Euphoria season 2 review: New season isn’t afraid to blur the lines between friend and foe

Since its season 1 premiere in 2019, HBO Max’s brooding teen series Euphoria has been treating audiences to a rollercoaster of drama, heartbreak, and a lot of underaged drinking. Directed by Sam Levinson (Deep Water) and lightly based on the Israeli miniseries of the same name created by Daphna Levin and Ron Leshem, the series has garnered attention for its bold and heartbreaking story.

While season 2 returns viewers to familiar themes from the previous season, it offers a new plot arc that illustrates the jarring complexity of longterm multi-generational trauma.

Euphoria centers around Rue Bennett (Zendaya), a teenage drug addict who narrates the story, and her best friend and romantic interest, Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer), along with fellow teens Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie), Kat Hernandez (Barbie Ferreira), Lexi Howard (Maude Apatow), Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney), Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi), Fezco (Angus Cloud), and season 2 newcomer, Elliot (Dominic Fike). While the new season has many of the same faces and themes, it forges its own unique personality.

Please note there are light spoilers ahead if you are not caught up with the already released episodes. 

Beyond the glitz, Euphoria season 2 examines trauma

It’s true, Euphoria has gained a reputation for its gratuitous sex and nudity scenes, graphic violence, and overall unrealistic depictions of high school life. Yet, it does something that’s arguably more important with the central message of the show, it unpacks the longterm effects of trauma and trauma-bonding.

In many cases, both the teens and adults don’t act with logical reasoning and most actions are emotionally charged. Their collective histories of loss, divorce, violence, drug addiction, alcoholism, domestic violence, and more make for some very flawed and human characters. Season 2 offers Rue the possibility of getting everything she thinks she wants: Jules and drugs.

Many times in season 1, she compares being with Jules to being on drugs, as they are her addictions. She has an unhealthy dependency on the two of them that the show clearly links to her grief after her father’s loss, but there’s more to it.

Most of the characters need help, but aren’t getting it. Rue was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, anxiety, plus, the show alluded to other possible disorders in season 1. It’s not just a show about a drug addict teen, it’s a show about people with the odds stacked against them as they battle self-fulfilling prophecies and generational curses. These characters are constantly fighting for their lives in more ways than one.

Sisters, Cassie and Lexi Howard illustrate this, especially Cassie. After going from having a loving father, to an estranged one, and then a father with a drug addiction—they are deeply wounded. Similar to Rue, Cassie has an unhealthy dependency on who she’s dating, and considering her father’s actions, she has abandonment issues. Lexi, often considered the only “stable character,” hasn’t pursued any romantic encounters until season 2. While her character is less outspoken about fearing abandonment, she expresses a feeling of invisibility and insignificance. Season 2 dives deeper into these flaws and does more work to unpack them.

Nate and Maddy also fall into the unhealthy dependency club, as their relationship is emotionally and physically violent. Nate’s brutal behavior is connected to his father, Cal Jacobs (Eric Dane), and the violence, secrecy and self-loathing imparted on him from his father as well. The normalized violence of the show sees through the eyes of characters that have had to grow up too fast, like Fezco. His story starts with trauma, and that trauma never ends. However, season 2 delves into him as a complex person that is a product of his upbringing, but also an exception to it.

Kat has to reckon with what she envisions her life to be outside of the fantasy she crafts in her head about being tough, sexy, dominant and body positive. Season 2 pushes back against toxic positivity and idealized relationships with both self and others. It seems to want viewers to have front row seats as they take on the harsher sides of mental health and trauma-bonding.

Euphoria isn’t afraid to blur the lines between friend and foe. There are times when each person gives audiences fuel to completely hate them or cringe at their actions. Every episode has the opportunity to reshape a perspective on a character. This is a reminder that this is a show where anything is possible, and that doesn’t just apply to another nude scene or big fight. Yes, it can be ridiculously explosive, but it can also tap into some very real moments.

Behind the makeup with perfect glitter and the unbelievable lack of parental supervision, which seems easily intentional by the writers, Euphoria reflects multi-dimensional people that are living with pain and attempting to navigate through it.

New episodes of Euphoria season 2 air on Sundays at 9p.m. ET only on HBO and HBO Max.