The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Euphoria’ Season 2, Episode 3 Recap

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Joanna and Nora return to recap the third episode of Euphoria. They break down the revealing cold open and what it could mean along with Rue's new revelation and the episode's obsession with the musical 'Oklahoma.' Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Nora Princiotti Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hilton for the stay. Welcome back into the Prestige TV podcast feed for Euphoria, Season 2, episode 3. Title episode is Ruminations, colon, big and little bullies. I'm Joanna Robinson. Join me, even though she will not audition for my production of Oklahoma, is Nora Princeati. Hello, Nora. How are you? Hi, Joanna.

Nobody wants to be in Oklahoma. Come on. My production is going to be really innovative. Anyway, we are here to talk about an episode of Euphoria that we really, really liked. This is a great episode of television, and we have a lot to say about it. Is that what you would say, Nora? I think this is my favorite episode of this show that I've ever seen. And I am a sucker for a meta-narrative, and maybe that's why.

But I just thought that there was, except in a couple spots where it was heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching, there was a lightness to this episode that I've absolutely been sort of longing for. And it was smart and emotional, but just silly in a lot of places, which is a button that they press, from time to time really well, and it was awesome to see them do it a little bit more. Before we get into breaking down the episode itself, we got a lot of feedback. Last week, I mentioned that I got some, like, a few questions on my Instagram DMs. And because I said that, I got an avalanche of questions in my Instagram DMs. And so I'm just going to lean into it.

Please DM me on Instagram, which feels like maybe a euphoria-esque way to reach me. if you have anything you want to ask or say about the show. You can also tweet at me. Unfortunately, we don't have an email that you can send to. But we've got some questions, comments, concerns from listeners, and I thought we'd start with those. So let me start off with this comment from Amanda about last week's episode. Amanda says, curious about the Maddie Jules relationship. They seem to be really close friends in episode two.

But did Maddie watch the tape of Jules and Cal? How could Maddie be so normal around Jules if she saw that? my take on that is that Maddie is a kind of person who would not blame the teenager in that video. Not that anyone actually needs blame, but I think she would reserve her judgment for the adults in that video and not the teen. I don't know. What do you think? I think Maddie is good and thoughtful in the way that you just described. And I also think that Maddie is out for Maddie enough that she's not wasting that ammo on just checking

in if someone's okay. You know, she's not wasting that that ammo to give her friend a pat on the back. And that's the Maddie we know. That's the Maddie we sometimes love, sometimes are frustrated by. I also think that it's a really valid question, though, in the sense that this to me is a loose end that I'm okay with because I'm expecting it to be tied up. Yeah. At some point.

Yeah, especially since we saw in episode two, Nate, you know, the whole sequence of Nate looking for the video and stuff like that. So, all right. And then about Fez's age, this is like a concern we brought up in last week's episode, we got a couple responses. Spencer pointed out that Angus Cloud, who plays Fez, is younger than the actress who plays Mauna Patel. And then Marlene wrote and said, the show is definitely retconned Fez's age this season. In season one, I think it was assumed that he was in his early 20s. And Nate later says that Fez is a 20-year-old dropout.

But this year, while promoting season two, Angus Cloud said in an interview that, that Fez is only a year older than the main characters. So maybe he's 18 or 19. They confirmed it this episode in episode two when Roos says in her voiceover that Lexi had never been asked questions about herself by someone her age. I still understand the concern, but in a show where we see high school students looking fentanyl off knives and doing camgirl dominatrix work, a slight age gap is the least of my concern when it comes to these kids.

So I don't think that you and I were that wound up about it, but I do think it's interesting that they've decided to slightly age down. Fez. I'm not mad about it at all. Any thoughts about Fez? I just also don't think that Nate necessarily would know exactly. Like, Nate's not going to Fez's birthday party, you know? Like, Nate being off by a year doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility. I am 100% with Marlene on a slight age gap between Lexi and Fez is not my concern. Yeah, please keep Nate far away from any and all as parties. That would be my preference. Emily wrote in to say, if Tom Holland

were to get the Euphoria cameo, he's been begging for, what type of character would you want him to play? What would his vice be? I would die if you made any sort of appearance, but it's hard to feel like he wouldn't obviously stand out. This is where I get to talk about the film Cherry that Tom Holland did. I feel like that was his Euphoria audition, but

what would you want to see from Tom Holland and Euphoria, Nora? I would like him to be a responsive good student who does his homework and loves his mother and maybe is a member of the chess club. I think it would be great if he, like, hated Rue if Rue was somehow as an eminicist. A real acting challenge for Tom Holland. Our producer Steve Wade in to say boo when I mentioned Cherry.

Not a great film. Don't recommend even to the diehard Tom Holland fans. Someone who wished to remain anonymous wrote in, you wanted some opinions from, I thought this was really interesting, you wanted some opinions from actual high school students. And my friends and I were actually talking about your podcast and Euphoria today. We are juniors and we agreed that Euphoria is actually pretty accurate, maybe just a little exaggerated about high school. But we also talked about how no other show captures the general mood of our generation will also be coming an aesthetic that we try to match.

Also, it came out during the pandemic when we were freshmen. So a lot of our perception of what high school looks like actually comes from the show. Also, on the music, front the most unrealistic part is that Maddie and Cassie haven't had a seed together singing to Taylor Swift. So I hadn't even thought about that, that euphoria was sort of, because these kids are watching it while not being in school for the most part, that euphoria is something that they're sort of modeling an idea of what school might be. And there's nothing new about that, you know, like for kids who watch now two and O or even though we see, like there were always these sort of heightened ideas of what high school might be via these teen dramas. But you at least

could compare and contrast your everyday experience in the hallways. But this idea that like you're watching this while doing high school from home and you're watching euphoria, I think that's kind of fascinating. What do you think? The aesthetic is definitely the thing that seems the most typifiably Gen Z about euphoria. I mean, I hope the, I hope it's exaggerated, right? Like, I hope these are not everyday events for, for our youth. But the mood is a really good point because I think there's a real, there's a real sense of anxiousness that the show has that I think, particularly for an age

group that is like doing like husbands doing school from home and and just living through a really anxiety inducing time that I think it matches really perfectly. And yes, they should. I mean, again, like the sort of Taylor Swift earnestness doesn't fit that aesthetic, but they can figure it out. I don't know obviously a ton about Gen Z. So I'm happy to hear from any and all Gen Z listeners. So this is not the case. But when I can. Compare the way that Gen Z talks about like mental health and anxiety and that they know the word serotonin and all this sort of stuff in the way that I never did when I was a teenager. So their awareness of mental health, their awareness of anxiety and that idea of disassociating, whether it is through drugs or whether it is through just like social media, scrolling through TikTok, whatever it is. Like that's a way to disassociate.

I think that's something that is a particular preoccupation with this generation. And I think that's kind of an interesting one-to-one for the show. And then Kaylee Roden said something weird brewing between Maddie and Minka, Mika Kelly, being the woman that the character of Maddie is babysitting for. Can't tell if their scene was tinted by sexual tension on Minka's part, or I'm just traumatized by this show. Kaley, I picked up the exact same vibes. I mean, it was an unsiped my dress scene.

So I don't know that those are ever, like, free from sexual tension. Did you get any of those vibes, Nora? So I think the vibe is like the lust of Maddie visualizing what she wants her life to look like. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. I don't know that it was distinctly sexual tension, but there's a real wanting that I think creates that feeling. I think if there's any sort of off vibe, for me, it was coming off of Mika's character.

And we'll see. We'll see if that comes back. I hope that's not the last we saw Minka. I mean, we saw. And there was a, there's a real setup for that to be some kind of partnership, right? Like, do I think a romantic partnership is what's going to happen for those two? No. But a partnership that has excitement and closeness and like wanting kind of mirrors that. And I think it can create that feeling. I love that. Give Maddie an internship, which with whatever girl bossing, Minka is doing in this world. All right, we've talked a lot about the music and whether or not we felt like it is accurate to the show.

We got a lot of responses about that. And a lot of people are talking. It's not just, this is not just Nora's issue. This is like a lot of people are like, what is going out with the music of the show. Okay, Player has an interview with the music supervisor, Jen Malone, who, by the way,

is also the music supervisor on Yellow Jackets, which also had incredible music and Atlanta. So, like, Jen Malone is extremely good at her job, let's just say, like, in terms of packing in absolute bangers for your buck on the show. This is a quote from Jen about the music. She says, I think there's definitely parties out there happening with teenage kids listening to notorious BIG and juvenile. And Lisa, I'd hope that's what's happening. She added, because if not, then we're doing one of the many things that we like to do with music, which is to have this element of discovery. But we're not picking music, quote, unquote, for the kids.

we're picking music to serve the story. I think the soundtrack to the show is fantastic, and I think it serves the story incredibly effectively. I too have asked around. I do think that there's a little bit of a problem with this question, which, and I say this with love, you're always going to get some people saying, no, no, we do listen to that,

who really, really want to tell you that they listen to that. Fair. I mean, listen. I'm not sure that that is a purely accurate representation. But I also don't think, like, Rue is probably not dancing through her kitchen singing Frank Sinatra. And I would much rather she'd do that in the show. You know, I think the soundtrack is a plus, plus, plus, plus, plus to the point where it doesn't really matter if that's what it sounds like inside Rue's kitchen or at one of those parties. At this point, the show has done so much to sort of like bend reality.

that it can even be additionally effective in that way. Maybe I'm too attached to my priors here, but I just, I don't think that's the soundtrack to the kids' lives. Let me hear you with a phrase that I'm saying for the first time, TikTok theory. This is my last sort of listener. One of our listeners sent me over a TikTok that I thought was really interesting.

I don't think of euphoria as like a theory show at all. I love a theory show, but I don't think of euphoria as a theory show. But the TikTok kids would beg to differ. And there are a lot of euphoria theories flying around. And I love theory culture. I think for me it just speaks to like a love and a close reading of a show. I think it's a really fun way to engage with a show as long as you don't let it get in the way of like the actual story that's being told to you, I suppose. but someone named Kaylee at Sad Hippie Girl on TikTok

has this theory about the Tupac and Biggie music and she mentions that Tupac is playing when we see with Rue and then Biggie plays when Jules enters the party. Euphoria is giving us a loose, loose, Romeo and Juliet story with Rue being Romeo and Jules being Juliet. We know this, of course, because like in season one, Jules is dressed as Claire Daines as Juliet. from Bazelerman's Romeo and Juliet.

So this idea that maybe in using the Tupac and the Biggie, that they're setting up a sort of a division and a better rivalry between these two characters this season. I don't know that's what that's going to happen, but I just, I love that that's something that occurred to someone. How do you feel about our first TikTok theory? I love a theory. I think that's, I think that's great, actually.

It's funny because I thought this episode, particularly in how they, the stuff with the play and intertwining our perception of the show with them putting on a play in school life, with Lexi doing her talk show appearance. bit there was some real, there were some sort of hamlet undertones. There was, I just, I wrote down like the play is the thing at one point when I was taking notes on this episode. And so I think the idea, I think they are totally capable of functioning on that level. And I love, I actually think it would, euphoria has great opportunity to get into some sort of theory viewer culture and, and some inroads into the show that way. So I'm totally into it.

Love it. Okay. So bring us all your euphoria theories. There's another big one that has to do with, we'll maybe get into this next week, but there's a big one that has to do with the family portrait, Call and Nate's family portrait. And the fact that there's like a younger brother in that portrait that we've never seen on the show, this has the TikTok fans have lost their mind about this. So we will maybe talk about that next week. But let's talk about Cal. Let's get into the episode itself. Let's talk about this cold open. The cold open, this. week is a cal-centric one where we go all the way back to the 80s with some incredible music again once again to get this cold up and when nora slacked me earlier this week to say that she liked this episode my first response was i cried and she was like when and i was like it was this cold open it's it's a i think it's about nine minutes um maybe it's just like a beautiful little short film about this tragic story of cal and his high school friend derrick who were in love with each other and then Cal got his girlfriend pregnant

and that was the end of that. You watched this little cold open with a lot of tension and fear, or at least I did, because we know who Cal is and a bit about his sexual proclivities, but we don't know this guy, Derek. We've never met him.

And so I watched it, especially like when you watch, you know, a story about a gay teen in the 80s, you know, I watched it really afraid that something would happen where Cal would be rejected by his friend or, you know, there might be violence or gay bashing or, God forbid, like an HIV-AIDS plot. Like, this is all the stuff that we are trained to expect from like an 80s gay narrative. And that's not all what they gave us.

They gave us kind of this really beautiful, tragic love story that doesn't end in like violence. It just ends in a choice. What did you think of the Cal story? It was really sad and beautiful to me too, especially the ending, one of the shots towards the end of the cold open where he finds out that she's pregnant and the camera just pans up. And his room is, it's all greenish. It's very monotone and it's very square. And it just looks like he's like in a little cell. And it really, I didn't, I cried later in this episode. I did not cry at that particular. moment, but it still really put a lump in my throat. We've talked before about Nate on this show and sort of our confusion around like what purpose he serves or what we're supposed to really be getting from him.

But I feel like is Cal what we wish Nate was in terms of like a character who exhibits toxic masculinity, but we understand the root cause of it and we have some sympathy for him? Or are they trying to give us something more challenging? with Nate? Like, what do you, what do you think of the, the archetypes that they're trying to roll out here? Or are they trying to avoid archetypes altogether?

It's funny. I almost got, I almost got the opposite in terms of experiencing the cold open and learning more about Cal's story as something that made me see Nate as almost just the perpetuation of the cycle of hiding feelings and then only being able to let out that pain through toxic anger, I thought there were so many similarities to Nate

and to what we've seen Nate do and parts of Nate's storyline in Cal's early scenes, including when, you know, before we know who Marcy is when she's just a girl in the stands, she looks like Maddie. He drives too fast, which we've seen Nate do, were just all these things where it's sort of like, oh, the apple in the tree in this really sad, toxic way. One thing that I thought was fascinating, and I don't know if I'm just reading too much into this or if this is on purpose, but when he starts dating Marcy, she looks like Maddie, but she puts her feet in his lap and up wherever she wants in the car,

which is something that we've seen Cassie do driving with Nate. That made me think a lot about, is this supposed to, to, you know, again, I might be just reading way too much into this, but is this something that's supposed to make us think about who Nate might actually want to be with at the same time as we're contemplating whether he and his father have actually been able to explore who they truly want to be with? So I wound up coming out of that thinking a lot about the idea that Nate's circumstances have a lot more to do with his actions, which is something that I struggled with with Nate a lot just because he simultaneously had been dealt a rough hand

with his father and was clearly reacting to things that were outside of his control. But at the same time, he was this and is this avatar of, you know, white male privilege who abuses law enforcement, who uses, you know, all of these sort of vestiges of power that he is inherently privileged while experiencing to hurt other people who don't enjoy that. And having those two things, and maybe it's because, you know, we would think of if Cal was closeted in the 80s, I agree with you.

Like, there's the part where, you know, they're at this bar and it's ostensibly, you know, there's only men in the bar. I think we're assuming that they're either, you know, they're not necessarily at a gay bar, but they're somewhere that they know might be friendly. But I was scared, right? Like, it's the 80s and these are two guys who are going to kiss each other out in public. You're worried about people doing that, right? You're worried about what's going to happen if they bring themselves forward publicly.

And so maybe it was the introduction of something like that that made me see. Cal and almost by proxy Nate as more vulnerable than I've seen them in the past that made me feel that way. But I didn't end up feeling like Cal is what we wish Nate would be. I wound up seeing more. They are actually in some ways one and the same. I really agree with you in terms of they're showing us a psycho-perpetuated and toxic masculinity sort of like shoved down the hill. the way that Cal's dad treats him in the flashback, the way that the coach just casually drops, you know, gendered,

you know, language into the way that the boys are coached. And there is, there's just this like doomed, tragic thing hanging over this hold cold open because you see Cal at a time in his life when he's so much happier. You know that something is going to happen to him to shove him into a closet to the point where he needs to express himself sexually, like secretly and with these tapes and all of the stuff and there's a real violence in his encounter with Jules in season one.

And so I just felt, as you say, concerned and scared for Cal, a character that I would have, in another show would have been a villain of the show, but the show is asking you to see all of these flawed people as extremely vulnerable people and the various shells that they put around themselves and the various toxic behaviors

that they take on to protect themselves. I thought that that bar might be a gay bar, but as you say, it might just be like... I mean, I thought every guy in that bar was gay, was my read on the whole thing. At the very minimum, everyone in there was a man, right? So you have...

They're at least hinting at it. I thought the dance to in excess, which starts with, like, two guys doing like air guitar and airdromes and like ending with a kiss and the way that the kiss happens with um the quick pullback of like fear like is this is this not what you want and then like smiling and crying the one who really goes for it yeah too which i think it's important um so yeah so i loved it i think it's one of the best things that the show has ever done um and let's just like yeah particularly just because to put a fine point on it yeah not cal

so much because that in season one, that storyline to me just felt unfinished and like we were going to get more. But Nate was the character of all of these characters who we'd talked about, you know, does the show's attempt to wrench some empathy out of its audience for each one of these people,

no matter how bad the things that they do are, is it effective? And if there was one character where I wasn't sold, it was Nate. And I think by proxy doing this with Cal ends up making that a little bit more effective. So, you know, tip of the cap, because that was one of the things that I was not quite told on. And gosh darn it, Sam. Well, I think it's really driven home in this encounter that Cal has with Fez and Ashtray at the end of the episode when he goes.

And again, sort of similar to similar to the encounter that he had in season one where you think there's going to be an altercation where everybody ends up just sort of begging for secrecy in season one. I think, you know, this obviously doesn't go the way that Cal expects or the way that we expect. Like, we're worried for Fez, but Cal's the one who's completely on the back foot in all of this. And he gets brutally beaten by a child. And but I think the key moment in that scene is when Fez says, you know, that Nate is in love with Jules or something like that. And I think that's a huge moment for Cal, who's. someone who's never understood or seen his son to be like exactly what you're saying, Nora, to be to understand, oh no, have I trapped my son in the same spot that I felt trapped in

as a teen? Have I done exactly the same damage to him that was done to me? I thought that was really powerful. We'll see how that all plays out. But do you have any other thoughts about that Calphaz, Ashtray, and Canter? Ashtray has just seen too much in his young life. He's too comfortable with violence. Yeah, I worry. I worry a lot. But given that the thing that had had kind of blocked my ability to feel some of that empathy for Nate was, yeah, but he's still, you know, he still feels powerful enough to go to the police and blame someone else for attacking Maddie and do all of these things. Cal gets put in this position where he's threatening to do that, right? he's like, call the police, call the police.

I know the police. I know the chief of the police. He's going to side with me and I'm going to use the fact that, you know, I have money and status and connections and I'm going to get you in trouble. And then by the end, he doesn't. He can't? He just said, can I just go? That ties it. That sends it home, right?

He's been weakened to the point where he feels he is now unsafe inside the system. Because he has a secret that's out there that's vulnerable. Like, you know, he knows it that that disc is out. there somewhere. And so he is exposed in a way that he hasn't been. Oh my God. Do I look like I'm in Oklahoma? Why would your play be sent in Oklahoma? You thought I was auditioning for Oklahoma. I haven't read it. Are you making fun of me or did you actually think I was auditioning for Oklahoma? Why the fuck would you audition for Oklahoma? I'm not. Then why the fuck do you look like you're auditioning for Oklahoma? Do I? Yes. We have been bumping around this idea of Oklahoma

on a musical. And I want to talk to you about the idea of a musical in this episode because that in excess sequence, you know, this show has a choreographer, which like not a lot of teen dramas do, but the show is a designated choreographer. It's Ryan Heffington, who's done a lot of things, including recently Tick, Tick Boom, which is another, it's a musical that tries to give you dancing that is a little bit more integrated to the plot than some musical dancing is, if that makes any sense. And so I think between the in excess dance that we get in Cal's cold open, shortly thereafter we get this

rude dance sequence in her room leading into the kitchen, which is heavily choreographed, then the whole episode is bouncing around this idea of Oklahoma. A musical, which really had a moment a couple years ago when this is where I leave you, the film, this is where I leave you, and Watchmen both did like, heavy Oklahoma interactions.

And it was just like a musical that a lot of people were talking about. It's a musical specifically that is famous for having like a dream ballet sequence. So this idea of a dream ballet is something that Euphoria engages with a lot. But it's a moment in a musical where everything pauses and you have this sort of balletic expression of a thought or a wish or a future vision or something like that. So I just think that the use of Oklahoma is very specific in here. And I think this idea of what we talk about when we talk about euphoria. We talk about euphoric expressions of something, an extreme heightened version of reality, whether that be drugs or maybe for Cassie this season, her relationship with Nate.

And tying it all back in literally to the idea of the musical and how characters and musicals express themselves, I think is really interesting. And the last thing I want to say about this rude dance, sequence is it feels like another sort of lean into the unreliable narrator because we are in Rue's like musical world and then the camera spins around and Storm reads character Gia her younger sister is there and all of a sudden the music cuts out and we see what Gia sees which is her sister looking completely unhinged in the kitchen. How do you feel about it? Yes. No. Well, so there was something there was something that sort of baffled and amazed me about this is because yes, we're in We are in Rue's sort of heightened semi-reality state of euphoria fantasy world.

But even though at the end of it, we spin around and there's Gia and we're sort of snapped back into real life, there's a moment where when Rue closes her door, the music gets muffled like it was playing on a boom box. that so you're in you don't know if you're in real life or not because if the music is just playing in Rue's head it should have no relationship to the door being open or closed right but it does so somehow it's in the house it's gea theoretically should be able to hear it too if that's the case but then she can't and we don't know and this is another thing where there's a little part of me that's like, okay, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I sort of don't think so because I trust that the people making the show, like, think about things like that. And it really threw me for a loop. Do you have anything on that, Joanna, to calm me down here?

I don't know. I mean, I think we should just be prepared. Because it doesn't the music swell again after it does that? It muffles on the door closed, but it swells again. But then it comes back up. Yeah, it comes back up. I mean, I think. it's a fool's errand actually to try to trace down exactly what happens in euphoria. Does that make sense? Like I just... Yes, I think it's just a reminder that we don't know. Right. Yeah. Well, and the lyrics of the song, I mean, maybe one of the more on the no songs that euphoria's overused, call me irresponsible, call me unreliable to. Like, that's, you know, that's Rue. That's who we're watching right here. Great stuff. Great stuff from Zendaya. I mean, Zendaya has been in musicals.

Greatest Showman. If you haven't seen it, at least watch her sequences on YouTube. They're incredible. I mean, it makes me die to see as Endaa full-blown musical with Tom Holland. That's all I want in the world. Anything else you want to say about this Rue kitchen scene? We just need to talk about how on the nose the meta-magic is here. Because Rue literally says, now, as a beloved character that a lot of people are rooting for,

I feel a certain responsibility to make good decisions. and then goes on to make a bunch of bad decisions. Like, first of all, Zendaya has me in the palm of her hand whenever she does anything. Like, she's just, when she's, like, making out with the pillow, it is somehow peak charismatic. I'm unclear on how that is a possible thing that a person does. But it was clever in an obvious way that I really, really enjoy.

Like when she goes to the slideshow of how to get away with relapsing, and then she's going through the slides and there's a dick pick. And she just goes, oh, sorry, that's from last year. A call back to, first of all, it wasn't last year. It was 2019. But to the moment from season one where Roo's in in omnisciential. mode going through the levels of dickpicks too. Like, I was just cackling at that.

And I'm not even fully sure what the message is other than just a reminder that they are playing with our expectations of characters being different than how people perform in real life versus the desire of, you know, a creator who's putting a lot of himself into characters in this show to put something on screen that's real and the fact that they're just going to keep messing with us. I think that's it. There are a couple amazing layers to this. The callback to season one, but instead of Jules on the projector, it's Elliott, right?

Like that her partner in this is not Jules. It's Elliott this season, right? The partner in drug taking. And then I think also another thing that's shaded into that is this religious theme that we've been talking about a little bit this season because she talks about people looking for hope. You know, she says, I get it. I mean, obviously, this is Sam Levinson addressing critiques of the show, addressing critique of is this show too dark for the dark times that we live in? And so he does this meta-slide show where Zendaya, one of the most charming humans alive, is like, I get it. You want to root for me.

I do terrible things. You want a hopeful, optimistic story. This is not the story you're watching. Like, let me prepare you for the dark things that will happen on this show because this is not, I'm not here to give you hope. I'm so sorry. In reality or in television, unfortunately, I'm not it. Yeah. But when she says hope, we get a bunch of religious imagery in the slideshow.

We see people at church, right? Yeah. Which I thought was really interesting. Again, I think it's just to like watch. I don't know what Sam Levinson's engagement with religion is for himself or his level of belief, but I think it is something that the show is really interested in, especially this season. Obviously, there's a lot of parallels between Sam writing himself into Rue. And we've had this idea that as part of recovering from addiction,

Ali is told Rue, and we've seen all these allusions to religion, that she needs to find some sort of calling or higher power. I wondered because we then go on to see Lexi realize that she wants to write this play and do this behind the scenes segment that's really, really funny and charming as well. But when Lexi does that, Lexi talks about realizing that she's an observer. And she has this calling to take things from her observer. life and put them into theater. And it made me wonder if now all of a sudden, Sam is writing himself into Lexi.

And we have this sort of like higher power calling that is creating art, creating television, creating stories. And the sort of transplanted identity of the creator of the show into the characters is a little bit fluid. I love that. No, I think we talked about it a little bit with like, perhaps. Perhaps he's putting, you know, because he's got Rue as his clearest proxy in this quasi out ofbiographical story that he's telling. But we talked about how Sam Levinson, you know, son of Barry Levinson, a famed film director, grew up with a lot of, you know, white male rich privilege, how perhaps he put, it felt like there's some confessional stuff going on with Nate.

Like, that's where I think a lot of that white cis-hut male privilege stuff is going. And then in Rue, it's some confessional stuff around, you know, his drug-seeking behavior, which he has been very open about. And I think you're 100% dead on the money. That with Lexi, now we have him exploring his identity as a storyteller. I think you're completely right that we could look for, especially since Sam Levinson writes every single episode. Like, this is a very unusual for television. Usually of your writer's room. You have a lot of different voices in a story.

This is Sam Levinson writing every single episode. This is like him. And if he's injecting splinters of his personality into all of these people, I think that's really interesting and worth watching. And I think that the Rue slideshow interacts with this scene where she is talking to Gia about, the whole scheme, right, is that sort of if you're going to relapse, you got to have a cover drug. So she tells Gia, you know, I'm just smoking a little pot.

And then she has this whole conversation where she gaslights, you know, one of the slides and slideshow is gaslighting, right? She gaslights Gia by talking about like she needs to take this or else she's going to kill herself. It's this incredibly sad moment that you're watching where you know she's, there might be some truth in it, but also she's lying. It's one of the worst, most awful thing that we've seen Roodoo, I think. And it felt confessional to me. It felt like something that, if he didn't do exactly that, Sam Levinson's like, I've done stuff like this. This is a thing that an addict will do. They will say anything to make sure that they can continue their habit.

And I think these confessional moments from him, whether they emerge through Alexi or a Rue or a Nate, is what makes euphoria as like dreamlight and heightened as it is feels so raw and personal and emotional, you know? Yeah, I know. It's very effective and obviously I think we'll come back to it in terms of the scene between Ruin and Ali at the end. Lexi knew she couldn't mount a play all on her own. So she enlisted the help of Bobby as her stage manager and partner in crime. They didn't know each other well except that they shared a mutual disdain for Oklahoma. Bobby, you okay? The Lexi, you've mentioned a couple times that this is life segment, the Lexi behind the scene.

So funny. So good. So, so, so funny. love this for Maude Apatow. And I think, and, you know, in terms of tracking, the moment that reminded me a lot of the question you asked about the door closing and the, and the music being muffled in Rue's room, is when she's walking around behind the scenes of her house, the Cassie Lexi family home, and you see the exterior set. And then you've got young Cal from the cold open is sort of asking for notes. And that is such an interesting reality-breaking detail because it's not just,

oh, this cute meta joke about Lexi seeing her own life as a movie. This is the Cal Cold Open, which has nothing to do with Lexi's story, is injected into this behind-the-scenes meta moment in the episode. And I think it's just like another moment of like Sam Levinson being like, you don't, you have no idea what you're watching. You have no idea what you're watching. But at the same time, I'm paying attention to what you're saying about the thing that you have no idea what you're watching. Because young Cal asking for notes, I mean, one of the sort of biggest, again, like, that cold open responds to some critiques of the show in some ways. So having him ask for notes seems like a reflection of that. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I love Lexi putting on a play.

And we talked about this in episode one where Lexi was. really backgrounded in season one. And, you know, they found something interesting for her to do in season two. She's got a romantic interest and her own thing going. And I also love there's a moment, a couple moments in the episode where storylines cross each other in the hallway. Like, Lexi walks past, you know, Rue's storyline to go talk to the principal about her play. And then we circle back.

It's the truth or dare, right? And we circle back to it. again, and Nate walks past, but he's nothing to do with the scene, but he just, like, sort of walks past. And it's just sort of these, these threads that are tenuously connected in the high school hallway because they all go to high school together, even though, like, some of these kids are actual friends. Well, and Nate walking past connects with the Cassie storyline because Nate's just walking past her every morning after she's spent four hours getting ready for school. Let's, let's zoom ahead and talk about this. Let's talk about what's going on with Cassie in this episode. I want to talk about Can I say one thing?

Can I just say one thing first? So over the last week, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who is one of the sort of like it players in football right now just on a tear, a rising star in the league, went to his post-game press conference

after winning in the wildcard round of the playoffs, wearing pink, square, rimless, Cartier sunglasses. they are the exact same pair of sunglasses that Cassie wears sitting by the pool with Maddie in this episode. The exact same pair.

I cannot tell you my level of delight when I saw her wearing those in that scene and went, oh my God, Joe Burrow and Cassie have the same stylist. I feel like those glasses are going to sell out for multiple demographics then. Something I love about Cassie in this episode, and maybe throughout the season

I should pay more attention, but her soundtrack in this episode are things like are Brenda Lee or the Fontaine's. This is a dreamy girl pop soundtrack. And I think again, that sort of lives back to that musical sort of element to everything of Cassie's in her own movie

and it's a different movie and it's got this soundtrack to it because she thinks she's in a dreamy romantic film. We're watching a horror movie with Cassie, but she thinks she's in this beautiful, dreamy relationship with Nate. The morning routine montage where we see her violently scrubbing and rolling and moisturizing and, I mean, I think it's one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in terms of an engagement with the thing that people, specifically, young women

do to feel valuable in the world. And for Cassie, a, character in search of a personality is, I just, I thought it was incredible. What do you think of the get ready stuff? Well, what's wild about it is it made me, I don't know, if you read Trick Mirror, Giantaalatino's sort of essay collection, there's so much, I love that collection, and there's so much in it that particularly about, you know, the way that that millennial women interact with the world and the idea of sort of self-care and self-betterment having all of these toxic undertones that are basically, we've repackaged just like diet culture and toxic standards

of beauty under the guise of health and wellness and loving yourself that are in some ways hard to read because there's always a part of me that's like, crap, but I really thought I liked running, you know? I thought some of this stuff like truly makes me feel good and powerful and healthy and untangling that is is hard and interesting, right? And there's so much about what Cassie's doing where it's like, okay, the level of obsession that she's putting into this is clearly not healthy. The fact that it is intended to get Nate's attention is clearly not healthy.

But I believed her. I believed the show when they said that she. she's also getting a sense of power and control and routine out of doing this. And then it's such a punch at the end when we realize she's turning herself into Maddie. Yeah. She goes to school and realizes that she's dressed and, you know, done up exactly like Maddie. And so it has nothing to do with, you know, her own empowerment or finding an identity or a personality and in that kind of. kind of control and routine because she's just becoming her friend who has the thing that she wants,

which is Nate. What's what I mean is like she's a character and serves of identity. Yeah, exactly. She's not finding it here. She found she's pasted. The identity that she wants is Nate's girlfriend. Yes. So she's pasted someone else's identity on top of herself.

I want to shout out two things. First of all, Sydney, Sweetie's incredible performance during Cassie's like bathroom freak, fantasy freak out, talking about how she is well sobbing. amazing. And then also Alexa Demi, who plays Maddie's reaction to seeing Cassie in the hallway dressed identically to her,

where she's like, I love these women. I love these actresses. I love these performances. So good. But I think something that we had brought up earlier this season that I think the show is really leaning into

are the addiction parallels between Rue and Cassie, this obsessive pattern of behavior for Cassie or whatever it is that Cassie's looking for here as its own pattern of addiction the same way that Ruse drug-seeking

behavior is. And I think that's really interesting. I can't think of another show that is quite dug into a teenage girl's seeking validation,

seeking worth in the world through exactly a storyline. that. Wait, I don't understand. If you're not auditioning for Oklahoma, then why do you look like that? Like what? Like a country music star. In a good way or a bad way. Bitch, you better be joking. Jules Elliott and Rue, the sexuality interrogation, the interrogation scene. I love this. We already talked about how much we liked the character of Elliot. It's hard to introduce a season two character and have us like them. It's especially hard when you introduce them as a

sort of potential spoiler to a relationship we're invested in. But I think introducing Elliot into this dynamic has worked incredibly well. And I really like the, you know, something that we talked about at the beginning of the season is the way in which the show maybe wanted to lean even more into picking apart the ideas of Jules' queer identity. So Elliot pointing out like you're a trans girl wearing a binder. Jules saying things like gender, fuck me please, all the stuff like that is, is a layer deeper into queerness.

And Elliot's sort of, are you gay, kind of? That's a very Gen Z response, I think. Yeah. And he's basically accusing her being, when he says you're a nun, everyone's a nun. You know, just in the way that you think about gender and identity, you're trapped in a binary and I'm living outside the binary. And I think it's so great to like have a character come in and look at someone like Jules and be like, you're so square, you know, and you're like. I also thought it was really smart to just give Jules and Elliott an opportunity to play off of each other without the sort of, you know, Rue has a gravity. I don't mean like a seriousness.

I mean like a gravitational pull when she's in the room. Removing that, I think helps a lot with that sort of injecting season two character to create a love triangle problem because watching them work off of each other was really, really interesting. And I think makes Elliott like a part of. the world instead of just a sort of interloper. And I think this introduction of Rue and a potential asexual identity, you know, I'm not, I don't think neither I nor the show is ready to make that judgment, but I think it's an interesting introduction because as much as we saw Rue's obsession and fascination with Jules, it is so much more of a romantic, again, almost sort of like throwback square, old-fashioned,

Romeo and Juliet, Wetlight, Three Under Window breaks idea of jewels and less of a teen hormonal sexualized idea of jewels. And I think that that's a really keen observation that the show is making. And I'm curious to see where it goes. But like we see, you know, in Rue's Frank Sinatra Pillow dance, we see her. like make out with the pillow with, I swear, more, like, sexual curiosity than we've seen her usually make out with Jules. We see a little bit more in this episode. But I don't know.

What do you think of what they're doing there? Yeah, I think the way that I've always interpreted that with Rue is just she's got a lot going on before you introduce the challenge for any high school student of figuring out. their identity and their way of operating as a sexual being. So it's almost like, I always assumed Rue just kind of hadn't gotten there yet. But it makes sense that they would be sort of questioning that and thinking about it particularly. Because for Jules, Jules almost can't avoid that, right? Because Jules' journey has so much to do with sexuality and figuring out, you know, how her identity relates to that.

But she sort of had to go there and Rue has not necessarily. But it's an interesting facet of the relationship because it also establishes something that Jules and Elliott share that Rue is on the outside of. Yeah. And all of a sudden, the formula feels a little switched in this episode, especially when Elliot is telling Jules all these nice things about herself. And, you know, I think a lot of us expected when Elliott came in that it would be like an Elliot and Rue tension.

and jewels on the outside of it. And all of a sudden it feels like... It's like a true triangle. A lot of like love triangles are really love A-frames. Love a love A-frame. All right, let's talk about Rue's big plan. So in episode one, Rue tells us that she's got to change when it comes to female drug dealers.

And here she is putting out her mom's best business casual suit and going in and making a case for herself why she should be a female drug dealer to Lori. This is where we find out that Rue is either lying about or actually has a very high GPA, I think probably lying. But my question is, okay, I just want to ask you really quickly as a thought experiment. Of the characters that we've met who go to this high school

that are in this inner circle, who do you think actually does have a really high GPA? Like, who is secretly a great student in this group of teens? The real answer is no one. No one has gone to class. Everyone is like going through deep turmoil at every opportunity. I guess I would say one of Maddie and Cassie, I go back and I would go back and forth on who I really think it is,

but one of those girls is sort of type A enough that there would be a need to achieve. I would almost want to go with Maddie. I think it's Maddie. But we got so much from her that was like, Maddie just doesn't want to do anything. She just does not have ambition. She does not have goals. Maybe that's not something that we're supposed to believe necessarily.

But I do think that Maddie could just secretly have absolutely no issue with school, not be challenged by it whatsoever, and have a mind that's so sharp and quick that she's just got it on lock. It's dangerous to invoke a Joss Whedon show in the Year of Our Lord 2022. But I will say that one moment of Buffy Vampire Slayer, one of my favorite shows growing up, is when Cordelia Chase scores really high on the SITs and everyone is surprised and she goes what, I can have layers. Like, I test well.

I feel like Maddie will score really high of the SITs. And I mean, Lexi is probably pulling down straight-ays. Yeah, and Ethan. Lori genuinely terrifying. This is, to be clear, a terrible idea. Whatever was doing. Terrible idea. I believe the term is girl bossing a little too close to the sun.

As the kids say. So we're terrified for Rue. Loria surrender from the depths of her incredibly complex massage chair. So I'm a little worried for what's going on here. But it all culminates in this really, really, really painful scene between Zendaya and Coleman Domingo as Ali. We saw their, like their dynamic is, so incredible throughout. They held down an entire special episode together, but this stairway sequence is one of the, you know, it refers back to that special, the diner conversation

where Ali, like, confesses that he, you know, he came from abuse. He passed that abuse down, sort of like what we were talking about with Cal and Nate, and she throws that back in his face in one of the most vicious things I've ever seen in the registry, like the way that the hurt registers on Coleman Domingo's face is, you know, sort of made me actually audibly gasp. This was what got me emotional in this episode. It's just so sad. It just, you know, he wants to help Bruce so badly. And up to this point, we'd never seen her, we'd seen her sort of ignore it, but we'd never seen her reject it. And she'd set it up earlier in the last. episode by saying it's not me. I'm not going to be the good example, happy ending that you're

looking for. And this really proves that. And it was an incredible performance that really, really affected me. Religion, of course, comes back into the mix here, where she says, I'd be better if I believed in God or a law or whatever. And then, yeah, in my nose, it wrote Rootorches the Holly Bridge. I mean, I don't know if this is the end of their relationship, because I don't think the show would want to let Coleman Domingo go, but if I were him, I might be done, at least for a time with her. Also, while this is happening, she is holding a suitcase that he hasn't seen for himself, but has correctly guessed, is stuffed with drugs. $10,000 worth of drugs.

That was actually one of my favorite girl boss moments for her when Lori offers her $50,000. She's like, oh, no, no, no, too much. She's like, 10,000. Yeah, she's like, good for me. such restraint, $10,000 worth of drugs, all kinds of drugs in there. And also, like, this idea of religion, religious imagery, the episode ends with her, you know, taking a tab of something. And the communion sort of imagery on that, I think, is something to look out for that, that I think is an interesting aspect.

That's a great point. Last thing I want to talk about is sort of this idea of ebb and flow of characters. Something you asked at the beginning of the season is, like, is this still an ensemble show? Or is this just the Jules and Rue show at this point? And I think it very much is still an ensemble show. But I think what we're seeing on Euphoria is perhaps with this very talented cast of characters, storylines are going to ebb and flow. So Lexi, who was in the back burner last season, comes to the four of this season.

And I think it's fair to say, and we got actually a couple messages about this, that Kat is a character who at least not, we haven't yet really seen. how the show is interested in weaving her story into the main narrative. Like, you know, we see her meet Ethan's parents. It goes disastrously. That's a story, but it doesn't really feel connected. Ethan at least seems like he's going to be looped into Lexi's whole plague. We see him in the audition line.

Like, that's a way for him back into the central story. And then McKay, who showed up at the party, but, like, isn't dating Cassie and goes to college? so is no reason to be part of that. I don't even know if he's meaningfully on the show this season. So it's an ensemble, maybe an ensemble that doesn't feel like it needs to find room for every single character all the time. What do you think?

So McKay disappearing does not, is not a problem for me. In some ways, it reinforces the idea that, like, Cassie is not addicted to Nate. She's addicted to love or to being loved. It actually makes a lot of, of sense to me that a character like that would have had a boyfriend who

at one point she felt like all this sort of obsessive drama about and then he just disappears and it's like she never thinks about him again. Yeah, Cat feels backburnered right now. I will say I've been really I wanted this to continue to be an ensemble

show. I feel like it has and I feel like that's been very satisfying to me. Cat does feel backburned right now but I hope that she comes back around and I I would say so far, I would trust them to do that. The way in which I mentioned, like, shouted out Cassie's storyline being, like, I thought that Kat's storyline was part of what really set Euphoria apart in the first season in terms of what it was examining in terms of power of women who look the way the cat looks and all of that,

I thought was something that a lot of people connected to with the show. So it would be a shame for her to be backburnered. Kat also, she's had one of the most. most, I think, iconic scenes from season two so far with the screaming influencers. So she hasn't had a ton of minutes, but she's made the most of them. And the show has made the most of them for her. The episode closes out, speaking of music as we have all throughout, with a brand new fresh Lana Del Rey track, never before heard anywhere else debuting in the closing credits of an

episode of Euphoria. Real Peach Pit After Dark on 90210, uh, feeling or the OC would do this. all the time as well. I don't know much about this track because we're recording this a little early and I'm sure there will be some great article up on Rollingstone.com or Vulture or something like that about the how they got Lana to do this and premiere track. But, you know, it's a beautiful song. And Lana feels like a perfect fit for this show. Any, any Lana Del Rey thoughts or feelings from you, Nora, Fransiotti? Yeah, perfect choice. Just perfect choice. Lana Del Rey has euphoria vibes. Yeah, has like total euphoria vibes.

the sort of, you know, chemtrails over the country club stuff is so fitting. All right. So let's do a quick fire wrap up before we go. Starting with the needle drop, I will go first and say, I genuinely cannot choose between the in excess song, which I will never hear the same. Like, that's a song I love and already know, but I will never not think of the opening of this episode of Euphoria. Or the Salana track playing quietly in the background of Maddie and Cassie, pool side because Maddie's look is so exactly ripped from Salina. I really liked that use of Salina in the episode.

How about you? What's your needle drop moment? So I think it's Rue singing just because I'm going to have the same experience where literally Frank Sinatra, I can no longer hear without picturing Zendaya doing drugs and like amazingly charitimately making out with a pillow, which I think is really saying something. All right, the Maddie Perez Honorary Fit Check. I think it has to go to Cassie for her incredible Maddie impersonation. What do you think?

Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm giving it to Joe Burrow for the shades for preempting Cassie. Who is most in need of a hug in this episode? Oh, Ali and Gia. Oh, my God. Those are really good choices. I'm going to pick Cassie because, like, I am really scared for what's going on with this girl this season. Guys, he needs like a water.

A good night's sleep. A nap. The acceptable slash terrifying slash horrifying moment for you. So a real first in that it was this is like the first time that to me it's not

sort of explicitly violent or explicit in other ways scene. The just emotional hit of the scene between Rue and Ali. I mean, totally necessary and an incredible scene,

but amazing that for the first time, euphoria affected me more in my feelings than just in my sort of sensibilities and needing to cover my eyes. I did cover my eyes when Ashtray was bashing Cal's head in. Yeah, I think I'm going to give it to the folly sound of the blood on Cal's face. There's a point when he's sort of like wiping the blood out of his eyes and there's just like a real solid squish that happened.

Yeah. Did not like it. Favorite flashy camera moves slash shot. So I thought the cinematography in the cold open was immaculate. And we talked about the pan up when Cal is in his room. But also there's the scene where he and Derek are with their girlfriends and they jump in the pool. and there is, you know, you see like the girls are on their shoulders and you see like the female bodies above the surface of the water and then underneath are the guys. And it's a little on the nose, but I actually love that euphoria is not above an explicit metaphor.

And I thought that was incredible. I'm going to give it to the interrogation scene of Elliott because I'm pretty sure that's like one of those things where they actually used a desk lamp to. light that light him. You know what I mean? And what I loved, they never really explain it. But Jules is holding the lamp like really close to her. And she has gloves on because I have to imagine that lamp is really hot.

So they put gloves on her. But I'm like, where did she have? Was she wearing the gloves those days? Like she put them on to hold a desk lamp. I don't know. But I loved that. All right. Last but not least.

Who would we actually want to party with on Euphoria this week? Nora, you're partying with. I would go to the post-premier party for Lexi's show. But not Oklahoma. Fuck Oklahoma. I would go hang out with Maddie Poolside at her babysitting gig. Seems like a great time.

That kid seems pretty chill. Yeah, so go visit Maddie while she's babysitting and hang out at the pool. All right, that's it for us. We'll be back. Next week. We'll have a special guest on the show. next week as well. Please again, send us any questions or comments on Twitter, on Instagram, DM. I bet Joe wrote this on both spots, so you can find me there. Nora, where can folks find you?

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