REVIEW #152 Euphoria (2 Seasons)

Euphoria is the incredibly popular HBO show written by Sam Levinson and it follows a group of high school students as they navigate the world of sex, drugs, relationships and social media, in this dark coming of age drama.

CAST & THE ACTING 

I want to start straight away and state that the acting in this show is incredible and not just from one or two actors but the entire cast. Zendaya leads as Rue, a student dealing with addiction and it is one of the most realistic depictions of addiction I have seen from a show or film. She seems to handle every aspect perfectly, the emotion, the body language, the facial expressions, everything! It’s great to see her showcase her talents being the centre of a project. The next person I want to mention is Sydney Sweeney (Cassie) who seems to be able to express extreme emotion with ease and that helps her realistically portray the drastic mood swings of an 18 year old and how they think their problems are the centre of the universe. Jacob Elordi plays the typical Jock bad boy Nate and he creates a character that the audience can really hate, which is a credit to his performance. The character is so complex with a wide variety of trauma which he portrayed really well. 

Hunter Schafer plays Jules and although I find her character incredibly annoying, her acting was brilliant! The chemistry her and Zendaya had created such an authentic friendship and relationship. The final two people I want to mention are Maude Apatow (Lexi) and Angus Cloud (Fezco), undoubtedly my two favourite people in the entire series. They didn’t have as many opportunities to showcase really dramatic scenes but despite that, they made the audience fall in love with them. So they did really well! As I mentioned, everyone performed brilliantly because every character had trauma and they all understood how that trauma effected their characters and knew exactly how to portray it on screen. 

THE STORYLINE 

The coming of age plot is dramatised by having the characters navigate their way through a world of drugs, sex, relationships and social media. Granted it is very over dramatised at times and I often found myself questioning if it was a little too much but I really enjoyed it nonetheless. The way they handled Rue’s addiction storyline is great and it’s why so many recovering addicts have come out and stated that it is such a realistic portrayal of what life is like for an addict. The beauty of season one was that each character was explored in depth and we were taken on a journey into each characters personal trauma, whether that be addiction, sexuality, self image or family trauma. I do think the storylines got a lot messier in season two, chopping and changing with no real certainty, which left a lot of questions unanswered after the finale. 

My favourite character in season one was Lexi and the decision to create a romance between her and Fezco was genius because I think every single fan of the show absolutely loves them together. However I do feel like that was ruined by Fezco’s ending in season two. I understand creating hurdles for couples in a series but it felt way too soon to have Fezco and Ashtray raided by the police. They should have given us season two seeing Lexi and Fezco’s relationship flourish and then perhaps save the events of the police raid for season three. This would have annoyed audiences far less and would have also made that moment more impactful. I’ve heard Sam Levinson switched to Ashtray dying instead of Fezco a day before shooting and that explains why that finale was so messy. I did like the school play being utilised for some storytelling, giving us a key insight into Lexi’s life but they should have kept that too one episode instead of dragging it out into two. So to summarise the plot is stronger in season one but despite that, both seasons are still strong and it has you hooked from the get go.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

Euphoria is probably one of the most visually stunning TV series I’ve seen, Season one utilised a range of colour pallets to create really beautiful scenes and this did drop off a bit in season two but other techniques were utilised in its place. Sam Levinson was so creative with how he created scenes, using a lot of metaphorical representation to describe what was going on in the characters lives. Like Rue’s ‘Explicit images lesson’, granted it was way to graphic for me, we didn’t need that many pictures…but it was a unique way to show the story, personifying Rues narration and giving it a scene separate to reality. The soundtrack for both seasons was excellent and matched the scenes so well, the music could take scenes from an 8 to a 9 out of 10 and that’s impressive. I have included some examples of the cinematography at the end but that’s really just a fraction of the examples I could have included if I had more space! I’m sure I’ll do a ‘The Beauty of’ post for Euphoria eventually. Rues narration over the scenes was a nice touch and I read a theory that the scenes she didn’t narrate were the times where her addiction was at her worst so the narration being absent was a reflection of her state of mind. If that’s intentional then it’s absolute genius, a subtle change that has such an impact.

OVERALL (9/10)

Euphoria is definitely up there with one of my favourite series now for sure, season one stands at a strong 9.5 but season two did bring the score down slightly. I enjoyed both don’t get me wrong but that first season was a masterpiece and unfortunately the storylines were very messy in the second season. The acting was phenomenal and I tip my hat to the entire cast because they always delivered in every episode. The cinematography was excellent, both aesthetically and creatively in regards to how they constructed certain scenes. It has characters you’ll love and characters you’ll hate and that’s what gets you so hooked from the first episode. I would definitely recommend it but it’s certainly not one to watch with the family that’s for sure because it’s rather graphic at times! 

Thanks for reading

Callan