“Euphoria” goes to hell

These often numb kids get thrust into intense drama and extreme situations—rough sex, vicious girl fights, armed drug deals, hellish exits—with some quiet and introspective interludes in between. While Euphoria has never been a show that deals with the psychology of its characters so deeply or consistently, it has its moments of genuine feeling. (Rue’s battle with drug addiction and the pain it caused his family made for some of the most touching scenes in the first two seasons, perhaps thanks to Levinson’s own experience as a teenage drug addict who later successfully recovered.) Visually, Euphoria also has something of a lava lamp feel, with all its shadows, sparkles, swirling, twinkling lights. The show’s suburban teen milieu is less “OC” and more “Carrie” — a space filled with psychedelic, osmotic, horror fantasies — and its girl protagonist’s much-discussed makeup only adds to that impression. Drips of glitter, glittering sticky crystals, dramatic slashes of eyeliner and smudges of eyeshadow – there’s a playful, changeable experimentalism here that marks the young character’s versatility and originality. (When I interviewed Doniella Davy, the show’s lead makeup artist, in 2019, she told me that the looks she created for the show were about “unbridled self-expression.”)

Season 3 takes us five years after the events of Season 2allowing our protagonist’s life to enter a new stage. Rue and her pals are now adults in their early twenties, and as she deadpans at the beginning of the first episode, “A lot of people ask me what I’ve been doing since high school. Honestly? Nothing good.” Indeed. So-called real life has now set in, and with it the characters have grown grim, and the series feels like it’s entering its final, grim form: a thrilling, unsettling horror show that, with a sneer and a smile, depicts a world where money is the only thing worth caring about.

Lou has been unable to repay the massive sum of money she owes suburban drug kingpin Laurie (Martha Kelly), so she starts working as her mule to Mexico, where she swallows gum-sized balloons of fentanyl, swallows them down with a generous squeeze of KY Jell-O, and poops into a sieve when she returns to Cali. Meanwhile, Cassie and Nate are engaged and living in what Rue calls a “right-wing suburban bubble.” Like Rue, Nate is deeply in debt, owing money to shady characters who have poured money into the construction business he inherited from his evil father, Carl. (Eric Dane recently died of ALS, another tragedy.) Now, he’s focused on the development of Sun Settlers, “California’s premier end-of-life transition facility.” (Nate explains to a potential investor that this is a critical financial opportunity because “a baby boomer dies every fifteen seconds.”) Cassie is trying to become famous on social media, suggestively displaying her all-American assets online in a variety of cuddly outfits (a puppy, a baby sucking a pacifier). Her goal is to make enough money to pay for the $50,000 wedding expenses, which Nate is unwilling to pay for. (When forced to sign up for Cassie’s bubbly new career, Nate reluctantly agreed, making her promise she wouldn’t show “those” — her breasts — and her “pretty face at the same time,” a vow she almost immediately broke.)

Meanwhile, Jules has become a sugar baby, dropping out of art school and living a fragile life of luxury in a downtown Los Angeles penthouse paid for by a wealthy plastic surgeon who is obsessed with her “poreless” skin – which he attributes to her pre-pubescent transformation – and who tells her her breasts are “nearly perfect.” (When she questioned the hedging, he clarified that “anything can be improved.”) Maddie, an associate at a talent management company, saw an opportunity in the growing OnlyFans star market. “We can suggest nudity,” she assured a model who didn’t want to go completely erotic. “Side boob, underboob, camel toe, butt, feet…we’ll build it up step by step, one toe at a time.”

In other words, everyone can be sold—or can sell themselves—for spare parts. The body is not a source of power, pleasure or entertainment, but a place from which to draw as much strength as possible and to persevere for dear life. (Again, using the character’s beauty appearance as an indicator, the overly defined porn star lips and power-bitch-winged eyeliner the character has worn in recent episodes is hardly self-expression but something else entirely: As Doniella Davy puts it Harper’s Bazaar Earlier this month, “The motivation for characters wearing makeup in Season 3 is largely to make money.”)