Euphoria

[Matt]

My husband and I were talking about the show last night, and I brought up Sirk and Ray as touchstones for the approach of the show (as well as the obvious antecedents of PTA and Scorsese)—all filmmakers who have combined a generous, humane, and deeply realistic approach to character while operating in a heightened, artificial, sometimes frenetic visual style. I think Levinson’s approach is to make everything overwhelming, “too much.” The cinematography, the camera movement, the verbosity of the characters, the editing, the emotionally charged and expensive pop music cues so close in succession that they’re almost overlapping, the tense situations, the collision of genres, the wall-to-wall dicks and tiddies, the drugs and drinking. The point of excess for most creators is Levinson’s starting point.

Rue’s narration, I think, is meant to appear impartial and omniscient, but it’s also the unreliable, exaggerated, partly true, partly fabricated ramblings of a drug addict and habitual liar, as aware of itself as a controlled, artificial construct and convention that is also embarrassingly revealing as [S2E3 spoiler]

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Lexi’s play/show-within-a-show (complete with its own aftershow interviews with the “cast”) in S2E3.

I think its “truth” is contextual, situational, and subject to infinite revision. One of the main themes of the show is the lies we tell ourselves and others in order to live, and so everything in the show may or may not be a lie.

[I think I may have inadvertently repeated things TWBB said just above, but in my defense I was mostly repeating things I said at home last night!]

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 2

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From the poor vantage of only two episodes, the narration struck me as classically novelistic. Like Moby Dick, The Brothers Karamazov, or Madame Bovary, the narrator is a specific character in the narrative, with all the limitations of view that implies, and yet the narration is able to give full, extensive detail to moments, events, and people that the narrator could not have witnessed and is unlikely to know about, to the point where the narrator as a character will outright disappear for hundreds of pages and you start forgetting they were even there. In those books, the narrative voice is at once a character's limited point of view and an omniscient narrator able to see everything, two states the narration will transition between at will.

Euphoria seems to be doing something like that. It struck me most forcibly in the opening to episode 2, the whole section of which is a very novelistic kind of character summary, of the type you normally get in an older novel not long after a character has been introduced in the story. You don't tend to see that kind of thing in movies or tv, the kind of pointed but non-exhaustive summary of a character's relevant family, scholarly, and romantic life coupled with their basic views and outlook, all of which establish in embryo what will become their virtues or flaws as revealed over the course of the story.

I don't wonder if this is all part of the show's atmosphere of constructedness. The most pointed, almost jokey example being Rue ascending the stage to perform an opening-day ritual, where a spotlight hits her with comic suddenness. But it's a complex moment: she doesn't perform the ritual outwardly (her summer narrative happens exclusively for us through flashbacks/mind-screens); and despite the theatrical, performative setting, a setting we most expect to see an outward baring of emotion in, the truth of her experiences and feelings is actually too complicated and raw, too inappropriate, for this particular ritual.

With Jules the episode is also continuing something I got from Assassination Nation, the way, texting, apps, or social media can let people live lives entirely separate from their regular ones, carrying on vastly different, even contradictory contradictions right underneath all their regular ones.

Enjoyed hearing Matt's thoughts about the Sirk/Ray tradition, because this episode ends on such a traditional melodramatic note: a classic love triangle, where one pole is forbidden and fraught with family secrets.

[therewillbeblus]

Episode 2

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I don't wonder if this is all part of the show's atmosphere of constructedness. The most pointed, almost jokey example being Rue ascending the stage to perform an opening-day ritual, where a spotlight hits her with comic suddenness. But it's a complex moment: she doesn't perform the ritual outwardly (her summer narrative happens exclusively for us through flashbacks/mind-screens); and despite the theatrical, performative setting, a setting we most expect to see an outward baring of emotion in, the truth of her experiences and feelings is actually too complicated and raw, too inappropriate, for this particular ritual.

Speaking of jokey moments of narration

Episode 7Show

Rue's manic episode fantastically showing her composed in a detective's uniform, having deduced the truth about Nate's complex manipulations, only to have the real expression be (likely) gibberish in a chaotic rant of a phone call to Lexi is brilliant. Even when she can locate and hold onto the tangible, the enigmatic feelings of depression/mania produce limitations for communication of these thoughts through said obstacles of raw experience, and thwart her 'moment' to produce clarity in a social spotlight.

[Never Cursed]

SpoilerShow

Euphoria seems to be doing something like that. It struck me most forcibly in the opening to episode 2, the whole section of which is a very novelistic kind of character summary, of the type you normally get in an older novel not long after a character has been introduced in the story. You don't tend to see that kind of thing in movies or tv, the kind of pointed but non-exhaustive summary of a character's relevant family, scholarly, and romantic life coupled with their basic views and outlook, all of which establish in embryo what will become their virtues or flaws as revealed over the course of the story.

Spoiler thru Season 1 Episode 2Show

And here is summarized very well the show's character-driven approach to its storylines; each episode of Season 1 following the pilot gives us an examination of the lives of one of the major characters to an extent through their own subjectivity (for instance, with Nate's symptomatic attitudes towards women being presented as a flurry of his fantasies and visual images, undercut by context and narration but not necessarily visually), but also sort of through Rue's. One of the great pleasures of the show for me is not only watching these backstories compound on top of each other (and contradict each other in points), but also how they basically force you to evaluate and reevaluate the events of the present given what is shown about the past. Nate could be written off as a mere stereotypical coercive psychopath, but the context provided compels you to realize that his actions are deeply emotionally driven. His childhood experiences and specific self-perceived social role are the things that are driving him (just like those aspects of our personalities drive all of us), and, knowing this, Euphoria by and large rejects the idea that these elements of ourselves aren't knowable to others by showing us what they look like.

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 2

SpoilerShow

I don't wonder if this is all part of the show's atmosphere of constructedness. The most pointed, almost jokey example being Rue ascending the stage to perform an opening-day ritual, where a spotlight hits her with comic suddenness. But it's a complex moment: she doesn't perform the ritual outwardly (her summer narrative happens exclusively for us through flashbacks/mind-screens); and despite the theatrical, performative setting, a setting we most expect to see an outward baring of emotion in, the truth of her experiences and feelings is actually too complicated and raw, too inappropriate, for this particular ritual.

Speaking of jokey moments of narration

Episode 7Show

Rue's manic episode fantastically showing her composed in a detective's uniform, having deduced the truth about Nate's complex manipulations, only to have the real expression be (likely) gibberish in a chaotic rant of a phone call to Lexi is brilliant. Even when she can locate and hold onto the tangible, the enigmatic feelings of depression/mania produce limitations for communication of these thoughts through said obstacles of raw experience, and thwart her 'moment' to produce clarity in a social spotlight.

Could you make sure you list what episode you’re spoiling? I thought this was for ep. 2 but recognize none of it.

[swo17]

Did he not identify it in the spoiler box as relating to Episode 7? I see it right there

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah that’s how I remember us doing it for The Young Pope. I’ll happily take your lead and bold it in giant letters above a spoiler instead for this project if it’s preferred, but I was mindful in labeling it

[Mr Sausage]

Oh, sorry, blus. The label doesn’t come up in tapatalk. I’ll have to keep that in mind and be more careful. No need for you to change anything.

[therewillbeblus]

Oh, sorry, blus. The label doesn’t come up in tapatalk. I’ll have to keep that in mind and be more careful. No need for you to change anything.

Oh weird, I don't use tapatalk and had no idea. I'll try to clarify above the spoilerbox going forward, it's not like an extra hoop to jump through or anything

[Mr Sausage]

Not necessary. I can pop to web-view very quickly to check. This is all my bad.

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 3

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Yeah, I think my favourite part of these episodes so far is the novelistic character summaries at the start. I've decided the narration's slightly more complex than I'd described earlier. I do basically think Rue has privileged narrator information granted by the author, that she isn't inventing or relating things she saw or heard second hand. But at the same time, her voice and personality does affect the tone and the interpretation we're getting, definitely at the verbal level, but also I think at the visual level. Rue's ironic disquisition on the nature of love as bestowed by pop culture is not one I think Kat would share, or if she did would see as reflective of her life, even though Rue's interpretation captures something of how Kat's perceptions and emotions have been affected by her environment and allows us a space in which to judge certain facile social ideas we take for granted. But I'm not convinced Kat would place the same amount of importance on her watching a couple movies at night as the visuals do. For us, because it's abstracted, we see a type and therefore the idea being advanced. For Kat, tho', a few movies would hardly seem more important than the million other things in her life--not important enough to've turned her into a type or to've determined her romantic life. She might not see any of this as related. The narrator does not interpret the characters as they would interpret themselves. The narrator reveals the characters' worlds, but also uses the characters as vehicles for social and cultural observation. For all the empathy this novelistic technique allows, it is still empathy mediated by art.

Anyway, gut punch of an episode more generally. I like how each episode seems to have its own sub-theme which it draws the plot strands into, in this case alternative sexualities and sexual identities. This is exquisitely comical in Kat's sex chat, but sad in Rue's slow grappling with her feelings for Jules, culminating in a just-short-of-soul-baring confession in Jules' room, precipitating her meltdown outside the drug den. A lot of naked, unprocessed emotion on display. Even the small moments of testing out versions of "I love you" to find the precise one that will both express and hide the intended meaning are gripping. If the show has more of that in store, I'm all for it.

[therewillbeblus]

That "meltdown" is perhaps the best moment in the show to highlight Zendaya's skills as an actress. It's such a hyper-realistic look at an active addict coming face-to-face with unexpected unmanageability of their disease in real time, though I can't pretend to be impartial towards its effectiveness. Any accusations lobbed at the show being "unrealistic" in totem need look no further than a scene like this to showcase how it fuses hyper-realism with art to create such an empathic experience, but *not always at the same time.* They are often, but not always linked, and it's important to identify this differentiation when it occurs, to find instances of pure truth reflected back at an audience member who has a similar tangible memory from their own life to draw upon, rather than the broad feelings to relate to- not that those aren't just as vital or subjectively 'real'. Anyways, it's probably no coincidence that, as much as I love the aesthetic contributions to Levinson's ethos-communication, this scene and the first Rue special (completely and utterly stripped of all fantastical aids) are my favorite moments in Euphoria

[Mr Sausage]

It just struck me that the Russo brothers, despite their weird defensive claim to have had no influences on their style, were basing the style of Cherry entirely on Euphoria. Like all those post-Wolf of Wall Street movies and shows that fell in love with the crazed, manic style but didn't understand what that style was trying to do, the Russo brothers fell in love with the glitz and theatricality of Euphoria and wanted it for their own drug story, but they never for a moment asked themselves what the style was up to. They just took it at face value and ended up with something so hollow and fake it may as well've been its own parody.

When people bag on Euphoria, Cherry is basically what they're talking about. Any honest human emotion gets trampled by the style. Which makes it doubly hilarious that the Russos' response to negative criticism was to imply people didn't get their style because it was just too original.

So Cherry for me makes an effective contrast, because it highlights the things Euphoria can and has done effectively. Its stylization never becomes a barrier, and knows when to pull back to let a character's emotions take centre stage. Making that comparison has done a lot to stabilize my opinion of the show.

[therewillbeblus]

I don't know if anyone read the Sydney Sweeney interview, but aside from the headlines on the internet of her praising Sam Levinson for being collaborative and respectful around her nude scenes, there's some brutal life-imitates-art disclosures in how nude pictures from her work on Euphoria were posted on social media tagging her younger family members, forcibly exposing them to her permanent, irreversible naked images. Anyone who's seen the first season will get the raw irony.

[Mr Sausage]

Episodes 4 & 5

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This show is getting me to take closer, even sympathetic looks at people I don't like. Specifically Nate's father, a character I disliked and fully expected to become a villain at most and a plot point otherwise, but who's revealed a lot about his emotional life that's made me understand and, I don't know, sympathize with him a bit even tho' I continue to dislike him.

When he found Jules at the carnival, I expected a frightening and aggressive confrontation, but no, he came open and vulnerable, with no intention of hurting Jules on any level. Only pleading. This was disarming; this bastion of strength and manhood, who earlier had been gruffly lecturing people on how to take what's theirs, opened on a footing of weakness. How much of his macho bullshit is smokescreen? Contrast to Nate, who I expected to reveal vulnerability in his own meeting with Jules, but who came in guard up, all aggression and control.

And then there was the hotel room moment, where he reckons with the rage he's inadvertently installed in his own boys, a rage he himself doesn't seem to share, tho' you might expect it from his weird aggressive fucking. He's a cliche, but he's not unaware of the world he's made, and he finds himself isolated in his own idealized life, only able to unburden himself to a casual hookup because there's no one in his life he can be honest with. The scene is perfect because it both hits these intense emotional beats precisely while also avoiding mawkishness or sentimentality by showing how the whole thing kind of ridiculous and grotesque as well, that it's closer to the pathetic than tragic, however moving. A great balance of tones. I like that the show can take time for these minor characters.

I wonder about Jules. Every time someone points out how cool her and Rue's relationship is, or how much better Rue's doing now because of Jules, Jules' eyes radiate worry and concern. Why? What's up with her? I see some big avoidant gesture coming.

[therewillbeblus]

Re: 4 & 5

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Yes, Cal is a fascinating character who preaches stoicism and condemns broad “weakness” when he himself is so insecure in basically every way. I don't know if I'd categorize his machismo as a "smokescreen" so much as subconscious defensive positioning towards the superficial and away from his vulnerable core. He capitalizes on the cliche to meet his own needs: mainly that it demonstrates surface-level support for his son while also allowing him to get distance from him. If the relationship only exists on the surface (and one could probably make a case for the relationship with his wife too, though this isn't explored in-depth yet) with the Big Job, House, Ideological Apparatus Memberships, etc. then he can check the box and still be removed from accessing those people that are 'supposed' to be close to him.

The more I watch that confrontation between Nate and Jules (just watched it for the third time earlier this week), the more ambiguous I find Nate's intentions around portraying shyguy118, as well as in approaching Jules that evening. He only breaks from his affectionate presentation once she expresses repulsion and then rejects his kiss, though Jules was pretty firm in her displeasure from the moment he appeared, so it's hard to say what would have happened if she hadn't cared. I suspect Nate has two strong parts fighting within him, which explains the jarring switch between sincere exhibitions of sensitivity, giving into aspects of his sexuality that other 'conservatively-heteronormative masculine' parts of him won't allow to come out, and the calculated manipulations that keep these people at a distance as objects. He even sticks his fingers in her mouth like his dad, an immature response of mirroring him- as if Nate was a child in this moment- unable to soberly cope with how he's just entertained that part of his sexuality, or even allowed himself to lower shields of vulnerability, beyond thoughts (which he can't put himself on trial for) into action. The antisocial exploitation and manipulation is louder for us as an audience, but there's a lot of information in this scene beyond the aggression that informs the density of Nate's character.

I love how Levinson leans into ambiguity in the show. Not only around Nate, but Jules- to your last point, my partner and I discussed that question at length the other night. It's never explicitly stated why Jules is concerned, but that's because she doesn't know herself and spitting out a pat diagnosis of her concerns would be disingenuous to the character and the situation, when often we 'feel' off due to fears and anxieties we cannot get clear insight to, and that are more complex than a simple explanation could cover. I suspect Jules -someone who has sought out relationship dynamics where there are no strings/responsibilities, where she's submissive, and where the relationship is based (in her own words, though not verbatim) on the highs of anticipation rather than the delivered 'actual' engagement- would understandably be disoriented by the significant shifts happening in this dynamic with Rue. Plus, for someone who has struggled with such low self-esteem, being called a "good influence," and all the responsibility that carries, not to mention the unfair responsibility of being a 'stable' person who another's sobriety hinges on, this is all terrifying stuff. The stakes are high and pointed out to her as such, when she's used to low stakes in sexual/romantic flings to help balance out the chaos that drains her elsewhere.

Also, I think information about her relationship with her mother coming later (in the second special episode) informs why this is specifically triggering, to some extent.

[flyonthewall2983]

Really on the fence about starting in on this show. Can someone sell me on it, no spoilers?

[DarkImbecile]

Doubt there’s anyone here who can help, honestly

[Matt]

You could just watch the first episode. If it doesn’t leave you wanting more, the show is definitely not for you. If there’s any good one-word description of this series, it’s “more.”

[flyonthewall2983]

I saw a clip with Zendaya’s character and the first thing that sprang to mind terrible as it clearly sounds, is that if she went to my high school almost everybody would think she was homeless. More a symptom of the largely lily-white majority present there obviously but I can picture it so clearly.

[Mr Sausage]

Well, I'm over in the Film Club tracking my progress through season one if you'd like to join in, leave your thoughts. No better time to start.

[Matt]

I just rewatched S1E1 and it was so slow compared to the S2 episodes, though it does manage to introduce all the main characters and set the 5 main plots (Rue-Jules / Rue-Fezco / Maddy-Nate-Cal-Jules / Cassie-McKay / Kat) in motion in its 53 minutes. Sam Levinson did not direct, so it makes sense that it doesn’t exhibit his usual energy and verve. S2E3 in particular is just such a breakneck ride that I forgot the show didn’t start off quite like that.

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Totally forgot Tyler ever existed, too.

[therewillbeblus]

I saw a clip with Zendaya’s character and the first thing that sprang to mind terrible as it clearly sounds, is that if she went to my high school almost everybody would think she was homeless. More a symptom of the largely lily-white majority present there obviously but I can picture it so clearly.

In the final segment of the season one finale, we understand the significance of Zendaya's wardrobe and it's incredibly empathic and moving. In general, I'd refrain from forming impressions on characters or the show based on clips. The show is self-reflexively about taking a humanistic non-judgmental approach to stigmatized individuals who are experiencing subjectively-defined or literal, relentless self-enforced and externally-violating judgments, or all of these. The character you're talking about in particular is a drug addict, so even without the significance we come to understand about how she's dressed, your observation is exactly why sitting down and watching the show is so useful in allowing her to be more complex and dignified than these drive-by assessments (not that you were doing that, but you're aware of people who would, so I suppose my 'sell' is: dive in to refute that kind of condescending behavior!)

As someone who has actively worked to reduce the stigma of groups you care about on this forum, and in general approached films with a keen empathetic lens more consistently than the average voice here, I think you will get a lot out of the show, for what it's worth

[therewillbeblus]

After revisiting the season one finale again following the start of S2, I noticed a significant mirroring of interactions:

S2 E1Show

In the finale of season one, when Jules asks Rue if her depressive episode is "because of" her, Rue empathetically dismisses such a notion despite its contribution in order to spare her guilt. Upon their reunion in the first episode of season two, Rue aggressively tells Jules that she started using right after Jules left. There could be a situation where the shift to deeper honesty is a symptom of self-advocacy and healthier communication patterns in a developing intimate relationship, but this is not the case here; instead it's a vitriolic weapon of a response, an example of the 'hurt people hurt people' pained selfish projections firing off in active addiction. I love how closely these two scenes follow one another and yet resemble polar opposites, and I have a suspicion that the second season will only expand from here- like an inverted ellipses of destruction to the first season's faux-saving grace.

[therewillbeblus]

Just when I think he’s hit one ceiling, Levinson continues to pivot towards new stylistic and tonal inflations to top himself again and again. S2 E4 took the absurdist dark social comedy from the previous episode’s climactic mini-setpiece and amplified it to the nth degree across several lengthier, intricately complex setpieces with different character groups. The balance he’s struck between cringing acidic humor and devastating melodrama -from the naked Sturges-inspired, multifaceted interpersonal gags to aesthetic propulsions into emotional spaces ambiguously reminiscent of a spectrum including both Heaven and Hell- is so challenging to pull off, especially as the alley gets narrower and narrower with all the triggering toxicity that’s conjured up unpredictably even in scenes sown with erratic behavior as a baseline. I’m beyond impressed, my gut is busted and my soul is shaking from laughter and earnest provocations at bottoming-out tragic drama that has consequentially, and not-so(but-kinda)ironically been elevated to euphoric heights of validation in the process.