HBO’s most watched television drama after the game of thrones, Euphoria, is back with its second season. Euphoria Season 2 aired on HBO on January 9, 2022, with eight episodes that were positively responded to by the audiences. The review done for Euphoria by the critics was mostly favorable. And there are lots of stories to be served in the show. In the lead role of Rue Bennett, Zendaya presents a recovering teen drug addict on screen who wants to find her place in the world.
Spider-Man: Homecoming famed Zendaya became the youngest recipient of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role in this show as Rue. This article will review Euphoria and its Season 2 and analyze its pros and cons. So let’s begin!
About Euphoria
Euphoria is a drama television series that Sam Levinson created for Home Box Office (HBO) channel. It’s an American adaptation of Ron Leshem and Daphna Levin’s Israeli miniseries of the same name. They are also the executive producers for this series, along with Gary Lennon.
It has 18 episodes altogether that ran for two seasons. Euphoria’s season one premiered on June 16, 2019, and season 2 on January 9, 2022. It received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series and Primetime Emmy Award and a Satellite Award to Zendaya for Best Actress.
The Star Cast
The lead actors in the show include Zendaya as a teenage drug addict Ruby (aka Rue Bennett), Maude Apatow as Lexi Howard (childhood best friend), Hunter Schafer as a transgender Jules Vaughn, and Angus Cloud as Fezco (drug dealer). Nika King as Leslie Bennett plays Rue and her younger sister, Gia’s (Storm Reid) mother. Dominic Fike as Elliot plays the third wheel between Rue and Julian.
Other stars are Jacob Elordi as Nate Jacobs, Eric Dane as his father, Cal, Alexa Demie as Nate’s girlfriend, Maddy Perez, and Colman Domingo as Ali Muhammed (speaker and sponsor of Rue’s Narcotics Anonymous meetings).
The Plot
Rue is a teenage girl who descent into drug addiction after his father’s sudden demise. She returns from a rehabilitation center in season one. Rue meets Julian (a transgender girl), falls for her, and plans to elope but steps back at the end, while Jules leaves on the train alone. Meanwhile, heartbroken Rue returns home and relapses.
In its special episodes, Rue meets Ali, who helps her commit to a greater cause than herself. He makes her admit her feelings for Jules. Being himself a drug addict in the past, Ali helps Rue learn the importance of staying clean. Meanwhile, Jules attends her first therapy session and undergoes a dilemma with her femininity. Eventually, Rue and Jules meet at Jules’s place on Christmas eve, and Rue abruptly leaves after wishing her Merry Christmas.
Season 2 covers a pool of social topics such as infidelity, relapsing, child abuse, human trafficking, repressed homosexuality, etc., around different characters from season one. Rue takes drugs regularly with Fez, Elliot, Ashtray, and Faye (new in this group). Multiple love triangles follow Rue-Jules-Elliot, Nate-Cassie-Maddy, etc.
In the end, a school play organized by Lexi represents the life of the show’s characters, including Rue’s drug addiction, Cassie undergoing puberty, Rue and Lexi’s friendship, Cassie, Maddy, and Nate’s relationship, etc. After all the chaos between the episodes, Rue finally apologizes to Ali for choosing drugs over recovery, managing to stay clean for the rest of her school year, hoping for a brighter future.
Euphoria Season 2 Review
Euphoria, with an IMDb rating of 8.4, continues the saga of presenting contemporary teen problems on screen. But expectations are something that makes others judgemental than a typical viewer. Although its cinematography and soundtrack are incredibly unique and cannot be faulted out, without an apt and synchronizing write-up, it won’t be truly effective.
Within the individually unique episodes, several different stories evolved with each episode, distracting the flow. Among the controversial abundance of nudity, entangled love triangles, and drug addictions, the show overall fails to present a central theme to the show.
Zendaya is nowhere to be seen until she’s a drug addict again and runs for money. Overall, in this review, Euphoria Season-2 is a bit lower than its first season, but individually it’s a bouquet of stories worth enjoying.
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