completely intimidated or cowed. I don't know.

What do you think? So, first of all, I'm not quite there, but I agree with you that it's a really, really good performance in so much as I think I am like two major cal scenes away from no longer seeing Mark Sloan. I have to say up to this point, I've been very disoriented because I just see no one other than Dr. Mark Sloan when he is on screen.

But I think he's shipped away at that effectively enough that, like, it's going away. Yeah, I think I take that as Fez's, he's so, he's almost numb to violent situations, right? Like, it's such a fact of life for him that the presence of a gun, it's not that he doesn't recognize that it's danger. but he's just sort of accepted that he's going to be in a lot of those situations. And that, you know, that always sort of, it tugs in my heartstrings a little bit. And I think they do a really good job of building that, even in like the scene at the end where he's sort of nonchalantly at home, like holding a machine gun. And you know that he's doing it in part out of the recognition that something bad has

happened and something that sort of increases the amount of danger that he's in has happened. But it's also pretty ordinary in a way where so much of this show is asking, is making us ask, like, is anybody going to break their cycle? And his situation is, I think they do a really good job of sort of showing how entrenched his life is in what he does and how vulnerable he is because of that. It's interesting that you talked about him being like the nature versus nurture and him being a good person in a like really dangerous, awful world. But you get a character like Astray who seems like so much more, not that I think, I don't think it's useful to call anyone a good or bad person in all of that scenario actually. But I think that Ashtray is just so much more ready and willing to be a part of this world it feels like than Fez is.

Like Fez feels so reluctant. And Ashrae is just like, I'm ready. like, let's go. And their juxtaposition of their ages is so interesting around that. Yeah, I think it is a commentary on their different ages and levels of experience, right? Because I would presume that when Ashtray is Fez's age and has probably felt similar levels of consequence for this life, like he will not be quite so gungho. But again, it's so weird because what a weird type of innocence, right? Like the type of innocence that makes you faster to pull a gun out of a cereal box.

I want to shut out Mud Apatow on this scene because she did one of those moments that I've done a million times where Lexi is like pretending she's fine. You know, you're looking at the malt liquor and she's like, I know. And her line reading of that where she's like trying not to cry and trying to sound like so cool and unboggling. I thought she really nailed it. She's so good. I'm so excited to see Lexi, like, more centralized here. You know, I feel like nobody in my life understands that, like, drugs are honestly the only way I could be myself.

Yeah, I don't think that's true. No, it is true. Like, when I first met you, I would have never had the balls to just, like, come up to you and talk to you. Why? I'm just, like, a deeply shy person. Let's finish up with Jules and Rue and Elliott and all of that. We open with Jules and Roo are in the school hallway.

They're smooching. Rua has everything she wants. She gets to use drugs and have her girlfriend. So be herself and everything's fine. And it's like Zach Morris on two dates on Saved by the Bell. Like she can have it all. She can do it all. She can navigate it.

Obviously this is going to come crashing down around her. as it does immediately when Elliot shows up in the hallway. And I really love the interplay between these three. I think this is oftentimes a season two, an injection of a season two character into a love story. I think especially in like a teen drama, often doesn't work. You end up often end up not caring about or resenting

whatever the element is that is just here to cause drama in a love story you're following. I don't feel this way about Elliot. I find him so fun. So fun. And I'm so happy he's here. And I just want to shout out when he says we should do drugs. And Zendaya gives this face, like three faces in a row towards the camera that just completely

wraps up why this show works. Because Roo is as a character. Rue is someone who's off to do drugs, is lying to her girlfriend, all this sort of stuff. We should not be on our team. but she gives this like rakeish, like, well, I am what I am sort of, let's do drugs. Look, that I just is phenomenal. It's why the show is as good as it is. It was so, I wrote that down as a note immediately when she thought because it's fun.

It's the type of lightness and fun, even when it has to do with something serious that I think the show does. Occasionally, I wish it did a little bit more. but when they do that, they do it incredibly well. And then Zendaya is just, you know, she sort of breaks the fourth wall with that. And it's almost like she's winking at you. And there is a really palpable connection with that actor and that situation on that screen. And I just was like, all right, you got me. Yeah.

I don't care how many gross montages you make me sit through. This rules. You're great. I love you. I rewounded a bunch of times. just to watch it again. I'm like, how did she do that? It's so perfect. And so what we get is this juxtaposition between who Rue is with Jules, which is she's lying about her drug use. She calls Jules a dream. So she's like still firmly in this sort of fantasy world with Jules. Whereas with

Elliot, who she's doing drugs with, she is more honest and vulnerable than I think we've seen her with Jules. She talks about how she, the moment she met Jules, she was afraid of losing her. She talks about how she can only really be herself on drugs. She talks about the loss of her dad, but also says it's not that simple, all these sort of things. And Elliot understands it in a, you know, there's a shorthand between the two of them

that doesn't exist with jewels. And then we even get, we get, I'm assuming it's supposed to be Elliot's sister or his mom looking extremely young and fresh, but like saying, who is this girl you had over? You never have anyone over. So we know that this means something to Elliot to spend this time with Rue.

Obviously, this feels like it's heading towards somewhere very dangerous between the three of them. But I'm loving what we're seeing of Rue in this Elliott dynamic, getting to know her even a little bit more. What do you think? It's fascinating because Elliot is, at least it seems less addicted. I don't know what the proper sort of... A more functional... Yeah. If that can even sort of exist in this context.

But, like, Elliot can see things that Rue either can't or doesn't want to. Like, Elliot points out basically, like, it sounds like it was pretty recent that your dad died. Like, you must be an ongoing active trauma because of that, basically. I mean, obviously, that is the implication not the line. And Rue is like, eh, feels like it was so long. ago. And Elliot clearly has an understanding and a clarity that Rue doesn't, which in some ways is why there's such amazing tension to see Rue going in a bad direction with Elliot, even though Elliot does seem to be a healthier person who kind of gets it in ways that Rue doesn't. But

one thing that I thought was so interesting was they play. when they're in Elliott's room having a fun time dancing around, you know, they're smoking pot, they're snorting Coke, but Rue is not going to OD in this situation. Like, that's not the vibe. But they play right down the line again. And the last time we heard that song was in the middle of a incredibly violent drug deal that's been screwed up.

And that reminder that Rue continued, her relaps, even when she's, you know, safe and warm in Elliott's room having a nice time and talking about her feelings is as potentially destructive as being in a situation where she thought she was going to die. I think that was really, really an effective choice. Because it comes from sort of two angles in the, like, again, there's so much in the show that happens to kind of flatten the stakes of various things. But I actually don't think that's what's happening there. I think that's saying in both of these situations, the stakes are life and death. Now, one of them might look a little bit more comfortable than the other, but Rue is playing with fire just by doing

this in basically the same way that she is when there are, you know, scary drug dealers and guns all around her. I also, I love that interpretation of it. I also thought it felt so right, like, given how lightly Rue took that whole situation, which we saw when, like, she left that drug deal in episode one and she was talking about how like things need to change with female drug. You know, she was like amped up. She's got to change, man. She was like amped up and like happy, something like that. So she's not taking it seriously.

And so I can definitely imagine Rue coming out of that being in Elliott, Elliot's room being like, I heard this great song the other day. You know what I mean? And let's find it. Like these were the lyrics and they, you know, she knows the words to it at this point. Like it's, I can imagine her being in that awful. traumatizing situation and be like, you know, I heard a great song there. Let's play it. Let's hang out. It's a great hang song. Let's play it. I thought that was really incredible. Rue also goes to, well, she sees Nate and Cassie. That feels teen drama, plot significant. So Rue now has that information in her head. And then she goes to her NA meeting and she's completely like, you know, out of it. And Ali sees her, she says, let go, let God, which is again, something I want to track. this season, this like Rue's relationship with God and, you know, how that, how that it will intrude or not. But she says, like, go let God.

And he drives her home and says, you shouldn't be behind the handlebars right now. We get the Thelonious Monke line that you talked about. And then we also get Ali meeting Rue's mom. And I just thought his dodge, like, I was so tense. I was like, what is he going to do in this moment? Not like, I'm worried he's going to rat Rue out because, like, maybe someone should. but, you know, there's so much trust in her relationship with him. So what is he going to do in the situation?

And I didn't want him to come in there and lie. And the way that he just sort of like sidestepped the question of is Rue doing okay or Roo's doing okay, right, or whatever, is I thought was really brilliant. I got to say it tracks to me like a lie. Well, he says, I can't tell if that's a statement or a question. And then he says she has a long way to go. It's not strictly a lie. It is spiritually a lie.

That's true. I was really conflicted by that just because it seemed like he clearly thinks that she needs more help than she's getting and had to not articulate that. And I guess he would have to. You know, they're supposed to have a bond where she can tell him anything without consequence. But I was really sort of pulled apart by that scene. But he was amazing. I mean, yeah, Coleman Domingo. Points per minute for Ali in this episode, very high.

I think in that moment, he has decided that him being a resource of Rue, her being able to trust him, her being able to go to him if she needs help, was more important than him riding her out to her mom in that moment. In the long run, he felt like she's going to need him. All right, anything else plot-wise that happened that you want to talk about? No, I think we've pretty much covered it. the only, I mean, the thing that's omitted in this is not a lot of jewels in this episode, which seems interesting. We get these sort of glimpses that she is spending more time with other people who are not rude, but not a whole ton of, not a whole ton of jewels in this episode.

Speaking of Billy Eilish, I felt like her back-to-school clothing felt very Billy Eilish to me, what she's wearing in the hallway. Well, because it's bad year. than what we've seen on her. What I will say is points to Jules for mature communication, which is always hard at any given point, especially in high school, because she tells Rue right away that she was upset.

You know what I mean? Rue, and it further underlies Rue's sort of self-centeredness and unreliable narrator aspect when she goes, we see Jules go to the bathroom crying while, as you pointed out, Cassie's wiping her armpits with paper towels. Weird.

Like, this is why your mom thinks you smell. Get some different. We see, see Jules like tearfully going to the bathroom and Rue was like I had no way of possibly knowing that she was upset. And then immediately after we see Jules tell Rue, I was upset by this. And this is why. And she articulates it well and, you know, just points for communication. But Rue being sort of, you know, continually wrapped up in her own reality or thinking she can balance everything when I really doubt she'll be able to. So, all right. So let's. Let's go.

get into final sort of like award moments acceptable slash terrifying slash horrifying moment of the week. Nora, what do you have? It's just that that opening montage. And again, specifically the scenes with Cassie. I really not that like I've seen boobs on screen before. Yeah. But it just, it, it, it was hard for me. I worry about her. If Faye gets the award two weeks in a row for once again having a needle in her upper thigh in a way that, really scared me. Who is the most in need of a hug, Nora? Strong argument for Cassie, but I really felt for Kat getting yelled at by the influencers.

I'm going to give it to Cassie. I really need Jules to hug Cassie as well and be like, I wish you could see yourself the way the rest of the world sees you and stay out on Nate's truck. Favorite flashy camera moves last shot. I'm going to give it to Cassie and Maddie in the hot tub. There's a shot of them lying sort of top of the head

top of the head and the lighting is really incredible as as they're talking through some things. How about you? I'm going with the, with Maddie and Minka Kelly's closet, trying on clothes. I think we should skip forward to the Maddie Perez honorary fit check. And I was going to give it to Minka Kelly for her purple gown, but I have a backup option. What's your, what's your choice here? I mean, yeah, it's just that whole, it is Minka Kelly, I guess. I was going to give it to Maddie in Minka's clothes, although I guess that is denying proper credit to their actual owner.

That was just, I just love a dress-up montage. I'm going to give back up award to Lexi in the plaid pants. I think it was a good, good look. Her dark sandy moment, I thought it was really good. My needle drop is what we already talked about, which is the return of the Jerry Rafferty song. Is that yours as well? Yeah. Same.

And then who do we actually want to party with this week on Euphoria? I would like Minka Kelly to break up with her husband who seems bad for no reason other than the fact that he was not there to unzip her dress and we're going to hit the town. Amazing. I agree. We all get to raid Minka's closet where whichever of her gowns and jewels we want and then we'll all go out on the town and her husband can stay home and watch the kid. Sounds great to me. Excellent. That's the montage that Euphoria will open with next week. This episode was produced by Steve Allman, the great Steve Allman. Nora, where can people find you until you come back next week with more concerns about these children? Oh, wow. On the interwebs, my Twitter is at Nora Pinciotti. I will be on the ringer NFL show, like I think approximately 600 times between now and them because we are entering the NFL playoffs. But more specifically, Kevin Clark, Stephen Ruiz, and I are going to break down the Saturday Wild Card Playoff Games and then Kevin Benjamin Solac and I will do the same on Sunday.

And we're going to have a lot of great stuff. Kevin Mallory and I are going to do a midweek pod next week going into the division round. So it'll be very exciting. Amazing. Lots of football stuff. I love if like if the if the ringer network were like euphoria high, right? You hang out with the jocks and I would be stuffed in the locker with the nerds because

I will be covering Book of Boba Fett on the ringerverse this Friday. So that's how that's how euphoria ringer high is settling out. I will also be on Twitter. I wrote this. If you want to tweet at either of us, your thoughts and feelings about euphoria episode two, about what children are actually listening to these days in high school or whether or not Dark Lexi

will continue down her path of bold lips and extreme hairstyles this season. Do let us know. Otherwise, we'll see you back here next week for episode three.