Euphoria Season 2 Premiere Review: Doing the Best

No matter how many characters tumble in and out of them, most episodes of euphoria Start by focusing on one person. Introduced by protagonist and narrator Rue Bennet (Zendaya), HBO’s provocative teen drama focuses on one of her teenage classmates for a fast-paced tour of her backstory. It’s usually a downer.

Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) h as an addicted father who abandoned her family when she was young, and in the present she is relentlessly objectified by boys. Nate (Jacob Elordi), struggling with his sexuality, channels his frustration into athleticism and anger and arguably becomes the show’s villain. Kat (Barbie Ferriera) struggles with her body image and finds her confidence working a part-time cam girl only to break up with her real friends. And Jules (Hunter Shepherd), euphoria

euphoriaHBO’s first season — which premiered in June 2019, its return was delayed by two and a half years due to the coronavirus pandemic — was known as HBO’s first teen drama, and it borrowed from it by taking the freedoms that premium Television offers, used extensively. As outrageous as teenage dramas Riverdale can, none of them can hold a candle euphoria, a show that never hit an illegal impulse it wouldn’t give in to, nor a line it wouldn’t cross. Most episodes of the show feature a lot of nudity, heavy drug use, and occasional violence. Being a show about teenagers (all played by actors in their 20s), it also tends to trigger the viewer’s paternal instincts: these kids are doing something most, at any time.

Photo Credit: Eddy Chen/HBO

Based on an Israeli drama of the same name brought to the States by writer/director Sam Levinson, euphoria is an addiction fable in the sense of a teen drama. Rue is addicted, and her friends’ stories filtered through her shed some light euphoria its claustrophobic focus and whiplash-inducing tone. A given episode can shoot from ecstatic party scenes to graphic depictions of sexual assault; from moments of idle boredom to breathtaking choreographed dance numbers.

In the season 2 premiere this past weekend euphoria returned from his long hiatus with an episode focused on Fezco (Angus Cloud), the drug dealer with a heart of gold and a soft spot for Rue.

As a drug dealer in a story about drug users, he has a clearer perspective than most, but given his profession and his status as a high school dropout, it’s one that few appreciate. He hates the cycle, but knows there’s only one place he can survive it, and every time he tries to get out of it, he’s pushed back to where he supposedly belongs.

Fezco makes the show at its most brutal, another example of the show’s maximalism, where everything happens as extreme as its characters feel, and before the episode is halfway over, his supplier is dead and he and his friends are being held at gunpoint by the people the supplier worked for.

Photo Credit: Eddy Chen/HBO

This is just a small part of the premiere catching up on a hurricane euphoria Cast during a party, this is the show in microcosm: A sloppy date gives way to a humiliating crawl; Jules returns to town after Rue decides she can’t run away with her final season, and it all stops for a moment of beautiful longing. And then it all ends in a vicious exchange of blows.

because in euphoria, every growing up is a tragedy. It’s a second birth that can lead to nowhere, at best stagnation, or at worst, a metaphorical death—although actual death isn’t out of the question either. It’s easy to get caught up in the show’s superficial antics because the show devoted a lot of energy to those antics. It’s undeniably sensational, full of erect penises and casually aggressive sex, and it’s hard to take seriously as a show about teenagers, even if teenage characters are the chosen medium.

Addiction is where its strength as a story lies, and where euphoria is the most convincing. In that sense, it makes sense that the story is about teenagers: the difference between youth and adulthood is that for a few short years, happiness seems within reach.

euphoria The season two premiere is now airing on HBO. New episodes appear every Sunday.