Sam Levinson’s Euphoria is a bit of an anomaly within the television world: unabashedly edgy and sensationalist, but also genuinely deep and engaging. However, with his last HBO show, The Idol, the tide started to turn on Levinson, with some accusing him of losing his touch and going vapid. While it isn’t quite as strong as past seasons, Euphoria season 3 takes the show in interesting new directions that will undeniably divide fans.
What is Euphoria Season 3 about?
This season takes place years after the events of season 2, with everyone having graduated from high school and having gone their separate ways. Rue, our heroine played by Zendaya, is now working as a drug smuggler to work off her debt to the dealer she once bought from. A lot has happened in the four years since the last season aired, so it should not be a surprise that this conclusion is so drastically different, but whether or not fans will like it is hard to tell from the first few episodes alone.
Euphoria Season 3 Review
Season 3 of Euphoria has the same issue as so many delayed final seasons (Arrested Development and Sex Education come to mind as prominent examples): the cast has gotten so famous that it’s difficult to get all of them in one place at once. The result is a season that feels incredibly disjointed, and while one might think that the mosaic-like structure of the show would hide some of these shortcomings, it’s only a temporary boon to the unevenness.
Photograph by Patrick Wymore/HBO.
That being said, there are some benefits to the delay. Now that the characters are all full-grown adults and not teenagers, Levinson is able to go much darker with the themes and subject matter without it feeling like it is broad shock value. Although the mean and depraved things he does to these characters might be condemned by some as nihilistic, they are effective because of the emotional connection we have built to these characters over the course of the first two seasons.
Unfortunately, Levinson seems to be using this third season to live out his (wet) dreams as a filmmaker. The first three episodes — a drug-pushing neo-Western — are clearly indebted, both narratively and stylistically, to Tarantino. And as a filmmaker who actually has legitimate creative vision and technical skill, Levinson fares far better than a majority of Tarantino copycats. But this season feels like an almost entirely different beast from the Euphoria we have seen before, for better or worse.
That’s not to say that this season doesn’t look good — Euphoria still has all the visual excess and flourish that we have come to expect from Levinson, albeit within the confines of a different genre. There is still some of the neon aesthetic in scenes that take place in strip clubs, but Levinson mostly trades the youthful energy for something that feels more retro.
If there’s one thing that has been exciting to watch over the course of Euphoria, it is how much Zendaya has grown as an actress. She seems to have a very strong understanding of Rue and her journey, and it’s allowed her to give an incredibly nuanced performance that she may never be able to top in her career. Levinson isn’t exactly known for being an empathetic writer — especially with his female characters — but for all the outrageousness, Rue’s arc always remains firmly grounded thanks to Zendaya’s performance.
Photograph by Courtesy of HBO.
That Sydney Sweeney came back for this role feels like it’s going to set her career back five years. Recently, she’s been trying to establish herself as a more serious actress with films like Christy and Reality, but her role in Euphoria season 3 is incredibly sexualized. Which that’s not to say that sexualization is necessarily bad — there are plenty of strong female roles that are sexual in nature — but in the case of Cassie, it feels regressive.
As for the rest of the cast, they have gotten little to do — at least in the first few episodes of the season. Fresh off his first Oscar nomination, Jacob Elordi is just shockingly bad here, but I think the fault lies more with the writing of his character arc than his performance. Alexa Demie gets a few really good moments, but you’ll be left wishing her character got more of a focus. And Hunter Schafer has barely made an appearance so far, so it’s hard to really judge her merits yet.
Is Euphoria Season 3 worth watching?
It is clear that the third season of Euphoria is held back by behind-the-scenes limitations, but the ambitious, weird swings that Levinson takes are certainly at least admirable. There’s potential in these first few episodes, but it’s just a little too uneven to live up to the greatness that was season two.
Season 3 of Euphoria debuts on HBO on April 12 at 9pm ET/PT, with new episodes airing weekly. Three out of eight episodes were provided for review.
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