Euphoria - Pilot

 I can only imagine parents watching the first episode of Euphoria had to have been mortified, then perhaps looked back at their own high school behavior and tried to make comparisons. Parties did happen. Drugs and booze were plentifully available. Teenagers talked about sex, wanted to have sex, arranged to have sex, and had sex. The different drugs that are available now circulate, as teens discuss (well, when I was a teenager, texting, sharing pics, and chatting, all the social media jazz, wasn't available as it is now) their failed relationships with each other, while others attempt to hook up.

You have the football jocks who make sure to keep their shirts off, particularly Nate who seems to be the showboating, obnoxiously forward, popular quarterback, mouthing off and generally rude. He's the one a lot of the teens gravitate towards, especially the football team and the girls looking to associate themselves with the upper echelon of high school hierarchy. Maddy is the top of the hierarchy, purposely pissing Nate off by fucking one of the other football players in Nate's pool, drawing his ire, leading him into his kitchen for an outburst, hurling bottles of beer off the counter in this tirade...newcomer, Jules (she likes bright colors, highlights in her hair, sparkly and neon in makeup and wardrobe, earning her the "sailor moon" nickname when Nate sees her on a bicycle early in the pilot episode), happens to have arrived at the worst time, with Nate spotting her, immediately launching a vocal attack, drawing in close to intimidate her, sparking a return threat with a knife if he doesn't back off. So the party interrupted by Nate's jealousy and Maddy's looking to mock him and get even for his being a jerk interfered in all the bliss and revelry. 

Rue's own life is intense and the main focus of the show. Her mom was left with two daughters to raise when her husband, Rue's and Gia's father, died of cancer. Her mom tries her best, but Rue's panic attacks and general depression and misery eventually lead to many years (eleven was the first time she was introduced to liquid valium) of popping pills, snorting coke, gobbling booze, and eventually collapsing to her bedroom floor, lying in her own puke when Gia finds her in horror. Rehab does little to help except keep Rue away from the drugs so readily available to her. There is a kid who has connections and supply, "Ashtray", whose older brother, Fezco, is really close friends with Rue...the brothers clearly are fond of Rue even when she can't pay up immediately for the drugs she gets off them. Fezco worries about Rue, even as he provides the very supply certain to possibly kill her someday. 

Euphoria doesn't glamorize drugs, nor does it make the sex lives of teenagers glorified. While the 80s went out of its way to soften the punch of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, Euphoria places a direct focus on all of it in a different light. While there is style to burn and this very attractive aesthetic to how all of the disturbing subject matter is presented to us, edited and shot with great energy and verve, I never felt those involved in the show, at least going by this Pilot, were making drugs and sex alluring or seductive. Now the presentation itself is very alluring and seductive, I will say that, but I never one time felt the creative behind what we see was telling us this is a way of life that is preferred. Instead, I just felt this is presented as a way of life that is, take it for what you will.

Jules going to a hotel to meet up with an older man, later to be discovered as Nate's father, who has a family of three and a wife, certainly left me particularly horrified. Perhaps she didn't quite know what she was getting into and her divorced father (he brought her to the suburbs to raise her outside the city) was not in the know. He thought she was going to a party with some friends and Jules clearly has a way of charming her dad, his defenses down because he wants to keep her happy. I guess the topic of discussion is "Do you blame the parents for how teenagers seem to misbehave outside your eye view?" I don't think Rue's mother comes off as this bad parent who just willy-nilly ignores her daughter...if anything, a single parent with a lot on her plate can't keep her eyes on her daughter 24/7. And Rue's issues, covered up by the "euphoria" of drugs to conceal whatever unpleasantness and misery would be in its place otherwise, aren't just disregarded by her mother. The loss of a husband and father is indeed felt. That absence has repercussions. I really felt for the mother and her daughters. I never felt there wasn't love in the house. Just the same, when there is pain, options to mask it are out there and Rue looks for whatever means are available. As we see in Euphoria, Rue has plenty of vices to choose from.

Jules riding her bike as Rue eyes her in the backseat as her mom drives her home after a stay in rehab, the show sets up their eventual meeting officially. After Jules cuts herself with the knife in front of a frightened Nate, who realizes she is not to messed with, Rue sees perhaps a kindred spirit. Maybe more.

The way the show is visualized, from Rue's point of view, past and present often back and forth to tell stories about the high schoolers in the show, with narration and edited to lay out points and reiterate them, was something I recognized as probably why Euphoria is a hit. There is this distinctive storytelling that gives Euphoria its own personality, very in-your-face and explicit, often raunchy and sexually blunt, that might take some by surprise, while leaving others wanting to take a shower. How fellatio, provocative poses, sexting, and dares made between teenagers in order to get titillation and "much more" as cellphones are devices used in a plethora of ways to encourage and receive attention and actual physical contact are very much elaborated in the show at great length. So this isn't just about what drugs can do for you, but Euphoria also really casts quite a net over how sex is such an important part of teenagers' lives.

Not just the teenagers but how the adults seem unaware (maybe intentionally but not always) or busy (one mother is heavily intoxicated) of just how much their kids are into. 

Lexi was introduced briefly as Rue's childhood friend. Lexi provides her urine to pass clean for her mom, while Rue tells us they have grown apart. Lexi's older sister, Cassie, is shown getting close to Nate's buddy, Christopher. Christopher is a nice kid who seems sincerely interested in Cassie beyond just sex, though Nate influences him to get rough with her, much to Cassie's disapproval. Because Christopher was so aggressive, even choking her and throwing her on a bed, Cassie reacts negatively. So there is this initial resistance that eventually settles as the two are shown cuddling together in bed later on in the episode.