★★☆☆☆
The first episode of Euphoria season three premiered Sunday night, after the show’s four-year hiatus, reintroducing viewers to the messy, dysfunctional drug-and sex-filled world of the young, Californian friend group. The remainder of the eight-episode season will air on Sundays at 9 p.m. EST on HBO Max.
Season three skips a significant amount of time from the group’s turbulent high school years and begins five years after the second season’s end. Now, the characters are in their mid-20s and navigating new struggles like managing money and careers, while still grappling with their teenage problems: complicated romance, addiction, and messy friendships.
Rue (Zendaya) is still lost, jumping from hustle to hustle. She now works as a drug mule for Laurie (Martha Kelly), an unemotional and incredibly intimidating drug dealer. Rue spends her weeks ferrying fentanyl across the U.S.-Mexico border by body packing—a method illustrated through a series of hard-to-watch clips of Rue forcing golf ball-sized balloons down her throat.
Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) and Nate (Jacob Elordi) are engaged and living in a posh, garish mansion. The two appear to have completely gone off the rails. Nate took over his father’s construction business—and drives a Cybertruck—while Cassie spends her day as a housewife and up-and-coming OnlyFans creator.
While Nate is away at work, Cassie flounces around the house filming herself in humiliating outfits—a dog barking and walking on all fours, for instance—to try and make extra money for their wedding. Both are still as vain and manipulative as they used to be, but somehow seem dumber now.
Maddie (Alexa Demie) and Lexi (Maude Apatow) are both navigating the world of showbiz in Hollywood, and the grueling work that comes with being an assistant. They seem to be living glamorous Hollywood lives, rubbing elbows with celebrities daily, but in reality, they are working nonstop and still struggling to pay the bills. While Jules (Hunter Schafer) does not appear in the first episode, it is hinted that she is attending art school and funding her expensive lifestyle by working as a sugar baby.
The first episode has a Western aesthetic: Everyone is carrying around golden revolvers and wearing cowboy hats. To further this theme, Rue is shown trudging through the Chihuahuan Desert in Texas after her car gets stuck at the border. She walks through tumbleweeds and cacti, only to end up at a rural farm owned by a Christian family. There, she is inspired to convert and see if Christianity can offer her an easier path to happiness.
The show has long tried to push the boundaries of the television status quo, and it feels like this season has amped everything up to the next level. The outfits they are wearing are shorter, tighter, and more outlandish—the violence is more intense and explicit.
But something that has clearly been toned down is the glitter. Euphoria is known for its dark, trippy, glittery makeup, which defines the show’s aesthetic. At least in the first episode, the scenes are brighter, the makeup is much more subdued, and everything feels more realistic.
The characters have grown up, and with age, the stakes have also risen.
Rue flirts with danger constantly, maneuvering between her psychopathic boss, scarred drug cartel leaders, and a shady strip-club owning man named Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).
In the first episode alone, the show addresses a number of different contemporary issues and topics: The fentanyl crisis, the rise of OnlyFans, and a socially volatile culture. But the show never commits. It introduces a lot of details that, if expanded on, could provide valuable cultural critiques and nuance. But, instead, it quickly moves on to the next topic—often filled with even more nudity, drugs, and danger than the last.
Zendaya is an incredible actress, and there is a reason her role of Rue has won her two Emmy awards. In season 3, she slips effortlessly back into her portrayal of Rue, marked by her iconic, unflinching way of dancing around danger with a sarcastic comment.
Unfortunately, the other characters feel hollow, especially Cassie and Nate. And even though Elordi has given incredible performances recently in some of his other films, Nate feels flat—partially due to the writing, partially due to Elordi’s embodiment. Nate and Cassie feel like they aren’t even people anymore, instead acting as caricatures to portray society’s obsession with wealth, status, and social media.
While season 3 doesn’t present a moral hierarchy or provide any truly valuable social commentary, it is certainly entertaining. Rue seems set on a course that will inevitably result in her implosion, and it will be interesting to see if she can change her ways to avoid that fate.
