Euphoria: 2 hits and 20 misses from Season 3!

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We waited 5 years only to discover that the Euphoria we loved died before Rue did. The third season trades the show's identity for a time jump nobody asked for, kills off characters out of sheer boredom, and turns teenage drama into a catalog of stereotypes.

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Traduit parNox (Markos)

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Révisé parTabata Marques

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About Euphoria Season 3

Everyone asked for it 5 years ago and it finally arrived. It is incredibly late, but it is here: the third season of Euphoria! Created, directed, and written by Sam Levinson, the season announced itself right from the trailer as something fresh, a bit different from what we saw in the first two seasons.

What we did not actually expect was that we would see a completely different show from the first two seasons, featuring characters who kept nothing but their names and a fraction of their original personalities.

The third and final season of the series was not only heavily criticized throughout its 8-week release, but it also sparked intense controversies, plot holes, unnecessary stereotypes, and many other issues.

Here we propose a list where we can explore the hits and misses of the show's third season.

This article contains spoilers for Season 3.

Rue waiting for confirmation on whether there will be a fourth season
Rue waiting for confirmation on whether there will be a fourth season

Hits

1. Nostalgia

One thing we cannot deny is that this season managed to tap into the fans' nostalgia. Even though it returned a long time later and altered 90% of the consistent material that had been built, touching that emotional spot is a merit that not every show at this stage could achieve.

2. Bishop

Among the new characters in the plot, one who does not have many lines but steals the scene whenever he is present is Bishop. His personality, behavior, and way of speaking are very unique for someone who commands attention when on screen. The character barely has his own plotline, orbiting the stories of others, but he does so with a mastery that makes you want to see more of him.

Bishop, a pleasant surprise!
Bishop, a pleasant surprise!

Misses

1. The Time Jump

Considering the success of the first and second seasons of Euphoria, it was a very risky decision to make a 5-year time jump. This is exactly the amount of time it took Levinson to forget what his own show was about.

This period is undoubtedly very valuable and could have created a great dialogue with the early seasons, but the creator chose to take a different path and go to a place where the show was definitely not prepared to go.

2. The Characters' Lives

The consequence of making an unplanned time jump is that the characters' lives have to be completely different from what they were back in high school. The exercise of imagining what everyone became in 5 years would be pleasant at first, if the answer were not always the same: they became whatever the episode needed them to be on that specific Sunday.

The chosen snapshots only highlight the inability to sustain a continuation of the plot, creating a need to move the characters into new centers and universes of conflict just to keep a season afloat.

Are you serious right now??
Are you serious right now??

3. Themes Addressed

In the process of building conflict for the characters, the show chooses to address themes it deems current, but they are just as stereotyped as if they had been tackled 10 years ago. The choice to bring thorny subjects into the plot could have been right if the approach and development made good use of them.

That is not the case here. The show throws morality, religion, and ethics into a blender and serves a cliché smoothie with the confidence of someone who invented the drink.

4. Episode Finales

The episode finales this season made a subtle attempt to work with stronger arcs, aiming to keep the audience hooked between episodes. However, the attempt is an absolute failure because it fails to build any real tension. It relies on forced scenes that are visibly only there to trigger a cliffhanger, which will be resolved or forgotten in a breath in the next episode, because it is not dramatically relevant, it is just a narrative trope practically begging me to keep watching.

Cliffhanger
Cliffhanger

5. Script Monopolization by the Author

Sam Levinson started the writing process and did the final draft for every episode of the series. This kind of thing is normal in the industry, but here, with only two other contributing writers, it stopped being part of the job and flited with text monopolization. This generated scandals where many fans of the show accused the author of using his power to fulfill depraved fetishes regarding the nudity and sexuality of the actresses on the show.

6. New Characters

Introducing new characters into a show is a very natural move, but it is infuriating when a season relies almost exclusively on the plots these new characters bring. At a certain point, the show does not even bother to develop anything else, it just uses its new puppets for their functions within the plot and then throws them away like a child who gets bored of a toy.

Poor girl used as a stepping stone
Poor girl used as a stepping stone

7. Jules

Of all the characters wronged this season, Jules deserves the top prize. In addition to her extremely low screen time throughout the episodes, the character who was widely recognized as one of the best modern trans representations on TV is reduced solely and exclusively to being a high-end escort, whose hobby is art, which is also exclusively about being trans.

What they narratively do to Jules this season is borderline violent, throwing a great character build out the window for nothing. Or rather, for the sake of reinforcing old and tired stereotypes.

8. Human Trafficking

The show flirts at the end of the season with talking about something very serious: Human Trafficking. It is possible that Alamo and Laurie run this kind of scheme together. Rue finds potential evidence and almost discovers everything, but she never gets to confirm it. The show ends without resolving the issue, without confirming it, and without giving the subject its due importance. The theme is left forgotten in the corner of the season like that vegetable rotting at the bottom of the fridge.

Unbelievable that they did this to her
Unbelievable that they did this to her

9. Nazis Going Unpunished

Getting to know the group of the drug dealer Laurie deepens her participation in the plot, but bringing in a character who is openly a Nazi and proud of it might be carrying things too far. Especially when, in the final episode, this character converts a friend of Rue to Nazism and both flee together, escaping any punishment.

10. Nate's Debt

Nate Jacobs is the villain of the first season of Euphoria. Furthermore, he drives major antagonism throughout the first two seasons. Nate made many mistakes, did many terrible things, and there were many ways to think about how to use that against this character to punish him. Years of crime, assault, and manipulation, and what brings Nate down is a bill. The script had a villain and preferred to collect a debt from him instead.

Nate's villain this season
Nate's villain this season

11. Nate Jacobs' Death

Nate was one of the most hated characters in Euphoria during the early seasons. His death and the way it happens are frustrating because, in the end, it feels almost like an absolute disconnection from his past mistakes. Nate does not know or have any sense that he is being punished for them. Killing Nate was the script being gentle precisely with the one who least deserved gentleness. A villain's end needs to hurt, not bring relief.

12. Nate and Cassie's Wedding

This is one of the most important moments of the season, yet the wedding itself generates no conflict among the characters. There was no food fight, no sparks between our protagonists. The event is not a total waste of time only because it is where it dawns on Cassie that Nate is broke and owes money to a criminal. But, honestly, that realization could have come at any moment, perhaps even alongside other social conflicts.

A massive fight could have happened here
A massive fight could have happened here

13. Gross-out Elements

The season is openly more violent, sexual, and graphic than the others, yet there is something that is in fact uniquely more uncomfortable this season: the gross-out elements. I never needed to know so much about the digestive tract of a fictional character. The first few episodes feel less like HBO and more like a high-definition lab exam.

14. Abuse

Still on things that are unnecessary to watch, the season is openly more misogynistic than the others, constructing absolutely cringeworthy scenes for no reason at all. An example of this is the scene where a group of men collectively abuses one of the workers at Alamo's nightclub. This brings zero consequences, zero messages. It is just one of many scenes where women are objects of violence for men to watch and derive pleasure from.

Yes, she was swallowing that
Yes, she was swallowing that

15. Lexi

Lexi is not quite as wronged as Jules, but she comes close. The character had her development of relevance in the second season of the show, and we expected to see a bit more of her in this third season. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, her plot has almost no conflict at all and is forgotten and pushed into the background whenever possible in favor of anything else. She ends the season exactly as she begins it, with zero character development.

16. Aesthetic Shift

Euphoria had a signature trademark throughout its first two seasons that was so authentic that from afar you could see an image and know: this is Petra Collins! I mean, this is Euphoria!! This aesthetic sense of the show was completely thrown away in exchange for new color palettes. They traded the glow that you could recognize from miles away for a gray palette that looks like a visual apology.

New colors. If you can even call them colors.
New colors. If you can even call them colors.

17. Rue and Jules' Relationship

Among all the things that shined in the first seasons of the show, Rue and Jules were such a special couple that it was painful to think they did not end the second season together. Their relationship in the third season flirts with being something mature, more serious, and in a new place of interest, but the flirtation ends quickly and everything falls apart out of nowhere.

18. Directorial Decisions (Fetishes)

The show's direction chooses to shoot certain scenes involving sex, nudity, drugs, and other heavier subjects in very controversial ways. It is always possible to work around filming intense scenes in many ways and to choose carefully when and how we do it. Here, the direction always chooses to glamorize and show everything as much as possible, making it extremely uncomfortable to watch.

They did not even bother to hide it
They did not even bother to hide it

19. Rue's Death

Rue dying at the end of this season is one of the most infuriating decisions in the entire show. The character did everything to save herself, was finally clean from drugs for a long time, and just when everything seems to finally be going where it should, the young woman is killed by a single poisoned pill.

20. Ali's Revenge

Ali is a character who barely appeared throughout this season. He made appearances in just a few episodes and ends up taking on a massive role in the resolution of the final conflict. It is sad to see what Rue's death triggers in the other characters, but taking the only character who existed to break the cycle of violence and using him to feed it is either a stroke of genius irony or the script forgetting its own thesis. My money is on the second option.

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Conclusions

Euphoria closes with a bitter taste in the mouth. It is the bitterness of a relationship that changed so much that you do not even recognize who you are talking to anymore.

The Boys and Stranger Things can now rest in peace, because we have here the new WORST finale in TV history.

And what about you? What did you think of Euphoria Season 3? Do you plan on watching the completely unexpected, let alone predictable, spin-off featuring Maddy and Cassie?

Tell us in the comments section!

Until next time!

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