There’s a moment in “Euphoria” Season 3 when Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) shrieks, “what is happening right now?!” and that sums it up, as a whole. You’ll be saying the same thing, watching every other scene.
The hit HBO show’s long-awaited return is an off-the-rails roller coaster of insanity. Whether that’s good or bad, it depends on if you want to see the biggest Gen-Z superstars – Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Sweeney – in ludicrous situations that feel like “Breaking Bad” meets “Looney Tunes.”
It delivers that in spades. But if you want narrative coherence and character consistency, Season 3 leaves you wanting.
Originally premiering in 2019 – when its stacked cast was less famous – the Sam Levinson series began as an edgy teen drama, following drug addict Rue (Zendaya) and her high school classmates, including psycho jock Nate (Elordi), insecure Cassie (Sweeney), queen bee Maddy (Alexa Demie) artsy trans girl Jules (Hunter Schafer), and writer Lexi (Maude Apatow).
Season 2 aired in 2022. During its four-year hiatus, there’s been tragic cast deaths: Angus Cloud (who played affable drug dealer, Fezco) and Eric Dane (who played Nate’s dad, Cal, still posthumously appearing in Season 3).
Onscreen, five years have passed since Season 2.
Season 3 finds the former teens now living adult lives, which “Euphoria” has taken to mean, “nearly all of them are involved in sex work, crime, or work that’s adjacent to both.”
That’s where Season 3 stumbles. In the first two seasons, the show’s strength was how it dug into these characters’ inner lives. The plot got wild, but it was anchored by human drama.
When we find them as adults, it would be more compelling to see them struggle because of their own flaws. Instead, many of them struggle because random criminal henchmen are after them.
That’s lazy writing. It sacrifices depth for absurdity. Especially for Zendaya, Elordi, and Sweeney, “Euphoria” launched them into stardom, and now it brought them back for material that doesn’t meet their talents.
Take Rue, for example. In Season 3, she leers at strippers, and her drug related antics have a cartoonish air. While there’s an element of “The Big Lebowski” esque madcap fun to her plot, it takes away her nuance and doesn’t use Zendaya’s capacity to tap into her tragedy.
“Euphoria” does the same to Elordi, who returns as an Oscar-nominated actor. But he’s so hamstrung by Nate being written bizarrely out of character, it makes you wonder why they interrupted his movie career for this.
In the first two seasons, Nate had anger issues and choked his girlfriend for publicly embarrassing him. In Season 3, when Cassie publicly embarrasses him, he barely gets angry, and simpers after her. He unironically uses the phrase “make love” (remember when typical Nate dialogue was, “f–k her like the wh-re she is?” The show apparently doesn’t).
Sure, people change, but he’d need years of therapy for this personality transplant to make sense (and there’s no indication that happened). Why bother revisiting Nate if he doesn’t feel like Nate?
Cassie is more in-character, but that doesn’t leave her better off. In the first two seasons, she degraded herself for male attention. “Euphoria” had a handle on it broader themes, so it (mostly) didn’t feel like the show itself was degrading her. That’s not the case in Season 3, as she tries to have an OnlyFans career with “erotic” photo shoots. If there’s a loftier point to be made beyond the camera ogling her, it’s nowhere to be seen.
Aside from Rue, Nate, and Cassie, some other elements of Season 3 work better.
The new additions to the cast (like Marshawn Lynch) are woven in fairly well. The sad task of writing off Fez is handled appropriately.
Cassie’s mom (Alanna Ubach) remains a scene-stealing blast. It’s bittersweet to see Dane’s posthumous performance, but he delivers flair.
Maddy’s story is the most successful, in terms of feeling true to her character without sacrificing emotional resonance for shock value. It has the right mix of wild antics and pathos that still feel like “Euphoria” (where the rest of Season 3 feels more like Levinson’s widely panned other show, “The Idol”). Jules and Lexi may also have plots more in line with Maddy’s; it’s too soon to tell.
Only three out of eight episodes were made available for review, so it’s possible that the second half of the season is better.
Maybe out-of-character Nate will be revealed to have been part of another play Lexi wrote. Maybe all of this will be revealed to be a drug trip that Rue is having.
“Euphoria” Season 3 premieres Sunday, April 12 at 9 p.m on HBO.
