Chloe Asack ’26: Thumbs Down
Euphoria has never been a perfect show. The teen drama, narrated by intermittently recovering drug addict, Rue Bennett (Zendaya), has poignantly illustrated the struggles of Rue and her high school peers as they wrestle with drugs, sex, identity, relationships and the usual. In the third season, the show skips ahead in time: Rue is a drug mule for a dealer from her high school days, her friends Lexi Howard and Maddy Perez hold low-level jobs in Hollywood and Cassie Howard and Nate Jacobs are planning an expensive wedding.
The show’s first two seasons faced much criticism for their alleged overdramatization of young adult woes, the excessive and explicit sexualization of teenage girls and the aestheticization of drug use. The merit of these claims is arguable, but even with them, the show remained wildly popular, influencing style trends and catalyzing the careers of a notably large handful of actors, including Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi and Colman Domingo. For all of their faults, the first two seasons were exciting, well-acted and spoke to something true about the teenage experience. The first episode of the third season does not offer as much promise.
As in the first two seasons, it often seems that the images on the screen have an excess of stylistic value at the expense of narrative merit. For instance, a montage of Rue whipping her SUV across the Mexican desert feels like a car commercial after a while. I am not of the mind that every moment of every show should drive the plot; it can be fine and even thought-provoking just to see something beautiful or disgusting for the sake of it, and such images are abundant in Euphoria: I found the extended and graphic montage of drug balloon swallowing to effectively illustrate Rue’s misery in her current occupation. Still, it felt that much of this episode existed just because it was supposed to fill this late-night Sunday slot, while providing very little in the way of ‘artistic value’; define that however you will.
Even this issue could be forgiven, as it was for the first two seasons, if not for the fact that the dialogue in this episode felt astoundingly flat. Cassie’s (Sydney Sweeney) and Nate’s (Jacob Elordi) conversations were particularly clunky, resulting in the worst performances Sweeney and Elordi have ever given on this show, through no fault of their own.
There are signs of potential. The show’s iconic stylized tableaus deftly evolved to fit the new setting, and creator Sam Levinson continues to direct Zendaya’s best work as an actress. I am open to the interpretation that the episode struggled because it was so exposition-heavy, making sense of the show’s new context and placing them where they need to be for the rest of the season to move forward with more creativity. But I won’t hold my breath.
Michelle Bookbinder ’29: Thumbs Down
Euphoria has always been a controversial show. Grappling with the most complex facets of teenage life and early adulthood, such as drugs, sex and relationships, Euphoria’s gritty, graphic nature is often hard to stomach. When the show balances its roughness with fleshed-out characters and purposeful plotlines, graphic moments are justified. However, as the show deviates from character-driven episodes, the series feels empty aside from shock-value scenes. Unsettling viewers with a lack of intent, Euphoria’s season three premiere veers away from the Euphoria audiences originally fell in love with.
Released April 12 on HBO and HBO Max, season three of Euphoria premiered four years after season two was released. This production delay is likely explained by the deaths of two major cast members: Angus Cloud, who played Fezco, and Eric Dane, who played Cal Jacobs. Despite the long wait, season three has still garnered substantial attention with over eight million viewers within the first three days of the premiere.
Unlike the first two seasons, the premiere includes a time jump that finds the characters out of high school and well into young adulthood. The episode kicks off with Rue working as a drug mule and driving across the Texas-Mexico border. Cassie and Nate live in the suburbs of Southern California, where Nate takes over his father’s business, and Cassie seeks TikTok fame. As Nate drives a Cybertruck and Cassie opens an OnlyFans account, the show remains rooted in current culture. Maddy works as a talent manager, and Lexi aims to break into the film industry. Jules Vaughn is noticeably missing from the first episode, but is said to make a living as a sugar baby.
Featuring desert and rugged terrain, the show immediately departs from its hallmark aesthetic of moody, dark and glittering visuals. Aside from aesthetics, Labrinth’s absence (former composer for Euphoria) marks a visible hole in the show. Labrinth’s synthy score served as a cornerstone to the first two seasons of Euphoria. Hans Zimmer swaps Labrinth’s synth for upbeat strings as the new sole composer, failing to cohesively build on the shows’ past, iconic sound.
Sam Levinson, the creator, writer and executive producer of Euphoria, does not hesitate to subject audiences to unsettling scenes. In a gag-inducing montage, Rue swallows an inordinate amount of drug-filled balloons only 18 minutes into the episode. Cassie’s introduction immediately portrays her character as uncomfortably sexualized, dressing as a dog for social media content. These scenes are meant to acquaint us with the older versions of familiar characters. However, they instead serve to shock audiences, providing little, if any, insight into new character motivations.
While season one of Euphoria emphasized character-focused episodes, ripe with flashback scenes and character monologues, season three fails to invite us into the characters’ headspaces. Without an adequate understanding of each character’s goals, the abundance of graphic content lacks cause. The characters in season three present us with a sense of being lost from their former selves, making reckless decisions to simply drive along the plot. Hopefully, as season three progresses, Levinson will further explore these driving motivations. If the graphic elements of Euphoria remain narratively irrelevant, the remainder of season three might be a hard watch.
‘Thumb War’ is a taste of two critics’ opinions on the same piece of media.
Chloe Asack is a member of the Class of 2026 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a staff writer for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at casack@cornellsun.com.
Michelle Bookbinder is a member of the Class of 2029 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a contributor for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at msb394@cornell.edu.
