Euphoria in retrospect
I try and work out my feelings for this season of Euphoria with some distance.
I cannot say with certainty that this season of Euphoria is worthless. Plenty of shows are, but in the grand scheme of television its outclassed in mediocrity by the Gossip Girl Reboot. This bodes poorly for the teen driven dramas of HBO. But worthless is not necessarily the ceiling, it’s the floor. The ceiling for season two of Euphoria would have been great. Consistent. Worthwhile. Competent.
But at least it was mostly entertaining.
Looking back at the first season, I must admit that it has its flaws. The writing is often clunky, the performances aren’t always well-matched (Barbie Ferreira in particular had growing pains) and truly, there were points where it felt visually…busy. But the show told a tight story with consistent themes. Addiction and abuse. Always addiction and abuse.
Part of the appeal of the first season was the ensemble nature. Every arc was given sufficient weight and rolled into each other easily. Some got more focus than others, but spotlights within episodes kept the ball rolling. The loose ends felt like natural spaces to continue the next season from. There was plenty to grasp onto.
Which is why this most recent season feels so confusing.
There was three years between seasons one and two of Euphoria. And you can tell. Actors have matured in many ways, including visually, not helped by a sudden shift in cinematography – especially not helped by a switch to film. The performances remained decent (congratulations Miss Ferreira on most improved, you killed your three lines) but the direction often leads them to bigger moments rather than easy flows. The plot just doesn’t move naturally between events. It’s a mess.
I’m going to blame most of these problems on the Edit. Capitalised for a reason. In both film and television, you can do a lot to save a show in the Edit. It’s the space in which bad performances can be cut around, ugly shots can be shortened, and small moments of grace can be emphasised. Alexa Demie was a huge beneficiary of the Edit in the first half of season one.
But this is also a tool that can be used for cinematic evil. Season two of the show wants to use the Edit to de-emphasise elements that seem promising, for whatever reason. There’s obviously an ensemble story within the show, and there’s hints to a wider story and multiple subplots that in a better season would have supported the flimsy main plot. But, for whatever reason, they chose this season of television.
Here I want to make a quick tangent to say that, yes, I am not emphasising the contributions of Sam Levinson as the showrunner and writer of Euphoria. Not because I do not blame him hugely for the faults of the show, but because I cannot tell you that what he presented here is what he wrote initially. This feels like a show compromised on every level. A story rewritten, edited, scrapped, edited again, restructured, and eventually regurgitated to the public. There’s something interesting there. But it’s hard to tell at what point it got lost.
To talk about season two in specific, let’s discuss the visuals. There was a decision made in pre-production to completely shift the aesthetic look of the show to match a new tone. Which is fine. In a more successfully told story, many of the changes visually here would have been impactful.
Season one was gloss personified. It was beautiful in the exact same way Riverdale season one is beautiful, except its definition of a small town is more modern. But the rhinestones glittered, the key light was always perfect and everyone glowed. “Euphoria makeup” became a trend for a reason. It was beautifully captured on screen.
In season two, everyone looks so much worse all the time. Part of it is just that they aren’t wearing foundation. Everyone looks a little bit more tired than they did before. But if we’re being honest, it’s just being shot worse. Shorter focal lengths distort the faces in close ups, whether appropriate to the scene or not. More “natural” lighting creates bags under eyes that don’t seem to be there in the actor’s day to day lives. An unwillingness to saturate the shots makes certain scenes look like they weren’t even colour graded. The shadows are greyed, the highlights are overblown, and no one looks as good as they did before.
There are moments when this dull, ugly way of shooting works. Zendaya’s performance isn’t necessarily improved by it, but the ugliness really makes her drug addicted mess of a plot hit hard. She doesn’t just look terrible, the greyish cast that covers everyone makes her look truly sick. It makes her relapse and downward spiral hit hard.
But that same ugliness is applied to everyone, even those who are meant to be glamorous and appealing. Extremely warm lighting seems to be the solution gone to try and fix this. Cassie, as an example, is constantly being bathed in golden light in scenes where she’s meant to be more visually appealing. But the result is often shots that actively fail to utilise the real power of 35mm film. Using a medium meant to bring depth into shots, the cinematography often uses lighting to flatten them. The bathroom scenes are especially heinous.
On the writing front, season two is a mess. Characterisations have been changed just enough to feel off, but since only two plots actively matter, it doesn’t really feel like a betrayal. Most of the characters are reactive rather than proactive. Zendaya gets a chance to do some devastating acting with Rue this season but is hindered by a drug dealing plot that feels undercooked - and has no resolution. The arc is about getting clean for herself. It feels like a collection of moments. But if there’s an MVP of the season, it remains her. As an actress she’s obviously most comfortable playing the comedy of a scene, but clearly the scripts were written around her portraying moments of pain.
The show also has taken non-diegetic scenes given them steroids. In the first season they were used to punctuate moments, bring humour, and break up the monotony. The same concept applies to season two, but they’re longer, grouped in together, and less fun. Lexi’s internal Rachel Berry schtick is fun, but it’s unclear whether you’re meant to find her jealousy sympathetic or pathetic. Rue once again presents a lesson, but the darkness cuts the humour at the knees. There’s just random shots that are very pretty, maybe the only well-lit ones in the season, but they just don’t make sense and add nothing to the plot or themes.
Or, in the case of Kat, they exist to set up themes and plots they just don’t happen for whatever reason. Which is a shame, because the influencer scene in episode one feels like it was going somewhere really interesting. Plus it, and the barbarian scene, are much needed moments of humour and probably the best moments in episode one. In a better season, it would have been a jumping off point to make a point that responded to season one.
But ultimately, this season is the season of Cassie. For the worse.
Sydney Sweeney is playing a character. That is correct. It’s certainly fun to watch. But ultimately, in the second season of a show, the type of shift in characterisation Sweeney is being asked handle should have been treated with more care.
Cassie in season two feels like the next logical step from season one, except in how she got there. A less reactive character than Maddy, Cassie’s coy persona and tendency to fall into terrible situations and fuss over the optics means her coupling with Nate feels almost inevitable - once the season hits episode three. But the trouble is, to get to episode three, you must watch episodes one and two, where the writing simply does not support this.
If Kat gets the best scenes in episode one, Cassie gets the worst. Her immediate attraction to Nate isn’t in line with their previous interactions nor how she has been with men at all in the previous season. She plays it well, but Sweeney is left with the unenviable task of making nonsense make sense. Episode two further asks her to support the foundations of this random love story, again with no logical steps forward. Once episode three hits and you’ve forgotten how we got here, it works. But that isn’t really an excuse.
If the show has a real problem, it’s set up vs pay off.
To put it bluntly, barely half of the storylines set up in episode one of Euphoria season two end the season finished. Everyone but Cassie and Rue remain adrift. I’m not going to speculate on why that is, except to say that it feels clear that this was not the intent. You don’t introduce a drug dealer who threatens your main character and not have them show up in the last third of your show if you’re a basically competent writer. Levinson has proven his problem isn’t narrative competence, it’s more tone and flow. But not here.
To end on a positive note: the show is still extremely fun to watch. Giving up the pretence of “good”, it’s spectacular melodrama on par with the middle seasons of Desperate Housewives. Its Skins meets Insatiable. There’s nothing morally or ethically wrong with watching the show or finding it compelling. For all my complaints, I did mostly enjoy it. I’m not convinced I’ll come back for the next season, but I’m not walking away angry. Just confused and disappointed.
Kynan