After watching the entire first season of Euphoria on HBO I felt compelled to write up my reaction and review of it. Partly because I think more people (particularly parents) should watch and partly because I need to process what I saw.
I’ll say this upfront. It’s not a lighthearted, fun look at life. It’s deep, powerful, confronting and magnificent at times. And, in some ways like 13 Reasons Why I needed to catch myself a bit between episodes because the ride is wild.
If you’re willing to take the ride and see it for what it is, the ride is fantastic.
The basic premise is a social circle of high schoolers is followed throughout the season. The show is visually exquisite. The characters have an interesting mix of full on make up and outfits that remind of the incredible film Party Monster, colorful and extreme at times. And it was cool how seeing characters both in the full get up vs not at all helped set the story in different emotional contexts.
The drug use and sexual content is super raw and in my estimation overexaggerated with a purpose. It does help create more suspense when a character faces a situation (like a drug dealer cutting off an addict) or a person (an abuser meeting who has someone cornered).
I think it glamorizes the drug use too much, similar to the excellent movie Go at times, but more intense. It doesn’t really do enough to show what that path means in the long term (usually death, jail, streets, etc.) And while it accurately shows the reality of the shortcomings of participation in paths to sobriety, given the audience, I think it would have really helped to go deeper into what it means to really live sober.
I think it portrays a LOT of sexual subjects that range from ordinary to taboo. I wish it would have somehow woven in a real, honest discussion of what that range means. Sex is way too often in the dark and is an expression of the unresolved issues in our lives.
I think this show given it’s edge could have done a lot to explore that in a way that could perhaps illuminated that path to approval and acceptance. There was one character (noted below) who did get deeper into taboo but mostly presented it and didn’t really explore it and bring it more into the light.
Most of the teenage characters have an emotional range that is explored in a way that feels right for a teenager but again exaggerated. One of the core messages I got from Euphoria as a parent is: In order for me as a parent to have a real relationship with trust, accountability and authenticity I need to have worked to clear my own issues.
The courage to stand in the face of the emotional volatility or withdrawal of the teenage characters is not easy. And there are lots of examples of the teenagers getting around it. I think the parents portrayed generally show many of the shortcomings of an adult life lived without really getting healthy.
For example a Dad is living a seriously sexual dark double life and I cringed at the dubious life lived as a lie and the damage it does to his son. Both “present” magnificently and live destructively.
But that’s my point about the show, it’s a relatively niche exaggeration of a core point. When we as parents live a lie, it’s passed to our children. And the heartache to see that when the son (played by Jacob Elordi), who is enormous, suffer because he knows he is impacted by the damage but has no model to get out of it, it’s brutal.
The way social media and phones are presented as both a connector and destructor are in my estimation nearly perfect. I prefer that they let things play out by showing the text and image interactions. That feels real.
Personally I would like to have seen more attention paid to somehow modeling a way some of these kids take responsibility for where they are. The show I think while accurately portrays the damage passed on does very little to show at what point does a teenager see that they have agency and responsibility regardless of what’s modeled.
But I guess that wouldn’t necessarily be compelling.
The main character named Rue is played by a woman named Zendaya and she is nothing short of magnificent in her role. She plays the exaggerated inner life of an emotionally confused teenager who tries to use drugs to attend to her turmoil. She literally jumps off the screen in most of her scenes.
Zendaya’s love interest/best friend Jules (played by Hunter Schafer) was also impossible not to notice when they were on the screen. Admittedly, I didn’t know until my niece informed me that Hunter plays a transgender character. I can’t tell you if I would have seen or experienced her differently had I known that, but there was an obvious plot point I missed.
Finally, the main drug dealer (played by Angus Cloud) was terrific as well. He genuinely seemed to embody the idea that even people who do massive damage by virtue of what they do try in some cases to do the right thing. At times, I wanted him to do more and be more forceful but he couldn’t quite cross the line. It was fascinating to see the depiction of a person who was the conduit for damage seem to confusingly care about the person he was damaging.
The overall arcs of some of the characters were hard to make sense of. One of the young women goes into a sexual vortex to find her power only to by the end of the season seem most fulfilled by leaving it behind.
Watching the show, for me, the high point was an entire episode set at a Carnival. It was visually stunning and the plot lines and reveals that occurred in that context were fast and furious. I felt like I was on the edge of my seat as it played out and is one of the best episodes of television I’ve seen in a long time.
In the end it felt sort of euphoric to watch Euphoria. Meaning, I enjoyed the trip through our inner emotional worlds Increasingly I think that's what most art/media etc is about. This is someone exploring their inner world through the channels of these compelling characters. It's worth it, if you can make it through.