Let’s take a look at what The Guardian had to say.
It has been two and a half years since Euphoria (Sky Atlantic) arrived, busily and noisily, its teenage dramas rendered boldly in bleak stories of sex, drugs and smartphones. But, despite its attention-grabbing showiness, it had a big heart – and the two standalone specials that came after season one followed it down an emotionally astute path.
Each focused on a single character as they wrestled with trauma and heartbreak. Rue (Zendaya) met her sponsor as she was relapsing; Jules (Hunter Schafer) met her therapist as she struggled with her mental health. The episodes showed the series at its best – a combination of gutsy writing and brilliant performances.
How disappointing, then, that this long-awaited second season has decided to lean into its crueller instincts. Euphoria has always been in danger of allowing style to triumph over substance, the icy beauty of its cinematography flirting with the idea of it being a little too in love with itself.
The first part of the opening episode is a gangster movie in miniature. In flashback, we learn the origins of the local drug dealer, Fezco (Angus Cloud), and his mysterious tattooed younger brother, Ash. They were raised by a gangster granny in the Scarface vein (a poster on the wall makes this explicit), the kind of woman who accepts a baby as collateral on a deal and shoots and beats her way around her miniature empire.
Rue, the glue that holds the show together, narrates Fezco’s story. If it isn’t clear by now, this is no longer a teen drama (if it ever was one). When the story moves into the present day, it does so via Rue’s relapse, taking her on a tour of the surreal underworld of the show’s fictional city. This, at least, adds a touch of much-needed black humour, albeit in a grim and gruesome way, before the story winds its way back to that staple of teenage life: a huge house party.
The party setting is as John Hughes as it gets. Euphoria is unrelentingly explicit this time around, as if it took one look at its former self and thought: no, not shocking enough, try this. There is so much nudity, so much sex and so much violence; its characters batter each other senseless, mentally and physically, and the camera lingers on each and every mark. It is fixated with cruel men, particularly Nate and his awful father. In the early episodes, I found it difficult to stomach the prolonged interest in the abusive Nate’s romantic entanglements, given his violent history with his ex-girlfriend Maddy.
It all feels like a trap. Point out that the violence and nudity are too much and you risk coming across as a prude. But the truth is that Euphoria was always more than this. Relying on provocation for the sake of it suggests a crisis of confidence. A montage at the start of episode two is borderline unwatchable – a hellish vision of sex, bodies and gore that made me wonder why it felt the need to try so hard. It says a lot that it is a blessed relief when the characters do something as simple as go bowling.
At times, the most shocking thing about Euphoria is that there are still some scenes set at school. It is easy to forget that the characters are supposed to be 17; their lives are a joyless mess of affairs, hookups, drugs and drink-driving, all wrapped up in a gloomy bow of dread.
Euphoria was always divisive, but, at its best, it had a warm intimacy and told its stories creatively. What saves its return from disaster is the performances. Zendaya remains heartbreaking and magnificent as Rue; doomed to replay her nightmarish cycle of destructive behaviour, her reliance on whatever substances she can find as strong as it ever was.
This time, she is joined on her nihilistic mission by a newcomer, Elliot (Dominic Fike), a charmer with a face tattoo. He seems to be taking Jules’s place, in terms of not knowing how to handle Rue or how bad things will get. Jules appears to be on more solid ground, working out where she belongs outside Rue, although her story feels less rooted than it has been.
Euphoria has returned as a more superficial version of itself – which is appropriate, I suppose, for some of its more screen-obsessed protagonists. But beneath its cold Bret Easton Ellis styling, there is emotional depth. If only it could find it again.