EUPHORIA HBO AESTHETIC SERIES
The series is admirably intent on depicting the pitfalls of growing up in a crumbling America as an act of empathy it may pander, but it does not condescend. Euphoria, at its best, offers today’s youth the simple gift of respect.
This is expressed palpably by the show’s remarkable ensemble, actors in their 20s (and, in one case, 30s) who give voice and dignity to these teenage characters. As they precariously ride the identity crisis rollercoaster, they suffer abuse, predation, and bouts of self harm. Which isn’t to say that serious things don’t happen to the kids of East Highland High. It’s there that older viewers can feel a bit smug, glad to be past the point when those prosaic woes and melodrama seem profound. But many of the friends and classmates she is alienated from, who make up the rest of the cast, are enduring the typical rustlings and insecurities and mistake-making that many of us did at their age. There is no dismissing her experience as merely the folly of pimply adolescent feelings. On the one side there is Rue ( Zendaya), who is dealing with a drug relapse in a way that is going to heavily inform the rest of her life. Euphoria’s second season splits itself in two. But it will, in large part, pass.įor some of the characters, anyway. The pain may be real, and may be turgidly articulated. But there is also, on the happier side of feeling gray, a mounting realization that much of what’s being shown on creator Sam Levinson’s series is the petty, impermanent stuff of youth. One feels old watching the show because, yes, it’s all about young people and their Gen Z hangups and habits.
HBO’s arty, thoroughly depressing teen series returns for its second season on January 9, after a nearly three-year wait.
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