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This article contains discussions about addiction and domestic violence.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for the premiere of “Euphoria” Season 3
After a lengthy hiatus, “Euphoria,” the provocative HBO drama helmed by Sam Levinson, makes its much-anticipated return for a third season. Fans hoping for narrative improvements may be disappointed, as the series doesn’t seem to address its past storytelling missteps.
To understand this, let’s examine a few instances from the previous seasons where the show introduced dramatic storylines, only to seemingly abandon them. Consider, for instance, the contentious situation between Tyler (played by Lukas Gage) and Nate Jacobs (portrayed by Jacob Elordi) from the first season, as well as Rue Bennett’s (Zendaya) dangerous encounter with a drug dealer in the second season.
In the initial season, high school sweethearts Nate and Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie) find themselves in a turbulent phase. To provoke jealousy, Maddy publicly flirts with Tyler at a party. Enraged and unable to control his aggression, Nate breaks into Tyler’s home twice, brutally assaulting him and framing him for Maddy’s assault—a crime Nate himself committed. This intense plotline fades away without further mention.
Similarly, in Season 2 of “Euphoria,” Rue runs afoul of a seemingly meek but incredibly dangerous drug kingpin named Laurie (Martha Kelly) after losing a suitcase full of expensive wares. Laurie, apparently trapping Rue in her house, says Rue will pay a price … only for Rue to escape and for this plotline to be dropped for the rest of Season 2. So does Season 3 try and fix this?
Right away, Euphoria Season 3 picks up a lost plotline with Rue
Patrick Wymore/HBO
Here’s the thing: “Euphoria” Season 3 does bring the Laurie plotline back, but in the Season 3 premiere, the approach is so genuinely lazy that it feels like they remembered this whole ordeal at the last minute. In Rue’s voiceover — a device that works less and less as “Euphoria” continues, to be really honest — we learn that she worked at a smoke shop for a few years before Laurie found her. When that happens, Laurie tells Rue that, based on interest and inflation, Rue owes her upwards of $43 million, and Rue reluctantly agrees to work for her.
What this means, in practice, is that Rue — aided by her Season 2 friend Faye, played by Chloe Cherry — has to swallow bags full of drugs and transport them from Mexico back to the United States. (The viewer is treated to an interminably gross sequence where the two of them keep trying to force the bags down and choking, to say nothing of the way they struggle to, uh, hold those bags in as they cross over the border, something Faye fails to do by the time the pair gets back to Laurie’s house.)
While this obviously solves the problem of this dropped plotline, the bigger issue here is that choosing the Laurie story, of all dropped plotlines, to come back in Season 3 simply drags Rue down. Rather than see her character leave her addiction and struggles with drugs behind, drugs are now the center of Rue’s life. It’s nice, in theory, that Sam Levinson circled back to this, but to choose this plot point only serves to force Rue to regress. So where can all of this go from here?
Euphoria Season 3 tries to right its wrongs, but is there even any point?
Jeremy Colegrove/HBO
If the way that “Euphoria” tries to pick up lost plot threads is to only return to ones that feel narratively unsatisfying — surely, someone out there wants to see Nate pay for his actual crimes instead of watch Rue swallow balloons full of drugs — then there’s not really any major improvement this show can make in its third and hopefully final season. (As of this writing, Sam Levinson revealed that he has no plans to stretch this into a fourth season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.) Frankly, the fact that it returned at all is astonishing when you consider that Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Zendaya have become three of the biggest and most marketable movie stars around since Season 2 aired back in 2022. So where we go from here?
Based on the first episode, the answer might just be “nowhere good.” Levinson famously writes this series without a writer’s room, and this myopic approach tends to hurt his work rather than help it; even if other dangling plot threads get addressed, it’ll likely feel as unsatisfying as the one between Rue and Laurie. Judge for yourself as “Euphoria” airs its third season, with new episodes dropping every Sunday night at 9 p.m. EST on HBO and HBO Max.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
