The new HBO teen drama Euphoria has been grabbing headlines every week since the first episode aired. The controversial series offers an unflinching depiction of teen life. There has been chatter on the Internet about a One Direction fan fiction animation that showed Harry Styles giving Louis Tomlinson a cosmic blowjob. There’s an explicit dick pic tutorial, a preteen drug dealer, 30 penises appearing in one episode, pornhub screenshots, a leaked sextape and a laugh out loud micropenis webcam masturbation scene. We also get to see Eric Dane’s erect prosthetic penis. Shout out to all the Mc Steamy fans that were waiting for a glimpse. Although I have to say that the former Grey’s Anatomy heartthrob does not look so appealing as he is connecting with his underage Grindr hookup. This comes with a statutory rape trigger warning.
Zendaya stars as 17-year-old Rue Bennett, a disillusioned biracial teen diagnosed with OCD. Rue is addicted to any pill or drug that can get her high enough to deaden the painful self-doubt within her depressed soul. Zendaya is a breakout star of the show as she takes the audience on a tumultuous roller coaster ride of the highs and lows of what it feels like to be a struggling drug addict. I recently heard a woman battling drug addiction tell her friend. “I used to buy drugs, now I buy cereal and coffee.”
This is the experience of someone who relies on drugs as a source of nourishment, because they can’t think about anything else to survive. Zendaya takes the audience on this painful journey towards sobriety. We don’t only see sleek camera angles and savvy cinematography as Rue takes a hit. We have empathy for this character, because she is a flawed human being. “ A big part of who Rue is…is an addict. But most important she is a human first.” Zendaya says in an HBO promotional video about the series. “It’s about her balance with trying to silence her mind. I think she goes about it in a way that is just not healthy. The show isn’t here to tell people how to live their lives or what is wrong or right.” Zendaya states. “It is here to showcase other people’s stories. These are stories that need to be told because somebody out there needs to hear it. I think the show will allow a lot of people to not feel so alone.” I completely agree.
The role is a departure from Zendaya’s more uplifting portrayals in “The Greatest Showman” and on the hit Disney series “K.C. Undercover”. It was a career risk that was worth taking, because Zendaya gives an Emmy worthy performance. We enter Rue’s world as a troubled high school student on the pilot episode of the series. Rue narrates each episode as the all-knowing character, which has lead; some Euphoria fans to present the theory that her character is dead like the omnipresent narrator in Desperate Housewives. I’m pulling for Rue to be alive because it would be too sad if she already lost her battle and died.
We learn in the first episode that Rue is returning home, fresh out of a stint in rehab after she suffered a near fatal overdose. Her thirteen-year-old sister Gia (Storm Reid) finds Rue covered in vomit, while she is lying on the floor and calls for help. Rue is so obsessed with using again that she rushes to the house of her drug dealer Fezco (Angus Cloud) to score a fresh batch of pills and cocaine from an 11-year-old drug dealer named Ashtray (Javon Walton). Rue knows that she can run over to her friend Lexi Howard ( Maude Apatow) to get a fresh batch of clean pee if she ever gets in trouble with her mother Leslie. Rue’s mom likes to give her random drug tests that she knows how to pass.
Sam Levinson incorporates his own personal experiences as a teen that had a problem grappling with drug addiction to create the series. The result is a raw and honest show from writer/director Levinson about drug use for Generation Z. Euphoria is one part Trainspotting, one part the original U.K. version of Skins, another part Thirteen, with equal parts of Degrassi, My So Called Life, Kids and U.K. Queer as Folk thrown into the mix. These movies and television series were once controversial for their candid depictions of underage drug use, alcoholism and copious amounts of adolescent sex. Drake who serves as one of the executive producers became a household name in his native Canada after his role on Degrassi.
Rue quickly falls for her best friend Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer) who she meets after she checks out of rehab. Jules is a transgender girl who moves to town and immediately hooks up with a married older man she meets on Grindr. Jules learns in Episode 4 that her random hook up is Cal Jacobs (Eric Dane). Cal happens to be the closeted father of handsome high school quarterback, Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) who Jules also meets on Grindr. We’ll get to that messy love triangle later. Nate seems to have it all.
He’s drop dead gorgeous. He loves to go shirtless and show off his six-pack abs. He has a beautiful on- and off-again girlfriend named Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie). But he is also suffering from a severe case of toxic masculinity, which manifests itself in extreme revenge fantasies of how he will protect Maddy from lecherous men. Nate gets really scary in Episode 2 “Stuntin’ Like My Daddy”. We learn Nate’s backstory in this episode, about how he found his father’s homemade gay porn collection. We learn what he likes in a woman. But we also see how he takes the revenge scenario too far. Nate beats the crap out of a guy that he believes raped Maddy at his best friend Chris McKay’s pool party. We know it was a consensual hookup, but Maddy pretends like she blacked out in an effort to get Nate back. Nate goes catfishing on Grindr and starts a flirtatious relationship with Jules. Nate knows who Jules is but be creates a whole new identity as the sensitive Shyguy118 named “Tyler”.
Euphoria is an ensemble show and with each episode we learn more about the group of high school students that inhabit Rue’s world as they cope with their sexuality, love, social media, drugs, porn and the true meaning of friendship. Football star Chris McKay (Algee Smith) and his girlfriend Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney) are a perfect example of first love when raging hormones are involved. McKay is frustrated with the transition from high school to college. Cassie has a sexually experimental past and when the two get together there is tension as they try to define the status of relationship. Episode 3 “Made You Look” is about Kat Hernandez (Barbie Ferreira) and her accidental transition from a shy virgin to a webcam dominatrix. Kat gives Euphoria one of its funniest storylines when we learn her backstory that she is a popular NC-17 Tumblr fan fiction writer with over 57,000 followers. Kat created the One Direction Larry Stylinson conspiracy theory in a story she wrote called The First Night as blog author Thunder-Kit-Kat. Rue narrates the Japanese anime inspired interlude, which includes Harry Styles giving Louis Tomlinson a BJ to ease his nerves before a big show. The pair get so carried away that they end up in a cosmic “69” position.
Ferreira does a good job of conveying the awkwardness of being an out of place teen, who is still learning about her sexuality. Kat is able to recover after her sextape gets leaked online on the Pornhub website. Kat draws the attention of male followers after she posts a twerking video. One man who has a foot fetish is so turned on that he requests a private webcam session. Kat accepts the skype session, but she is shocked to see his micropenis when he asks her to humiliate him as his dominatrix. The client becomes her cash cow. He rewards her in Bitcoin currency in exchange for constant daily humiliation. IRL Kat has a high school lab partner who has a serious crush on her but the awkward duo can’t seem to get their relationship to take off. By the end of the episode Kat decides to go shopping for a whole new dominatrix lite wardrobe.
She can’t help but have a sexual fantasy about the cute guy working at the store during her shopping spree. Kat transforms wearing lipstick, a full makeup and fishnet stocking as DMX’s power anthem “X Gonna Give It To Ya” pulsates through her ears. She is now drowning out the self-doubt that she once had walking down the school hallway. Her school crush notices the change and tells her she looks different. We can now see that Kat is her own person who is ready to no longer hide from who she really wants to be in the world. Rue temporarily breaks the fourth wall to narrate a guide to taking solicited and unsolicited dick pics that fall into the terrifying, horrifying or acceptable category. Jules and Nate continue their romantic texting relationship. Jules is so infatuated with Nate that she is falling in love with the bad boy. The pair continues to communicate day and night. They both setup a date to meet in a private dark place after the town carnival. Nate’s girlfriend Maddy gets suspicious and she decides to check out Nate’s phone. Maddy is shocked when she finds tons of dick pics in Nate’s phone. Maddy starts to question Nate’s sexuality.
Rue pretends she is sober while attending NA meetings and getting her 60-day chip. The attendees don’t know that Rue suffered a bad drug overdose on Fentanyl when a drug dealer with face tattoos made her to take it at Fezco’s house. An adult NA member named Ali knows that Rue is lying about her sobriety and offers to help her get clean. Jules gave Rue an ultimatum to stay clean because she doesn’t want to see her best friend die. Rue tries her best to stick to these rules. But she relapses after she kisses Jules and her affection is not reciprocated. Rue becomes so paranoid that Jules will hate her that she steals some prescription pills. Rue then begs Fezco to give her some drugs. She gets mad at Fezco after he refuses to give her any more after she overdosed on Fentanyl. The episode ends with Rue calling Ali from NA after he offered to be her sober coach.
Viewers should tune in to Euphoria to watch the painful truth because it can be healing for some people. The show has freshness in the camera movement with the push in to one shot close-ups and tracking shots. The creative lighting schemes on night exteriors and the visual depiction of Rue’s sudden depression when Jules enters and leaves her world is another surreal stylistic choice. “It’s a story that follows this group of kids trying to navigate the world today and it is from their perspective. ” Levinson tells Zendaya in a conversation to promote the series. “There is an incredible amount of judgment levied against younger people for being on social media. It’s always perceived as this sort of narcissistic pursuit. How do you navigate this world that is changing month to month? I think one of the biggest hurdles with the show is how do we create empathy for this generation in an older generation?” Levinson storyboarded each scene as the director of five episodes of the series to connect the audience to this colorful cast of characters. Tune in and you will see why this show is so addictive that everyone is talking about it.
Euphoria airs Sundays on HBO.
