The Best Chess Player Alive Can’t Wait to “Show That I’m Better Than the Younger Generation”
The Casual LOTR Fan’s Guide to The Rings of Power Why Mormons Reacted So Strongly to the Alleged Racist Incident at BYU Maddy’s boss being completely inappropriate Nate not facing any consequences for anything (blackmail/choking/roulette) Things that still haven’t been addressed: My own friend put it perfectly: Rue is now sober through the power of friendship. Instead, the implication is that Lexi’s navel-gazing play inspired Rue to be better to herself, awarding a secondary character the honor of facilitating our beloved lead’s big win. Worst of all, it led to the finale’s most frustrating wrap-up: Rue’s drug addiction, Euphoria’s most engaging and heartbreaking subplot, resolved itself in a voice-over at the end of the season finale, robbing the viewers-and Rue’s suffering family!-of any sense of emotional closure. It devoted an entire musical number to mocking Nate and his insecurities about his own sexuality. (Rue still owes a drug dealer who threatened to sell her to sex traffickers $10,000, but, uh, maybe Lexi took care of that so Rue could make it to her opening night … ?) The play gave Cassie yet another platform to scream about how much she loves being loved. The theatrical conceit limited any amount of meaningful wrap-up the season could offer, reiterating previous scenes through new and unilluminating perspectives and hyperfocusing on Lexi and Rue’s former friendship while distracting from Rue’s more pressing issues. While the penultimate episode offered a glimmer of hope in a self-referential, over-the-top school play that gave the underutilized Lexi (Maude Apatow) more screen time than she’s had for the entirety of the series, it ultimately undermined the story and the series. (I also like the latest memes mocking how Elliot, aka indie musician Dominic Fike, spent four whole minutes of the finale singing a song to Rue about how he hopes they can be friends, despite him enabling her addiction all season.) The one predictive meme that paid off was about Kat’s absolute erasure from the season, the alleged result of a behind-the-scenes debacle that led to gossip more entertaining than the show itself: The poor girl, a breakout character in Season 1, got three scenes all season. Maddy!-developed based on presumed story progression that never happened. Even the memes it spun off- Super Bowl Sunday, Cassie vs. With an emotionally vapid central figure in Nate, whose own abusive behavior obscured any reason Cassie or Maddy would continue to fight over him, the plot served as a black hole of inefficacy.
Recklessly told stories, like a histrionics-drenched love triangle between Nate, Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), and Nate’s ex/Cassie’s best friend Maddy (Alexa Demie), dominated the season. But in the second, the show vacillated wildly between darkness and absurdity. In its first season, Euphoria balanced its melodramatic subplots and tone against a strong, self-aware voice, in order to not alienate or overwhelm viewers with its nihilism. Because the show has made no other promises for what this faraway future could offer-and based on how much of a scream-inducing mess the rest of the season was, even finding out Fez’s fate might not be enough to warrant the show’s return. (I’ll be 30 by then!!!!) If Euphoria fans can wait that long, it’s those answers that they’re choosing to wait for. I presume that Euphoria will answer these questions in Season 3, which HBO announced will premiere sometime in … 2024, a year that sounds fake to me right now. But is Fez dead? Or will he end up in jail for a murder he didn’t commit-or another one that he did? These were grim fates that the season premiere portended for these characters. Fez ended the season bleeding on the floor, Ashtray dead from a gunshot wound to the head, all while their now-elderly grandma sleeps in the other room. Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time.īy last night’s season finale, however, this detour proved to be one of the only storylines that achieved any kind of satisfying arc and, importantly, promise for any future progression.