The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Euphoria’ Season 2, Episode 7 Recap

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Joanna and Nora put on their umbrellas to unpack the latest rainy episode of 'Euphoria.' They discuss high school play hijinks and how creator Sam Levinson may have exhausted the benefit of the doubt. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Nora Princiotti Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Watch is the latest and the greatest in pop culture from best friends Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald. Join them as they discuss TV, movies, music, and much more. Check out The Watch on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Crack a Cayman Jack Margarita with real lime, blue agave nectar, and real margarita taste. Taste your escape. Kamen Jack, America's number one margarita. Kaman Jack is a premium maltever.

with flavors. Please drink responsibly. Kamenjack beverage company, Chicago, Illinois. Good sleep is everything. That's why Ali's science back support is made with a blend of melatonin and L-thianine for both kiddos and grown-ups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help.

You're racing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Ollie's sleep solutions for the whole family at ollie.com. That's OLLLY.com. Into the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robbins. And I'm Nora Pinciotti.

And we're here to talk about the penultimate episode of Euphoria season two, titled The Theater and it's double written and directed, as always, by Sam Levinson. A very fun episode of Euphoria, which is not always the case with our Sunday night Euphoria dates. Sometimes they are a tough sit. But this is a really fun one. We've got a lot to talk about, got a lot of feedback from people. There's been some reporting around the show, all that good stuff. mostly I'm excited to have Nora in like a post-Superable phase of your life, you know, like, how are you doing?

Are you excited to be clear of it? Or will you miss it? It's always a little bittersweet. I will miss the season. But we had a great Super Bowl, great Super Bowl week, got to hang out with a lot of Team Ringer in L.A. Had a good time. I'm back on the East Coast.

Today was, I got back late Monday. We were recording this. It's a Thursday morning. Today was the first morning this week where I woke up, like, early East Coast time, got a little workout in, felt like a normal human. So glad to be back. Welcome back. This episode title, The Theater in Is Double, comes from a book by a French, Antonin Artou, I think, would just be how you would pronounce his name in French. Arto.

Arto. A very. Sam Levinson sort of thing to pull from this book. But in that book, The Theater in Estabble is a famous Arto essay called The Theater of Cruelty. And the promise of the Theater of Cruelty is that the Theater of Cruelty can be seen as a break from traditional Western theater and a means by which artists assault the senses of the audience and essentially hold a mirror up to the audience to show them about themselves, which I think is a very accurate depiction of what Lexi is doing in this episode. So actually a very, a very perfect title for this episode. And then we have a few like broader things that we want to talk about before we get it into like the meat of of the episode itself. First of all, my old colleague, Johanna Desta has a great interview with Micka Kelly up on Vanity Fair where Mika Kelly talks about her character, Samantha and, you know, why Sam Levinson wrote the role for her, what the role originally was.

and what she said is that she was originally supposed to be there just for one episode as sort of an older, a potentially older version of Maddie, you know, so that Maddie could see or reflected back at her a potentially older version of herself and that he expanded the role and gave them more to do, including that like pool scene we got last week. And then the, you know, there's like a little scene between them in this week's episode. And Mika also talks about the fact that when, you know, she first encountered, her character's first, encountered Maddie that the script called for her to, you know, strip down and get naked in front of her and make a Kelly push back and basically said like, hey, what if she just like unzips me, you know, rather than me stripping off entirely in front of, in front of her. And, you know, Sam Levinson. And this is similar to stuff that Sidney's Sweetie has said about when she pushed back on nudity, Sam Levinson was like, okay, sure. Chloe Cherry's brought it up as well.

Who brought up? Chloe Cherry, I believe. that originally that scene where she gets stuffed in the vent, she was supposed to be completely naked. So, you know, just some questions, comments and concerns about, I don't know, this show and its relationship to nudity. How do you feel about that? I feel kind of conflicted. How do you feel? Well, you mentioned the idea of the assault on the senses of the audience.

Lexi is doing it. Sam does it as well. And there's always going to be a part of euphoria that uses shock as a tool. And it's effective in that broadly. I do think, I don't think that this is any horrific indictment of Sam Levinson because all of these stories are followed up by the people telling them saying as soon as they voiced concerns, he was totally receptive. All of these scenes, no one ended up actually having to do them in the nude. That is as it should be. I think it seems a little weird.

at a certain point, if there's a track record of a bunch of actors coming onto your set, leaving and saying, yeah, creator wanted me to be naked, I thought that was a little strange. And this is becoming a pattern. I don't know. I would change my behavior. Seems like a reasonable enough thing to do. Again, that is a far less significant offense than somebody saying, yeah, I did the scene naked. and I felt really uncomfortable, but I didn't feel empowered to speak up.

And I ended up doing it, but felt really bad about it. And at least we're not dealing with that. But I think it seems a littleicky. That's the source of my conflict as well. When I read that, I am slightly perturbed. Just by sort of, you know, the question of nudity and something, I'm not like a prude. I don't care. And we're watching HBO, which has, there are shows with way worse track records than this one when it comes.

to nudity, but we're also talking about teenage characters. And, you know, I'm not a prude. I don't mind nudity in a story. I do prefer it when it feels like it is woven into the plot somehow, means something. Do you know what you mean? Yes, but I will say, I think if it is for the purpose of shock, which I think is a valid purpose, I just question the utility of it. I think I can say pretty clearly, I wish there were less nudity in this show.

And I don't think that it would erode their ability to get a reaction. For instance, we'll talk about this later. But there's a scene between Cassie and Nate where he's dressing her. And it is so disturbing and violating to me. And she is completely clothed throughout. Yeah, correct. I just don't think that it's necessary. I think basically what I would say is Sam Levinson has probably exhausted the benefit of the doubt.

If we're having this conversation about season three and there are more actors on the show saying I was put in situations that I was uncomfortable with. At least I was able to bring it up and I didn't have to go through with it. But I was asked to and I felt it overstepped a boundary. it's just how are you not empathetic enough to internalize this discourse and respond to it? I think up to about now, it's worth giving a creator who's clearly trying to get a rise out of people in a number of different ways, the benefit of the doubt. But we're probably at the end of the rope with that. I think it's also tough. I mean, you know, I agree with you.

I don't need, I'm not asking for like more nudity on the show, but I think it is tough when the large, large, large, large, large, large portion of that sits on one actress's shoulders, which is Sydney, sweetie, right? It's like carrying the majority of the nudity for this show. And that's, that imbalance, I think also lends an air of creepiness to it for me. Anyway, right now we're going to tread on the Ringar Dish territory just to mention that Hunter Schaefer and Dominic Fike, who play Jules and Elliott, respectively, went Instagram official with some kind of relationship.

And it's very cute. Any thoughts or feelings about this, Nora? Love it. Wish them the best. Very cute. I want to talk about this, you brought up, before we started recording, you brought up this ratings conversation about the numbers of who's tuning into euphoria, which is something we haven't talked about yet.

And we want to talk about sort of the general feedback, which, you know, I don't know about you, Nora, but when it comes to me understanding. feedback of euphoria, it's mostly my Twitter feed that would tell me how people are feeling about euphoria. And that's obviously a very narrow alley, a narrow window into how people are feeling about the season. So I don't, I don't mean to presume that my Twitter feed speaks for the entire viewership, especially when the numbers are like this. So the average for season one, according to variety, around six million was for season one. and these episodes, season two, are pulling in like $13 million. And for reference, for comparison, you know, those aren't like end of Game of Thrones numbers, but, which was like in the 20s, right?

But Succession Season 3 was only around the $6 million. You know what I mean? And Succession feels, again, because we're kind of in a Twitter bubble, Succession felt like the biggest thing happening in the culture for me when it was happening. And close to universally lauded, which I don't think euphoria feels that way. Right. So how do you reconcile the massive viewership with the feedback that you're seeing? And what is the nature of the feedback that you're seeing? The feedback that I say is.

So I think the combination of those things just tells me to accept a certain amount of this is a vexing show. People are going to have that response to it. there's inherent in it, it's troubling. It's sometimes intentionally troubling and it's provocative and therefore it provokes. And that causes people to express frustrations with characters, with character arcs. And all of that is interesting. That is what we do. It's a fascinating part of the consumption of the show.

And that doesn't mean that the show is immune to criticism, right? It's not as though all publicity is good publicity or all Twitter activity is good Twitter activity or good publicity. But I do think that it was helpful for me to just sort of ground myself in, okay, this show is a phenomenon that an absurd amount of people are consuming. And at a certain point, you wonder if there's some negative discussion of choices made on a show, okay, are people going to be driven away by those at a certain point? That seems to be completely not the case. And that is helpful for me to understand in terms of how people are watching the show, because it seems like very few people, even if they're actively discussing the things,

things that have frustrated them about euphoria, Euphoria Season 2, Euphoria in general. They are coming back. Every Sunday night, like clockwork, I get a text message from beloved ringer social king, Jomey, just talking about how Maddie is at Sam Levinson. But I think it's, but every Sunday night he's back in tuning in.

And this is, I love that you called it vexing. I think that's a great or provocative, provoking. But it's never un-eastern. interesting. Like you can never claim an episode of euphoria is uninteresting. Chris Ryan says something really interesting about Euphoria season two on The Watch this week where he was talking about how it's a show that is sort of given, in many ways, given over a lot of the plot to aesthetics, but not in the way that you would usually criticize something for doing that. I don't think

Chris Cricht put it this way, but I'll put it this way, which is like, oftentimes if I talk about a show doing style over substance, that's for me, that's a harsh criticism. Like, don't give me a lot of, you know, flashbang visuals

if you don't have character work behind it or emotion behind it. And Euphoria is definitely not lacking in emotion or compelling performances, all that sort of stuff. But it is true that I think when Sam is putting together an episode or putting together a season,

he is as enamored by what he can do with his camera, as he is with what he is with what he can write in his script. You know what I mean? And I don't mean that just from a writer-director point of view, but just like, you know, there's a reason why every week we talk about our favorite, like, flashy camera move. Like, Samma's trying to give us, like, you know, it's the music video aesthetic,

and I don't mean that negatively. It's always interesting to look at. So the bare minimum, euphoria is like weekly a masterclass in just sort of, you know, there's something crazy, like, keros-kuro lighting and like all this sort of stuff. this episode, like you can just find something really meaty to latch on visually, even when you're infuriated or lightly vexed by something as happening plot or character-wise. It's beautiful. I think it's, you know, it's art.

I think sometimes there's clumsiness in the way this show is written and constructed in some ways. It's not a lot of clumsiness in the way that it presents itself aesthetically. This last thing is a good way, I think, defeating. into the specifics of this episode, which is in itself about art, right? Because we are in Lexi's play in and out of Lexi's play. This fucking play about us. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. But I just want to mention one message I got from a listener named Josh, who along with his message sent me, he's a teacher and sent me a euphoria TikTok that he made. You know the euphoria, the TikTok,

uh, euphoria TikTok trend, which is like, oh, getting ready for school, but I forgot to go to euphoria high, right? Okay, which I think you brought up a couple episodes ago. He did that one. He's a teacher. He did that one. And he like, when he left, he just didn't come back into screen because there are no teachers in Euphoria.

So, like, that was his TikTok. It was great. Oh, that's really good. It was really cute. But he wrote in and he said, I've been thinking nonstop about euphoria and hidden cameras. It was the driving force for the Cal Nate Jules tram for it in the first season. And now we've seen the hidden cam and make a Kelly's closet with Maddie's dresses as well as a smile you're on camera sticker in Maddie's bedroom before Nate became.

Pepto California, Brad Pitt. California with a K. Great reference. Thanks. How much will this impact sees his huge finale? How worried are you that Lexi will get shot

when she finally stops being an observer in the Fez situation? That last line, very troublesome to me. Thanks so much for putting that in my head, Josh. We'll talk about sort of our thoughts and fears about the finale and specifically around Fez,

probably towards the end of our conversation. This idea of surveillance, which you and I talked about a little bit already, but surveillance. And then how it relates to self-recording, you know, there's a moment in this episode when on stage the girls playing the Cassie, Maddie Cat, you know, analogs are taking selfies and Lexia has his whole speech about technology and killer robots. But I think this idea of surveillance has to be related somehow to the idea of Gen Z and younger

millennials and millions of things have been written about this, about the car. constant way in which these generations are surveilling themselves and constantly recording themselves and constantly performing for social media. And as we were going to talk about performance all through this episode, I just thought that was a really interesting. Like, are the surveillance elements related to the way in which the kids are constantly putting themselves on camera? What do you think?

That's really interesting. I don't know what I, I have to be honest with you, I don't know what I think about that. I've thought very little about the idea of the presentation of selfies and social media being a part of this, even though, of course, for anybody in this age group, it would be kind of ever present. I will be honest and say that that has come up for me mentally very infrequently when watching Euphoria. I think so much of the idea of surveillance to me. reflects back on what Lexi's doing and the idea of being an observer. But there is a lot that has to do with the performances we put on for other people that's exposed. In some ways, Lexi's performance is exposing what those other performances Warren are among her friend group, family group. And it ties into cat too. I mean,

briefly we see her back doing her cam girl thing, which isn't really explained all that much in this episode. Maybe it will be tied together to some degree

in the finale. I can't say that's felt like a running theme for me throughout season two, but I can definitely see that read. And it is true.

I mean, that's a great point from the DMs that hidden cameras are kind of ever-present in this. I just feel like in 10 years, technology is going to get really scary and we're all going to wish we'd never used it.

What are you talking about? Well, all these tech companies are simultaneously developing artificial intelligence and robotics, so it's only a matter of time before they become the new military industrial complex and start making killer robots. I think there's a big difference between taking selfies and killer robots.

Yeah, maybe now, but that gap will close. Let's talk about how that bleat. into like this larger idea of theatricality because like obviously we're getting this play here but we've been talking throughout the season about these various you know there was an episode the episode a couple weeks ago when like a bunch of different vignettes were framed through windows that made them look like stages and you got a similar shot in lexie's play of like her dancing with her father was sort of framed through a window scrim but you know you've got cassie who's a drag as Maddie

a note that I wrote that echoes what you already said is we see Nate Dresser, barf, it's absolutely disgusting. Or like Young Roo performing her eulogy or Lexi

doing a Rilka poem or the cheerleading, like the theatricality of the cheerleading or cats sex camming. Like all of that are elements of the ways,

you know, the faces we put on to meet the faces that we meet. Like all of these layers of artifice. that Lexi is trying to scratch away at in her play that I think is really interesting. Maybe. So I'm sort of thinking on the fly because, again, cards on the table, this has not come up for me very often in season two.

But we've talked so much with Rue about the idea of her not being able to get clean until she's doing it for herself. And I think if we're chipping away at the performances that everybody else is putting on, what you're hoping to find underneath that is what exactly are these people doing for themselves as opposed to what are they doing for other people? What is Cassie doing for Nate versus what is she doing for herself? What is Jules doing for Rue

or what was Rue doing just to put on a good face for Jules? And I guess maybe it's tying some of the other narratives into what we've followed with Rue about she will only find resolution when she gets intrinsic motivation to do so. And maybe there's some commonality with the struggles of other characters in that. I like that a lot. And I think that, you know, if you're, you know, there's this ongoing conversation about, like,

let's say women in makeup, right? and saying like, do women put on makeup for themselves or women led to believe that they need to wear makeup by capitalist society or by like for the male gays or whatever it is? And you have plenty of, plenty of women or whoever likes to wear makeup saying, I do it for myself, right? This is something that I do for me. But if you were to ask me to look at Cassie and Maddie and I would say one of these people is dressing this way to appeal to other people. And I might say that Maddie is doing a person. Like I would, if Maddie told me that she does this for herself, applies rhinestones to her eyelids for herself, I might believe her.

But like Cassie, however, who is like doing this performance of Maddie, like that is all in service of pleasing other people. Do you know what I mean? Do you agree? Yeah. Yeah. There's also this added, you know, speaking of Euphora never being uninteresting. Sam Levinson does like a fun like extra layer of Theatric.

in this episode and that it opens with like an overture title card. We get the score from an Italian film called Amore Meo Autemay, which means help me my love. And it's just very melodramatic and like gives you that sense of like old cinema or theater. So puts us in the mood for all of this. All right. So let us take care of like a few loose. sends around the play before we get really into the play. And I want to talk about Jules briefly because we saw Jules in the Intervention episode. We barely, barely saw her last week. And she was very small,

a small role, pretty small, but significant role in the intervention episode. And then we barely saw her last week. In fact, in Rue and her voiceover was like, I don't really want to talk about Jules. So we're not going to dwell there. We get the truck scene with her and Nate, but not much. And then she's kind of barely in this episode as well, but like in some significant ways. We see her in the audience. She's stealing glances at Rue. She's not sitting with Elliot, sort of he's sitting by himself elsewhere. And then later we see her destroying the video that she got from Nate. And then we get that awkward, like, bathroom encounter, the, like, sup over the bathroom sink with Jules and Rue.

What do you think of, like, the use of Jules here in the back end of the season where she's backburned in a way that doesn't make her feel. to me like she's disappearing the way that like Kat kind of does, but still very, very sidelined. How do you feel? I'm sure she'll come back around. It is true that she's also not sitting with Maddie and Kat. She's not really sitting with anybody. And she made this promise of like hanging out with other people this season. And I'm like, who are you sitting with rules? You're sitting by yourself. What's happening? Anyway, go ahead. To be fair, can't say that friend group seems like the most fun right now. True. True. Self care.

It's true. Make good choices, Jules. And then with Rue, obviously we get plenty of stuff for Rue in the play and in the audience and all that sort of stuff. But there's a few scenes that are set in Rue's home that seem like they have, they're kind of disconnected from the play, which is like Roo with Gia saying, I feel like I barely know anything about you. And then Rue with her mom where her mom says, where Leslie says, like, go ahead, I give up. Kill yourself on drugs if you want. to. I have to focus on Gia. This is basically the advice that Ali gave her, right? Is like, pay attention to your younger daughter. And, you know, Roo says Gia's fine and Leslie runs down

a list of like all the things that are going on with Gia that no one's been paying attention to. What did you make of this? Well, I wonder if it's setting up. Zaddaia's talked about the finale. We don't know that much. I don't think we've gotten that many clues about what's coming in the finale, but Zendaya has talked about there being some redemption and hope in Ruse's arc. And maybe that is setting us up for that. That like she can at least be a good older sister if nothing else, something like that. Yeah, and that her, that she's being explicitly asked to do it for herself.

Wait, is this a fucking play about us? Let's just dive into this play. This incredible thing. This incredible... Okay, so like... That's a school play of all time. Of all time. I was...

I wish my school plays had been, first of all, like, burn books, essentially. Second of all, we just have to put aside all, like, all logic, right? Because the first of all the episode is doing a really, really interesting, intentional blurring of the stage and the real life where we get real life actors coming in. and then the stage actors coming in. The first moment the trio of girls playing Maddie Cassie and Kat show up in the hallway of Rue's home where we think we're in reality. But then there are three actors other. And I was like, wait, hold up.

I don't know if you, did you have that moment where you're like, wait. Yes, because at first I thought, are they just playing younger versions of real life, Mattie Cassie? And then I realized, no, we were in the play. Yeah. So it's just, it's a, it's a, it's a lot of, like, fun blurring in the lines. And I want to shout out this stuff. This play within the play approach is always so fun to me.

I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Called the Amber Island Players, which is fantastic. And then there was, you know, the great couple episodes of Game of Thrones where the bourvosie players were, like, doing a plot of season one of Game of Thrones. in front of us. And it's just always really, it's a really fun technique. I heard Shakespeare himself

even did it. No. So yeah, I just love that Sam did this. I love this whole idea. And we might not, you know, it's a to be continued episode. So I don't even know if this is just Act 1 or if that was the grand finale that we saw. So can I hit you with a conspiracy theory? It's not really a conspiracy theory, but just my own personal theory. Another thing that I found so funny in this was that Lexi, because just dictator director. Oh, yeah. And I would love to, I just am going to hope, I'm going to choose to hope and pray that,

look, we love self-awareness. Yeah. And if that is Sam writing himself into this, the moment where the actress who's playing Cassie is crying, and Lexi says something, like, why are you crying? It's ridiculous. And she's just yelling.

Like, if that was a little dig at the cast for voicing their complaints about this show occasionally in public, but also a little bit of self-recognition that Sam may not be the easiest person to work with, I just really want to live in a world where that is true and that was intentional. I have the same thought about when, when Lexi is like more glycerol on the like half-naked guys. And this guy's like, gives me a rash. Like, I don't care. And she's yelling at the, is it the soundboard guy or the lightboard guy? Sound by guy. Yeah. Just same stuff, right?

She's super caught up in what does it sound like? What's the lighting? What does it look like? I think we have a little bit of Lexi Levinson happening here. Love, love Lexi Levinson. And the fact that she is like doing all the things, right? She wrote the play. She directed the play.

It seems like she choreographed the play, like all of that stuff. And I love the hot Lexi. In terms of stagecraft, I mean, obviously this is a ridiculous set for high school stage play. We're not even going to worry about reality when it comes to the set. The rotating lockers? Are you about to bring up the rotating lockers? Incredible. Incredible.

I love stagecraft. So I was just like, this is it. And it's for one very brief sequence when she just like, walks across the stage and I'm like, oh, they built an entire rotating set for this one part. That's fantastic. Yeah. And I mean, we, we having watched Lexi B. So demure and background and shy and all this sort of stuff like that.

It is really fun to see her, you know, we don't advocate for abusing your actors and your crew, not at all, but like it was fun to see her absolutely thriving and powerful in the set. You know. Well, also, one thing that I never thought all that much about never felt particularly foregrounded in Lexi's story, which is sort of funny because it's an intrinsic part of Cassie's story and they are sisters so obviously. But I'd never thought about Rue and Lexi's relationship before as one between two women who have lost their dads in different ways.

But there was a through line of that as foundational to their relationship, but also as something that gave us a little bit more. Lexi talks about the time before Rue had lost her father and before Lexi's dad had left and when she wasn't inside her brain, so much more texture to Lexi's character and giving a us an understanding of, okay, why is she an observer? Why is she quiet and timid? And I think the show had forced me to question that a little bit less because Lexi's, you know,

the Overton window of Lexi's behavior is, or Lexi's behavior is all within an Overton window of like, this is fine. This is a totally good constructive way to be. But it doesn't mean that there is a backstory to it. And it's funny how seeing this, which is ostensibly her observations of other people, but watching her come out of her shell through telling that actually gave us a lot more insight into who she is and why she is that way. I think one of the memories that we get in this episode of her and Cassie when her dad was

like definitely too drunk to drive or high to drive them. and, you know, when when young Lexi just, like, lets her mint chip ice cream like melt on her lap and stuff like that. But that idea that Cassie's like, you know, Lexi's like, we shouldn't let him drive us. Like, we should say something. And Cassie's like, no, don't say anything. Like, don't be rude. Don't say anything. Like, basically just, like, shut up.

And says she doesn't want him to think that they don't trust him. Yeah. And Lexi doesn't trust him. But that's both both girls' dynamics perfectly. crystallized in that moment. Right. I thought that that was incredible. And then, yeah, and then the relationship with Rue, like the thing that it kicked up

for me, I don't remember if I've talked about this before on this podcast, but the Lexi Rue relationship has always reminded me of, are you a so-called life fan at all? No. Okay. So the beginning of my so-called life, this seminal 90s teen show with Claredanes, is that Claire Daines plays this like mousy girl who like makes the decision to do she basically like dyes her hair fire engine red and like dumps her lifelong best friend in high school to start hanging out with like slightly more alternative kids. And then she and that friend like reconcile. But that is always reminded me this idea of like Rue moving deeper into like drug culture and and everything that entails pulling that away from Lexi who is the sort of like square friend, the childhood friend.

That's such a common thing that happens to women. I don't know if it happens to men, but such a common thing that happens to women through puberty as lifelong best friends just fork off into different directions. But what I loved about all of that Rue stuff is, is Rue in the audience. Like, all the audience reactions are gold and we'll touch on more of them. But, like, Rue just, like, loving the play,

not feeling uncomfortable with her depiction in the play. Well, she felt uncomfortable at first, right? Like, everybody felt uncomfortable at first, but the only two who stay uncomfortable the whole time are Cassie and Nate. Well, like, nobody was, my feeling, and maybe I'm wrong, but my feeling was that she was uncomfortable with, like, how poorly the play was being received at first. She's like, is this going her well? Because I think even in that first reaction shot where she looks a little like, oh, is this about me? there's still a little bit of like, okay, Lexi, like in her face.

That was my interpretation of her face. Interesting. Yeah. I'll go back and watch to see if I agree with you. But I just really enjoyed Rue being so supportive. Totally. Of a friend that she has not treated very well,

you know, never treated. Like from the pilot has been abusing her relationship. with Lexi. And so to watch her just like smile and support her friend, I thought was really, really touching. I totally agree. But I also think that it was serving as a litmus test for who is at least not in so deep a stage of denial that when the camera is turned back on them, they can handle it. And that's why two people who did not pass that test were Cassie and Nate. Absolutely. It was the summer before I started ninth grade, back when we thought we'd all be friends forever.

That's why we need to go to the person who's loving this play the most, which is Lexi's mom, Suez. Suez loves it. The time of her life. She's like, that's me. That's supposed to be me. Incredible, incredible stuff. Loved it. And that's like a natural segue way to talk about the fact that Lexi has a ton of guy,

like, again, unrealistic. I did a lot of high school theater. Unrealistic to have more than three to five guys in your cast at all, let alone like the plethora of guys she got to dance for the locker room scene. Right. But she gave Ethan like every single male role. It's just like, and starring Ethan as everyone. like her dad, Nate, her mom, the burnout guy,

the school photographer. Like, it's just like, it's just Ethan everywhere. And this is like, this felt like a good makeup for, you know, we've been talking about the cat and Ethan's storyline all season and like, whether or not this,

they felt completely backward and sideline. And this, this for Ethan, this showcase for him feels like a make good. And I, like, if I were that actor, I'd be like,

I'd be very satisfied with what I got to do in this season. If I got to do what he gets to do in this episode. episode, which is just have the most fun, you know? Same. I can't say that it feels like it came out of anywhere in particular or is going anywhere in particular, but he had a good time. I mean, we saw him audition, you know, like we, we knew that he was sort of interested and involved.

So there was, like, tiny breadcrumbs leading up to this. Well, I mean, and we're not, like, sitting here. I mean, maybe we are if we're, if we don't know where the Fez thing is going. maybe we're like Ethan and Lexi perhaps question mark. But yeah, Nori just gave me a face where she's like, no, I don't chip it. I do not chip it. I don't think. I think Ethan exists to move the plot forward and how wonderful for him and what a great job by him that he was able to serve this role that looked so fun to perform.

him and he did in such deliciously fun ways. The other teen show reference that I felt was happening here was the opening credits of freaks and geeks has everyone sitting for their school photo. And that felt like the way in which Lexi introduces all the characters in her play. So I felt like that was a little fun, freaks and geeks homage. Lexi exploring her family, Lexi exploring her relationship with Rue, and then Lexi exploring like, sort of the nature of female friendship in this play, the scene with Maddie and Cassie where Maddie moved in, well, first of all, like Maddie's relationship with Lexi, full stop. I just thought it was interesting that Lexi is the younger sister hanging around like her sister's friends.

That's like always been kind of an interesting dynamic to me. But like Maddie talking to Lexi about confidence, how like I think she says, you know, life is 90% confidence. and think about confidence as nobody can tell if you're faking it. So, you know, just go for it. But also the sequence where she talks about how Maddie moved in with them after her parents are fighting all the time. And Cassie, you know, inviting a like crying Maddie, like it to sleep with her in her bed and stuff like that. And exactly what you're saying, watching both Maddie and Cassie and their reactions to that in the audience, I thought was really just a really beautiful. moment and like a good

holding the mirror up. What do you think of that? So many times when Lexi has talked about the play with Fez, she said it's about these friends who grow up and kind of grow apart.

And it's possible that the play is supposed to be giving us a mirror to the show itself. And And I think it leads you to a read of the show itself as one about friends who grow up and maybe we'll see we don't know what happens. But in some ways, Lexi and Rue sort of already grew apart.

We're seeing this fissure between Maddie and Cassie. We don't know what's going to happen. But I do think that using the play as the device that's reflecting the whole show, it is interesting that the way the creator of the play within the play describes it is as a show of these mostly female friends who grow up together. There's a line that Lexie has where she says, you know, it was the summer before I started ninth grade back when we all thought we'd be friends forever. And I was half convinced that that was just a line pulled entirely from Stand By Me, but it's just similar to a kind of famous line from Stand By Me when the narrator says, I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12, Jesus does anyone.

So this idea, you know, like Lexi cited Stand By Me as sort of like a vibe that she was going for with this play. And so that idea of like childhood friendships, the poignancy of the loss of them, but also just the fact that they exist forever. And there was something so interesting about, again, going back to Rue's reaction, like, you know, we know that Rue and Jules aren't really talking right now. And will they, will they reconcile probably in some way? But what's true with Alexi and Rue relationship is like despite however much they might continue to grow apart, it feels like, there's such a strong foundation there that they will always be, that these two women will always be connected. And I think that just boiled down to me by the way that we reacted to thinking about them as young as their younger selves. Do you know what I mean? Totally. Because so what is

playing over a lot of this is love will keep us together. Uh-huh. And this is the penultimate episode of season two, it is a season and a show that is very dark, has a lot of destruction, a lot of just bad, ugly, cruel things happening. And a lot of those are shocking and prerogative, as we've talked about. So they kind of grab you and they are the easiest things to remember and they're the defining features of euphoria in a lot of ways. But if you drill down into a lot of what drives the ultimate push towards sort of redemption. A lot of it is these very innocent themes. Yeah.

Having to find a way to do something for yourself and yourself alone. Love will keep us together. Friendship. And there is a world, and I'm so curious together. to the finale and to see it and kind of figure out how this all wraps up, at least for now. But there is something that is very innocent and pure at the heart of some of these stories, which is such a juxtaposition first and foremost with just the vibe of it, the aesthetic of the show, but also with a lot of the different plot lines that are disturbing.

But I do think that is one of the things that's always made the show feel grounded in Rue's story and then particularly the story of Rue and Jules is that it's a love story. Yeah. Like if you had to define what this show is, you know, maybe one option is the story of these friends. But really, I think what a lot of people would come back to is this is a love story. and how all the loose ends of the darkness and the destruction and the pain that all of these characters feel in one way or another to varying degrees with those pure and earnest and loving impulses probably will have something to do, I'm just guessing, with where they land, even just to tie off this season. And that to me is what tells me that, you know, it doesn't bother me for Jules to sit alone in the theater because I'm just not concerned about Jules getting backburnered because at its core, like... I didn't, I didn't mean it in a way where, like, I felt like she was being backburnered.

I just think it's so interesting. Like, if you asked me last season, there's a difference between being backburnered and the ebb and flow of the story. And the only person that I would say feels... a monsterly backburner this season is cat. And we've talked about the, like, bigger picture reasons why that might be the case. But it is interesting, if you ask me in season one, season one is so preoccupied with Jules. And if you asked, because Rue is so preoccupied with Jules, you know, Rue is obsessed with her. So the show's obsessed with her.

And so if you ask me then, like, would we get to three episodes straight in season two where we get, you know, 10 lines from Jules? total, something like that, maybe a little bit more than that. You know, I would be surprised. I would be surprised to know how much more neat there is than Jules in like, you know, these last few episodes and stuff like that. At the same time, though, we've been told that people like Ali, who are so invested in Roo's sobriety, don't think that she can get clean. She can focus on getting clean and staying clean while being in a relationship. And in some ways, you could read there being a little bit less Jules or a lot less Jules in the last couple of episodes, a reflection of Rue being hopefully in that stage of

trying to figure out if she's even going to try to get clean. I liked her sitting by herself. I liked Rue sitting by herself. Jules, I feel like could have other friends. But like I liked Rue sitting by herself and really like processing all of that. this on her own. I thought that felt like help me. Yeah, if anyone, she would have been sitting with Elliot, I think, but I guess not. I think they did. I just don't think they want to imply that like Jules has left Rue for Elliott because that's not really what happened. Do you know what

mean? But, but that idea of like love or a relationship and how it relates to sobriety and clean is going to bring me back to one of my favorite like drums that I like to bang this season, which is about, I'm going to skip past dance number, but I promise we're going right back to it. To this, like, to Cassie, the way that Lexi is trying to understand her sister in this play, and the way that this episode ends with Cassie, Cassie fogging up the window of the theater, like she's a freaking velociraptor outside of a door in Jurassic Park, like, looking so scary and unhinged. Crazy. Brings me back to this whole- Like a character in a horror movie. Yeah. Brings me back to this whole love addiction metaphor.

Like I just think that like what they're exploring with cast gear is like when she says, you know, I want you when she's talking to Nate in this really repulsive way where she's talking about, I want you to like tell me what to wear and tell me who to talk to and control my every move and all sorts of stuff like that. There's director-actress stuff in there for sure. But there's also, you know, the way in which you give your your life over to an addiction, the way that it is ruling your every life. and the way that it isolates you from your friends, from your family, all this stuff, so that this one thing, Nate,

or the feeling of being loved, her euphoria is the only thing that matters to her. And in the end, she's just destroyed, you know, when you see Maddie banging on the bathroom door in this episode and crying and being like, I would never do this to you,

you know, you can't help but think of like people banging on the door for Rue. Like, it's just, it's, feel like this is a really parallel plot that he's drawing here. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's just so...

Cassie is just so disturbing in this episode. I thought one thing that was incredibly effective was how they styled her. Her hair is super, super straight. It looks a little creepy, but it's also closer and closer to Maddie. Yeah. And visually, I thought that was very well done, but also a little icky to watch. No, it's upsetting. And like, I am, the way that I am of two minds about so many things in euphoria, I am of two minds about this plot line.

I cannot tell if it's doing something really smart and interesting or doing something really odd and exploitative. I don't know how I feel. And again, that's just the trick of euphoria. I'm going to tune in to figure out how I feel. But I don't know how I feel. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess what's going to... Because, okay, if it's on a parallel track to Ruse struggles with addiction, Cassie is addicted to something that is generally considered a good, right?

Like, she's pursuing love in horrible, destructive, you know, demeaning, awful ways. ways that are really harmful to her, but she is going after something that most people want and most people prize. Obviously not the case with Bruce. So then I guess the question is, if those are progressing on parallel tracks, where does, where is Cassie's end goal? Like, where are we hoping Cassie goes? Is it self-actualization? Is it screw you, Nate? Is it, I'm going to stop shaving my legs and wear sweatpants. It's sort of hard to tell. I think that's why we bounce between, is this exploitative or is this really interesting,

is because it's very hard to know where this is going or even where we would like it to go. I don't feel like I know where Rue's narrative is going, but I know where I would like it to go. Even if you know where you want it to go and it doesn't go there, the denial of that is still a plot device and a plot point that we kind of know how to process and internalize, like, okay, Sam Levinson understands that I would like to see Rue, clean, sober, and happy. I can kind of process what the choice of not allowing us to see that is designed to do and means. I just don't have that framework for what's happening with Cassie right now. For me, I feel the same way about Cassie.

I would like to see her far away from Nate and reconciled with her family and with her friends. That's what I would like, which is the same. I would like to see Root far away from drugs and reconciled with her family and her friends. Fully agreed, but if that happens, then what was this all for? Is it that she realizes that this obviously is not actually love? It's something else. And if love is what she really wants, she can't have it until she. she has a better sense of self and is doing things for herself and not for male attention

and approval. Maybe that's it, but that's just really kind of dull. I mean, absolutely. I think largely I agree with you, which is that it will depend how this lands whether or not I feel like overall the journey was worth taking. Do you know, I'm not, I'm not going to judge the journey until I see where we're going with it. So if the high was worth the pain to quote to her else and I'm going to express my reservations. All right. We've got to hit two last beats here. I'm calling this the assassination of Nate Jacobs.

I'm saying that Lexi has done more to fight the toxicity of Nate than any other force in this entire series so far with one musical number. Though I really like, again, again, it's great to feel conflicted about art. I really like that Nate after we get this incredible locker room dance sequence musical that the audience loves, that Nate says that was incredibly homophobic. And I'm like, I can't entirely disagree with him. But just like, but that's a classic Nate thing to like twist something. It's what Cal does. It's what Cal does in the fire. Yeah.

Telling his family that it's problematic that they are more upset by him having an affair with. Or they wouldn't mind him having an affair with a stripper. And all of that goes hand in hand with this dream that Nate has where, like, he's looking in the mirror. He sees the back of his own head. He's in his dad's position in that hotel room back in the pilot. Jules is there. Like, you know, fish nets are ripped the way they were in the pilot. But it's like cow fucking his son.

I don't know. It's an upsetting dream that he gets. comfort from Cassie when he wakes up. But I don't know. I mean, like, thinking about, thinking about those rumors that Jacob Allorty, who plays Nate wants to leave the show, I'm like, again, I'm curious about the end game. Where are we going with all of this? There's an interesting, like, obviously I want to hear what you think, but like,

there's, there's that interesting scene with Samantha and Maddie in this episode where Maddie implies that she's leaving. And, like, she's a senior in high school. So maybe just what she means is I'm leaving to go to college Elsewhere and I don't know how to break it to your son Who I love that I will not be babysitting him anymore But isn't it's I mean is it's well

They said Lexi have been talking to Fess for a couple months And plays in high school are usually in the spring So like let's say it's like April It feels early for Maddie to say To get a goodbye present to go to college If we're like in April May You know when that happened at the end of the summer or something like that. So is Maddie leaving for another reason? Is she have family

elsewhere that she can go live with? Like I don't, I don't, I don't, I mean, we'll, I'm sure we'll know more later. But that's a question I have. Like about actors or characters leaving the show. How do you get a high school character to organically leave a show? College is one option. There's some other options here. But yeah, so let's, so let me zoom back from that and just say like the Nate of everything. How are you Nora Prunciata, world's number one Nate hater, feeling about what Lexi did in all of this?

The play is an exposition, right? Like everyone is on display. And one thing that I wonder about is, so there's, Nate's sexuality has been a theme throughout the show. But it's not one, like everyone at the school ostensibly probably has had some interaction where they can perceive that Cassie's a little desperate and nutty, right? That Maddie has a lot of attitude.

That Rue does, I mean, Rue went away to rehab, right? All of this is, we understand that it's something that people sort of know or would have the frame of reference with. Poking fun at Nate's sexuality, if that is what Lexi's doing, I'm not sure it is, but that's sort of, I guess, what Nate's criticism that, oh, that's so homophobic would be. It made me wonder if we are supposed to take from Matt that maybe other people, that he's not as good as at hiding as the rest of the show would have led us to believe. I just wondered if that was a pure coincidence that Lexi in creating this play decided, you know what,

it would be really funny to poke fun at Super Jock Nate Jacobs in this way and happened to sort of be right on the money. Again, like, Nate, I want to be careful here because Nate's sexuality is very vague. And we don't have a lot of sort of specifics

and we've certainly never heard him go into detail or do any real reflection on that. But was that just a coincidence or was there something pointed behind that? I certainly, I mean, so first of all, we certainly don't support anyone like outing anyone else specifically, definitely not through musical theater, but in any way whatsoever, right? Right. Because that's, if, if Lexi is like, I have questions about my sister's new boyfriend who used to be her friend's boyfriend, and I'm going to do this through the power of musical theater, like, that's pretty messed up. I don't think that's what happened.

But in some, like, it's also not not that. I think they're, again, like all things before I think is really incredibly messy. I think there's two things that play here. Number one, if anyone were to know. about this. It might be Lexi, who is, A, very observant, and B, hanging out with Fez all the time. And Fez is the one who said, Nate's in love with Jules. So he might have talked to Lexi about that at some point, right? Like, that is a place that she might have gotten that information. But largely, like, if we don't see this as an assassination of Nate, exactly, then largely it's just Lexi being like, isn't super jock masculinity so stupid. Let's take a look at toxic masculinity and how close it is to like the gayest thing you've ever seen in your life. And let's just have fun with that. You know what I mean?

I think kind of both of those things are in the stew of what she's doing here. I think she's plausible deniability that this isn't about overtly outing one guy because she's implicating everyone in that locker room, all the boys. So yeah, but it's again, it's messy. And that's what I'm saying. Like when Nate says that was incredibly homophobic, like, I'm like, you're not wrong, man, but you're, but you're, but I'm not sure that that's a little rich coming from you. Yeah, exactly. So. People are not?

But why would anyone be upset by it? Oh, you know, it's based on real people. Yeah, you really stroking the bees nest with that one. Am I? I mean, someone invited me to a play and they didn't even take it. tell me I was a character in it. I definitely have some questions. Like, bad questions?

Depends on the play. Would you be upset by it? Depends on the play. All right. Last but not least, we're going to talk about, of course, FES. And I think the show, it's so smart to, you know, the entire Fez line that we see in this episode all takes place before. the play, right?

Like, he's getting ready to go to the play. You know, like, he's on his way. And so it's out of time with the rest of the thing that we're saying that we cut back and forth to him. But there's the incredible tension provided by the fact that we know he doesn't show up. I have to say, I think that's very smart in hindsight. When I was watching, it confused me for a little bit. Maybe like, Fess, you're so late. Why are you so late?

I was like, Fess, you're really late to this play. So when you watch it with that other point of view in mind, it's so portentous for the fact that he didn't show up. We see all the effort he's putting in, the flowers, steaming his shirt, steaming the suit, all sort of stuff. Faye and her boyfriend and what we know about that, ashtray grabs a big knife. Like something scary is going to happen. Lexi says stuff like, you know, Lexi's like disappointed. In the midst of her triumph, she's disappointed to see the empty chair. and she says something about like, you know,

I'm always convinced something very terrible is going to happen at any given moment. So, Nora, how worried are we about FES? Extremely worried. Just extremely worried. There's a part of me coming out of this episode where I'm less worried than I was maybe last week. Because Sam has put his foot on the gas so hard for something bad is going to happen to Fez that I'm always like, he can't it can't shake out that way if he is foreshadowing it this hard do you know what I mean I disagree it depends what kind of show we're watching honestly and I and I and I will

cop to the fact that I don't have a full read on Sam Levinson and what kind of thing he would do but like it's it's it's kind of a rule dramatically that if you are hitting your audience of the head over and over again with the fact that like a character's going to die usually you don't then kill that character yeah but this is such a show show of excess. And I think the, I think the pulling the football away already happened in that Fez didn't die in this episode. I think my best guess, this is neither one of us has seen the finale. If I had to put money on it, what I would say is all that buildup was to make, I mean, most of the Fez scenes, I closed my eyes because I just was like, he's going to get shot.

He's going to get shot at any moment now. And I don't. want to see it, so I'm going to close my eyes. And then it doesn't happen by the end of the episode. So I think you're supposed to exhale and go, that's going to be okay. And then, I don't know. I just think something bad is going to happen. All right. So we're very worried. We're going to do a little bit more finale speculation before we do. Let's do our like wrap up awards really quickly. Do you have a favorite flashy camera move or shot in this episode, Nora? Well, I think it has to be Cassie in the mirror, even though I also would nominate that for acceptable, terrifying, horrifying, and it's definitely horrifying. For that, do you mean Cassie, like, looking in through the window? Is that what you mean? Yeah, the end.

Yeah, yeah. For me, it's this shot, my favorite, like, blend of fact and fiction is there's a shot where Sydney, Sweeney is, like, it's on stage-ish. Sidney Sweetie is walking towards as Cassie's walking towards Lexi and then once she gets to the mirror it's the actress playing Cassie and that was like my favorite little

like in-camera trick of blending the fact and the fiction but for my terrifying horrifying moment actually my terrifying horrifying horrifying moment is Nate dressing Cassie because that just really fucking disturbed me really upset me

I don't understand how I'll just say my needle drop is obviously holding out for a hero by Bonnie Tyler. Do you have an alternative? I think that is the right answer. Yeah, I'm with you. I like, shout out to love will keep us together. But holding out for a hero is just incredible. Shout out to the choreography in that.

We talked about the choreographer earlier this season when Zendaya did her pillow dance. The fact that like this teen drama has like an in-house choreographer. but like that I mean all all reservations about sexual politics aside that was just an incredible musical number it was it just perfectly done amazing um who's the most in need of a hug in this episode it's the sound guy it's a good one that's a really it's a really good one um I'm gonna give it to fend I'm gonna give it to And or, you know, shout out to Chloe Cherry's Faye. Because like the look, the, the Faye performance of like proud of Fess, like, you know, supportive of Fes, proud of him, telling him he looks handsome. And then whatever else, like, all the nerves she has about whatever else is going on. Like, I just thought all that stuff was really added to detention.

Fess worrying about his tie. He's like, do you think other people will find me handsome? Oh, my God. All right. And I'm also going to give the Maddie Prys honorary fit check to Fez's outfit that he's wearing to the play. I mean, come on. No one else is getting dressed up to go see this plate. Steamed his shirt.

Who's your fit check for? Well, so I feel really weird about this because I just, like you, was so, so, so disturbed by the Cassie scene with Nate, where it's like just so weirdly, it's sexual, but it's also infantilized. just really gross. I would like to completely separate all those elements from the fact that in part of it, Cassie is wearing this like sort of green ABBA suit and I really liked it. Yeah, the like green jumpsuit sort of thing.

Yeah. Yeah, I was into it. Have you ever, have you seen the meme, the bad romance writing meme of the phrase she breasted boobily. Have you, have you seen that before? Oh, God.

It's from this old Reddit thread of like bad erotic or bad romance writing and she breasted boobily is this whole thing. So someone last week tweeted about Cassie when she walked down the stairs in her swimsuit, Maddie's birthday, like Cassie breasted boobily down the stairs. And like I felt a similar way in this like one hallway sequence where she's wearing like a pink halter top and it's just sort of like, again, Sam Levinson and his camera, I have questions. I have questions comments. and concerns.

Yes. All right. So finale, finale preview thoughts. And okay, again, we have not seen the finale. We have very little information.

Here's something I do know. Eric Dane when he talked to us was like, he said that he was going to be back for the finale. We saw him briefly in this episode. But he said Cal was coming back and he said something about like hoping that Cal could be the father to Nate that Nate has always needed him to be. I mean, I have no idea how that might shake out.

But I'm interesting. I'm interested in that. We've already talked about our fear for Fez. This question of like, is Nate leaving the show? I don't know. And then I will just say that the episode title is all my life. My heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name. Which just makes me worried.

I'm just worried. How about you? Do you have any other finale questions, predictions, comments? I echo your concern. My prediction would be, I think we're going. to end on an uplifting note for Rue and basically nobody else. Okay. That's my prediction.

Everyone's on a downbeat except for Rue. That's, that's, that's my guess. Fess is dead. Lexi's sad. Maddie's leaving? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think Maddie's off to, to good things. Maybe not everybody.

But I'm worried about Fez. I think Nate and Cassie have more destruction. to create. I'm not sure I would predict anything particularly uplifting and happy, shiny for anybody else. The episode title, All My Life, My Heart is Year and for a thing I cannot name is from Andre Breton's Mad Love. Mad Love being a fairly succinct description of what's going on with Cassie, so perhaps, I mean, if Cassie stormed to that theater and literally tried to murder Lexi, I would not be surprised. That's that's that's the face that they ended on. The face of someone who might go in

and try to kill her own sister for, you know, because Maddie is always wanting to blame other people for what's going on. I mean, sorry, Cassie, Cassie and all of that. Is Cassie going to murder Lexi? Probably not, but if she runs in screaming, I wouldn't be surprised. But then like, how do you go back to school after you do that, Cassie? Just go home. Like, if you're that stressed about it, just go home. Please, I beg of you. All right, anything else you want to say before we, we go. I'm looking forward to it. I mean, I'm hoping that that the locker room scene was just the end of Act 1 because I would like to see Act 2. Like, I want more. I would spend so much more time with this play. So I hope we get to see at least a little bit more of it. But we will be back

next week. We're not quite sure when our episode. It's going to depend on when we get screeners from HBO or whether we get screeners at all. If our next week's episode is going to drop Sunday night or maybe a little bit later, we will see what we can do. but you know you can always tweet at us DM me on instagram at joe wrote this if you have anything you want to say this episode was produced by the great steve allman and we will be back next week hopefully to celebrate fez and lexie running off on sunset together happily ever after and everyone's fine bye