Euphoria Season 2 Review: A Second Season More Beautiful Than The Previous One

Director: Jordan Peele

Stars: Zendaya, Hunter Schafer, Sydney Sweeney

Streaming Platform: HBO and Sky (click to watch)

Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Euphoria Season 2 Review: Euphoria is a scandal it is morally offended as – at the time- Skins was. Previous generations interpret it as a window on zoomers (those born after 1997), on their habits, on their vices. And certainly Euphoria Season 2 is brash and very modern, he is fluid and courageous, but he refuses to be reduced to his fuss. Sam Levinson (its creator) doesn’t throw addiction, free sex, drugs, betrayals in our faces, but offers them covered in almost divine light, glitter and a neon aesthetic that belongs to generation z more than ever. In this upcoming second season – available on Sky and HBO Maxfrom 10 January 2022 simultaneously with the States – this mechanism is proposed again, forcing the viewer to fall in love again as if it were the first time.

Euphoria Season 2 The Story

Euphoria tells the story of a group of American high school students discovering themselves. As is often the case with the best teen dramas, the series mirrors the moment we are in. Euphoria is for generation z what the aforementioned Skins had been for millennials: a litmus test of the problems and needs of an entire generation. This is why it is so important that Euphoria is so inclusive and courageous, so smart, so proud to represent something.

In the second season we continue to follow the stories of the drug addict Rue (Zendaya), the transgender girl Jules (Hunter Schafer), the sisters abandoned by her father Lexi (Maude Apatow) and Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), the orphan drug dealer Fez (Angus Cloud), of the dysfunctional and violent family of Cal (Eric Dane) and Nate (Jacob Elordi) Jacobs. We get entangled in the toxic relationship between Nate and Maddy (Alexa Demie) and experience Kat’s self-discovery (Barbie Ferreira). A set of complex characters, which intertwine with each other, who jostle to attract our attention. All equally magnetic, all equally buffering.

Euphoria Season 2 Review

This does not continue in the second season of Euphoria, which is mostly devoted to Rue’s addiction. A pity, on the one hand, but a great gift on the other. What we are facing is one of the most interesting acting rehearsals we have seen in recent years. Zendaya is not afraid to throw herself into Rue, to scream, to tear her eyes out of their sockets driven by the pain of addiction, despair and, above all, helplessness. Ali (Colman Domingo), Rue’s sponsor at Narcotics Anonymous, tells her that you are not yourself when under the influence of drugs; he tells her that drugs bring out the worst in us, that they transform us and that’s what Zendaya decides to show us.

If already in the first season Levinson had left room for visual creativity which in turn was defining and outlining the interiority of the characters, with his return Euphoria maintains the ecstasy achieved on that nominated season finale, bringing it to the point of maximum freedom.

Aesthetics is disconnected from any reference to the tangible world experimenting even more in the direction and staging, isolating entire sequences making them pure expression of the intimate spirit of the series, which prefers suggestions to words, the image to truth. Sam Levinson’s hand is more independent than any other product has ever been allowed, creating a real genre referable in all respects to that matrix of his, making Euphoria a clear and identifying imagery that makes it unapproachable. That suffering that becomes more stringent in the second season, that propensity to death that feels so desperate in relation to the young age of the characters, it is a driving force for adolescent problems that here take on the weight of the misunderstanding on the part of the district and the attempt to fill those disturbances by drowning in them even more, until they are breathless. Intense turmoil for a society that has left its children in jeopardy and against which the latter have decided to crash as if darting unconscious on a highway at night.

We see her struggling with a double personality that bounces madly on the screen: she cries, despairs, prostrates herself in front of the people she loves to ask for forgiveness, to apologize for her violent and scary behaviors, looks Jules in the eyes and tells her that she loves her, looks his mother (Nika King) and sister (Storm Reid) and tells them that everything will be fine. But then comes the Rue in withdrawal and that Rue is the one that will be worth several statuettes to Zendaya during the next awards season. She drools, throws everything in front of her to the ground with a violence and brutality that makes us feel in danger, as if we were in that room with her, smelling anger and frustration. You will hold your breath in front of that fury, angry with her, sad with those who love her.

This season, more space is given to Maude Apatow’s Lexi, always delightfully out of place compared to the rest of the cast. We explore Cal’s past more deeply in an attempt – successful – not of justification, but of contextualizing the behavior of man today. We move away from the stories of Kat and Maddie (much less protagonists) and we go deeper into that of Cassie, who seems to have completely lost herself; it is a less effective parenthesis than the rest of the series, also thanks to Sweeney’s over-the-top acting.

Overall, however, we can say with certainty that Euphoria is confirmed as the great star of the current television scene. Levinson, who often gets lost inside his ego represented by infinite monologues (as those who gave Malcolm & Marie a chance will remember) and dream sequences absolutely ends in themselves, puts together a compelling product that forces the viewer to take a serious interest in the well-being of its protagonists. We grow fond of those adrift young people and remain entangled in their stories, eager to find out what’s to come.

The Final Words

Euphoria Season 2 passes the obstacle of the second season without falling too much into repetition it represents the exact opposite of its young protagonists: it is an entity fully aware of itself, an adult. It is a product to be devoured with an open mind, without judgment and with great empathy. As if continuing in the wake of the finale of the first season, Euphoria continues her journey in the hardships and labor of a group of teenagers, expressing their interiority through directing and staging. The second season becomes much more abstract, looking for its own expressive form in aesthetics and confirming an imaginary that belongs only to this series. A sense of danger and discomfort towards the protagonists of which the viewer has a constant inkling, lightened only by the visual beauty of Sam Levinson’s work.