euphoria sabotages every character | a S1 vs S2 deep dive

there is one major reason why euphoria season two is not as good as season one and to me that is character inconsistency now i know a lot of people have talked about the fact that there is loose plot lines and unnecessary characters and characters with unequal screen time which i completely agree with but to me the main reason why it doesn't work as well is because the characters feel so different in season two it seems that a lot of the characters lose their complexity they had in season one or have completely different personalities and this is a huge flaw because euphoria is a character-driven show if you can't fall back on your plots which let's be honest deuphoria doesn't really have one then your characters have to be written well when i say character consistency i do not mean that these characters should stay the same what i do mean is the characters should grow in a way that is consistent to who they are as a person does the setup pay off and this can progress in a lot of different ways you can have characters go from bad to good good to bad bad to worse but it just has to make sense and in season two a lot of it just doesn't make sense i'm passionate about this because i have a series on instagram and tick tock where i break down the character color palettes and how they reflect their personalities and their growth because euphoria is really known for doing that and looking at my pages you might think that i'd feel really positively about season two but i do think that this season is definitely lacking with a lot of the character stories that we got and i just wanted to get all of my thoughts in one place i do want to say that i do think the costuming and the color palettes are still really well done this season it's just the overall stories that were less well done so to understand this in this video i'm going to dissect each character i'm going to summarize what happened in season one where we left off with the characters in season one and then compare what happens in season two for consistency before we get into the video i do have a few very quick disclaimers number one while i do think euphoria season one is better than season two i do not think it's a perfect show the dialogue can definitely be cringy sometimes some story lines are uncomfortable it's melodramatic even in season one there's a lot of unnecessary nudity but i do think that it's a unique show with a very visual aesthetic that i love and i think that it deals with the characters in an interesting way on the flip side this video is going to be very critical of season two and like i mentioned there are some elements of season two that i think are done really well like the costumes i think the performances are great it's visually stunning but i just think that when it comes to the actual story it just isn't on the same level as season one i also want to address that i know a lot of these issues are because of behind the scenes drama i'm not going to talk too much about that but if anything this video is really just an example of what can happen when you have a good starting place but if you don't have a plan or if you have to change your plans suddenly it can result in something that just isn't as good as how it started lastly euphoria does cover some dark topics and i'm not going to go over whether those topics are handled well i'm just looking at this from the context of storytelling so i won't be covering whether these characters are problematic or not or if they're written in a problematic way i'm just looking at the story that we're given and the characters that we're given is the writing cohesive i'm also assuming you've seen euphoria so there will be spoilers [Music] let's start with rue because she is the show's narrator the main protagonist and also one of the ones i think is handled the best but we're gonna start all the way back in season one in the beginning roo has just finished rehab but doesn't intend to stay clean until she meets jules who is the new girl in town and rue falls so hard for her that when jules says she doesn't want rue to hurt herself she gets clean rue is very loving and sweet to jewels and she's also very protective and this is also a common theme with rue's sister gia brew protects those she loves the problem is that rue views jewels like a drug she even compares her to one at one point she's basically drunk on infatuation and it's clearly not healthy it's obsessive and this ties back to why she uses in the first place she has several mental health issues and feels hopeless about the world plus she's dealing with the trauma of her dad's passing just a few years prior roux uses because she craves a sense of peace this is the exact feeling that she also gets from jewels she often confuses happiness with a state of euphoria it's something she says when she's on drugs or when she's with jewels but it isn't internal happiness it's more just a state of momentary bliss and that's one reason it's so problematic because if roo can't have drugs or jewels she can't be happy or at least that's what she thinks rue also has to balance the euphoria of jules's presence with the feelings of being a burden roo can't live a normal high school life she can't party the way that jules can she isn't as sexually forward as jules's past hook-up partners feeling like a burden is actually one of the reasons she relapses she wants to be spontaneous for jewels but her anxiety gets the better of her we also see the impact her addiction has on her friends and family and how it brings out the worst in her she uses people she lies just as she can be loving her drug addiction is what makes her self-destructive she also often blames her shortcomings for her addiction on other people such as blaming fez that he caused her addiction to blaming jules for causing her relapse when of course neither of them are to blame her whole story is about whether she can heal from her substance abuse as well as her dad's death to lead a fulfilling life and in the season one this is done really well because the answer is no we see the progression of her not intending to get clean to getting clean and then eventually failing as she relapses it's devastating she doesn't win and you feel for her because you've grown to love her you've seen the positive steps she's taken and we see how much pain she bears and how she never chose to be this way i just think the character roux is so heartbreaking but it's really great at showing the story of how difficult it can be to deal with something so serious like this so before we get to season two it's important to know where we leave off with rue's story in season one what's most important to her number one is her relationship with jules rue learns that jules has hooked up with someone else which hurts her because she thought they were in a relationship once they kiss then nate tells her that jules is too good for her and this is what motivates her to become more spontaneous and suggest to leave town because she wants to be the person that jules wants and number two is dealing with her relapse her anxiety gets the better of her and she doesn't leave town and jules leaves without her she feels like a burden again all while she's spiraling while thinking about her dad so to carry her story forward consistently here are the questions i had for her for season two how will rue and jules relationship move forward and if so will it be healthy how is she going to deal with the aftermath of her relapse and how it affect those around her and when we get to season two i think one of these questions is handled pretty well the other one not so well and then adds a completely useless plotline i think we can all agree the one that is done well is dealing with her relapse i do think in this case it is consistent with season one roo is already pretty far gone at the start of season two she regresses over the episodes until she hits rock bottom in episode five we see her become very ruthless and desperate and incredibly brutal to everyone close to her and this includes her younger sister gia i was originally really disappointed how little we saw gia in season two but i can appreciate it's because roo no longer knows gia and she doesn't prioritize her like she used to in season one her mom also decides to focus her attention on gia she really hurts her mentor and girlfriend and yeah some of it is unbelievable like with her whole stunting parkour situation but i'm just gonna give it a pass because at least her plot line makes sense because right after that she goes through withdrawal and tries to mend her relationships and i do like that rue is able to find hope for herself through lexi's play because this gives her a new perspective on her life she can see herself and the value she has and the impact that she's made and this is really important because her mom is right no one can make real become or stay sober except for herself the one thing we see that she still hasn't resolved is how to handle her pain and that will be i think the next step for her in season three and then she stays clean for the rest of school year and you know is hopeful so i think that that is done like fairly well it's consistent with season one this is what being an addict can do to somebody they do things that don't make them a good person but what matters is how you try to better yourself and to have hope and motivation to do so now we have the second story which just is so sad this is rue and jules's relationship right like how is it gonna move forward is rue going to learn how to be like healthy in a relationship unfortunately this is really not much of a story in season two they get together and rue does apologize for blaming jules on her relapse which is good because she's taking accountability for that but this kiss happens so soon i feel like there's so much to talk about and the last time we saw each other was this and then immediately after that was this [Music] there's so much more to say and jules is saying i'm sorry is good but i just i don't know i feel like there should be a more detailed conversation what i thought they were going to do in season two would be the reverse of season one instead of being in a relationship with jules rue would be in a relationship with drugs but then i don't know why they decided to do this to us but then she forms a crush on elliot if we just look at season one she had such a sugar rush love for jules and she's still in the special episode for jules she still seemed to be highly invested in her given that she like consciously stopped by her house and i know that obviously she's using more heavily but we have so much more to figure out with these two like why add another love interest i just don't know and the reason that rue got sober in the first place was because of jewels so surely jewels would still have some effect and capture most of her attention it's just to me a bit disappointing because they went through so much in season one and i would have loved to see how their relationship developed does roo still feel like a burden does she still not feel good enough for jules will rue learn from her obsessiveness this is to me something that is inconsistent with season one because we just decided to throw in another love interest for like unneeded attention rue eventually does leave jewels i think this is okay i think it is the right decision but it isn't from a place of my addiction to her was unhealthy or we were incompatible i think she ends up leaving her because she realizes jules slept with elliot it wasn't really an internal decision it was something bad that jules did rue also becomes a drug dealer and i'm not going to talk about this because i think we all know that this plotline did not go anywhere it is also very inconsistent with rue as a character even in the very first episode like i don't know why roo would see laurie as an inspiration because she was literally so scared when they asked her to take her clothes off of course this whole thing has zero consequences and no impact to the plot so moving on to jewels [Music] in season one jules is the new girl in town who struggles to define her femininity and enters multiple relationships as she navigates her own identity she feels the need to be hyper feminine in order to appeal to men and in her words conquer femininity it's why in the beginning of the season we see her in more girly clothes and makeup and also why she has a lot of sexual encounters with men she's trying to get validation from them and through this she has an encounter with cal who is nate's father who records her without her permission not knowing that she's a minor and then later on she falls for an anonymous jock online who is the epitome of conventional masculinity this is really exciting for her because this is what she has been searching for a guy like this to like her unfortunately it happens to be cal's son nate and we'll get to that later but jules despite being confused about expressing her femininity she's a fairly confident person when jules befriends roo she finds comfort in her especially in a new town where she can feel so out of place jules appreciates that roo accepts her for being herself rue doesn't expect or need jules to prove anything i think jules has a fairly good idea that roo has a crush on her and jules sort of dodges this crush but she absolutely knows the effect that she has on rue even though she isn't necessarily pursuing rue she is still a teased and a flirt and is overly affectionate however eventually this friendship with rue does become somewhat romantic although it is less serious for jewels and this starts to weigh on her because she becomes the reason that rue is sober and this becomes a lot of pressure for her this is especially true because she sees her mother in rue her mom was also an addict and she feels negatively towards her because she also forcibly put her in a psych ward when she was younger in the last half of the season jules finds out that she's been catfished by nate and then is blackmailed by him and this along with the pressure of maintaining rue's sobriety darkens her originally bubbly personality and she transitions into reckless behavior so much so that she has to leave town and this gives her a whole new set of experiences i really loved jules in season one her story is so compelling and unique we don't see many stories or characters like hers especially dealing with such internal struggles and the weight of all this pressure around her you really feel for her as she goes from playful and enthusiastic to overwhelmed and stressed by the end of the season speaking of the end of the season where do we leave off with jules at winter formal she tells rue she loves her and anna she's sexting anna while asking rude to hatch to kiss her two seconds later she wants roo to be more sexual but roo is shy in some twisted way she still fantasizes about shy guy 118 but she is afraid of nate who now has illegal inappropriate photos of her jules leaves roo behind for the city but later regrets it and starts therapy she says that she's no longer attracted to men and wants to stop her hormones so she's still confused about her femininity so the questions i had for jules by the end of the season were how will jewell's definition of femininity evolve and her identity with it how will her and nate interact given that she fantasizes about him yet he can still threaten her with her photos and will she continue a relationship with anna or commit to roo then we get to season two and i am just so disappointed with where they took her character she is such an empty shell of a person so if we take the first concept which is her femininity and her identity in season two there is a small hint of jules's struggle with her femininity she does wear a binder you see it in her clothes but that's really about it in season one jules very much ties her femininity to her sexual encounters she sleeps with men for validation by the end of the season she starts growing out of this mindset but it doesn't mean she's no longer attracted to men in her therapy session she does say she's no longer interested in men but to me i think jules is just tired of being with men because they've all been negative experiences we could have really expanded on that in season two but instead we fly right past that potential for an internal realization and she just gets with elliott pretty quickly she has zero restraint it feels but before we get to elliot let's talk about roo and jules relationship first of all we have completely forgot about anna even though jules said she was in love with her at the end of the season not a big deal anna was only in like one episode so it's okay but wouldn't it have been interesting if we referenced her and another question we don't get the answer to is how did jules decide to choose rue when she was so confused in therapy the one conflict we do get is that jules doesn't feel like she's sexually pleasing roux or that roux isn't sexual enough and this sort of ties back to season one because rue was shy she wasn't sexually forward it is a bit odd that they tried to convince us that rue isn't sexual when really she's just shy she had a pretty good time thinking about jules in season one and it would have been a fine conflict if they just weren't sexually compatible but again like with the rue we had to throw in elliot who is such a problem in this season i'm telling you and the reason she gets with elliot is because she fights with rue and she doesn't feel emotionally or sexually satisfied by her but to so quickly cheat on her feels very inconsistent for jules she was the one who encouraged drew to not hurt herself in season one even if roo is distant jules would still be mindful of her she'd be worried about her why doesn't she feel bad about cheating on her jules knows that rue is an addict why bring her on this beer stealing mission it doesn't make any sense the one time jules does contribute to the plot is when she tells aru's mom that rue is using but even this is disappointing because jules didn't even figure that out on her own she had to have elliot tell her so like oh i just wish elliot did not exist i really do the last plot line with jules is about her and nate this was also super disappointing because they have such an interesting dynamic in season one i was so looking forward to what the heck was going to happen with both of them unfortunately we only get one scene we never see her fantasize about nate or shy guy 118 ever again and why you know i guess she's over him but she clearly wasn't over it three weeks ago in therapy jules ends up getting the disc of her and cal from nate's but you know i also think jules probably should have brought up the fact that he still has her photos you know i feel like she should have asked him about that and lastly just a few extra points with jules i was also sad we don't see any of her dad we switched him out for elliot i was also sad we didn't see any more of her mom we switched her out for elliot and the last point i have here which i think i would love to know what you think about this question but why did roo and jules not go to maddie's birthday party i don't know either i i i think that's a great question and i would love to know the answers but i don't think we're going to be getting them anytime soon [Music] in the beginning kat is someone who is very insecure about her body and this stems from her first boyfriend dumping her because of it she turned to the online world for comfort where she gained anonymous fame but she secretly fears all her followers would turn on her if they knew what she looked like then she loses her virginity which was secretly filmed but embraces her body when she realizes that guys online like it and then she starts camming pat's transformation is a little bit complex because she does gain the confidence to wear what she wants she's no longer ashamed of her body and she doesn't care about the judgment of others in some sense she is embracing herself and this can be a really beautiful thing but it's important to understand that self-confidence is not the same thing as self-esteem the problem with kat is that she thinks she's empowered when she embraces this new persona however she's just playing a character like she was playing a character online she is still incredibly insecure and she tries to hide this by seeking sexual validation and power over men despite cat looking like she's confident she severely struggles with commitment and jealousy and her perspective of men she thinks that all guys are pathetic kat's side job is also not the empowering thing she thinks it is one because she is a minor and two because she is tying her self-worth completely to her desirability and how good she is in bed she doesn't actually think that guys will like her for her that's why she has encounters with no strings attached she's emotionally distant to avoid being hurt again even if a sweet boy like ethan is genuinely interested in her she doesn't entertain it however cat does prioritize herself more she doesn't want to be used by her friends at one point cat decides to hook up with a random boy she meets at the mall instead of being a shoulder to cry on for maddie but this really hurts maddie because this time she really is struggling this leads them to have a really bad fight and they are still not made up by the end of season one pat also hooks up with her childhood boyfriend who doesn't even remember her and this is so painful because he had such a big impact on her her whole life and identity revolved around that relationship and how that relationship ended i'll be honest and say that kat was my least favorite character in season one and i think that is mostly because her storyline is uncomfortable however by the end of the season i was really excited to see where kat was gonna go there was so much hope for her and ethan she finally opens up to him yet there was still a lot of internal healing left to do cat was a really great example of someone who thinks they're a girl boss but for the complete wrong reasons that whole persona was just a mask for this very deep-rooted pain and she didn't even realize it at the end of season one there are three main plot lines for cat one she starts serving a creepy customer online with a mysterious voice and it's very uncomfortable two at winter formal she apologizes to ethan and realizes that not all guys are pathetic and she's willing to try a relationship with him and three her and maddie are still in a fight at the end we all know cat gets erased in season two but here are the questions i think they should have answered one now that caming is becoming uncomfortable what will she do two how will cat heal from her insecurities both with her body and with boys three how will a healthy relationship with ethan impact her and four will her and maddie mend their relationship unfortunately none of these questions are answered and it's so disappointing her caming story is completely written out which i don't necessarily mind but i don't like the fact that they just didn't reference it at all we don't even get a throwaway line about maybe she was just getting uncomfortable maybe she's now fulfilled with ethan we don't we don't really know because pat enjoyed having that money she enjoyed having these nice things what would make her give all of that up and then we have cat and maddie and maybe this is a picky criticism but they've already made up by the time season two happens which is fine but i really wish we had a flashback scene or something to explain how this happened like did they both realize they were wrong did maddie realize she was using cat did cat feel bad for not being there in a time of intense need for maddie like we'll just never know this is also pretty inconsistent with season one because cat was really angry at maddie for constantly talking about her nate problems like she was fed up with it and now she is a hundred percent on maddie's side then we have cat and ethan cat literally has a fantasy about ending him and fantasizes about a more stronger sexual manner taking his place which is fine again if you want to have a story about them not being like sexually compatible or something that's okay but this never progresses anywhere we don't really see ethan we don't know his reaction to this relationship we get the restaurant scene where kat talks about her health issues which are completely made up it was just so sad to see her character regress to really nothing i think it would have been really interesting if they had kept the through line with cat having jealousy and commitment issues they could have still played on that with her and ethan and her having to work through and resolve those issues with him but again we don't get that the last thing that we want to know about is how is cat gonna heal from her insecurities with her body and with boys cat does have to me which is her best scene her self-love scene and it sort of goes into the toxic self-love culture and sort of insinuating that maybe she needs to love herself before she can love ethan but how it's sometimes difficult to do that it's not easy to just say to love yourself if you still have things to work on or to better yourself as a person it can take a lot of a mental strength and perspective and internal healing to really build true self-esteem it's a nuanced issue and i would have loved to have seen a cat explore this more but all her other scenes are so disjointed and limited that she's never given the chance to cat doesn't really progress into anything and she deserves so much more than what she got [Music] maddie was born with confidence she grew up doing beauty pageants she loves luxury and fashion she never had a desire to work maddie is one of the only characters who actually doesn't struggle with her identity but where she does struggle is with her on and off again boyfriend nate who at the beginning of season one she is broken up with and subsequently it tries to make him jealous maddie likes power she learns how to manipulate men to get what she wants she wrongfully says she blacked out when she hooked up with tyler and this leads maddie to get back with nate because he's now motivated to protect her which is pretty ironic unfortunately her and nate are incredibly toxic for each other she is very demanding and pushes back against him he is very controlling and she doesn't like to do what he says she is eventually physically abused by nate just because she embarrasses him but then she gets back at him by questioning about some photos he has in his phone maddie has a very unhealthy idea of what love is all she knows is from her parents and she knows that what she doesn't want is what her parents have they don't even talk to each other so that's why when maddie's mom oppresses charges maddie doesn't want nates to go to jail and maddie thinks that nate's overprotectiveness is love the fact that he'd kill for her is something she thinks is endearing to me what is so interesting about maddie is that she is one of the only ones with true authentic confidence and yet she is still a victim of an abusive relationship and her confidence is both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness maddie's confidence allows her to be her authentic self but it limits her judgment and her morals she'll lie to get her way she's over confrontational and she'd rather make her ex jealous in a power play than be civil and talk it out maddie is also vindictive she's willing to sacrifice the innocence of others with very harmful accusations and this is solely for her own benefit although it is important to recognize she's also under the influence of a blind love her confidence seems like she has this really invincible wall built up but it's really sad to see her go back to nate despite the strong person that she is at the end of season one where do we leave off with maddie after yet another fight maddie finds the disc of jules and cal from nate and she takes it maddie also has to live with the fact that she's falsely accused of tyler of wrongdoing twice at winter formal maddie and nate are broken up again and she tries to make him jealous when they finally dance together she is self-aware that they aren't good for each other so the topics that we'd want to cover with season two with maddie are what will maddie do now that she has seen at the disk will matty and nate get back together how will she change her view of love or will she and will she learn when to pick her battles and be honest in season two i'm really conflicted about maddie's growth on one hand a lot of her plot lines are consistent but on the other i don't think it's executed as strongly as it could have been so about the disc what will maddie do now that she's seen and has it it's used as a threat to get back to nate after she finds out about him and cassie and she goes back to her old ways to be very vengeful and that's okay it's very matty i think that's pretty consistent with who she is as a person but something that i would have loved to have seen them do is that since the disc is of jewels i would have loved to have seen maddie question about the morality at getting back at nate versus hurting her friend is it worth it and maybe it is maybe she still does want to get back at nate and she's like screw jewels or maybe she's like you know what i don't want to hurt jules i'm over nate just goodbye because in season one she so easily ruined somebody's life to get what she wanted has she learned from that i just think that because there was a lot of hype around the disc there should have been a bit more to it but then we just get this psychotic scene with nate and we'll get into that later speaking of nate maddie questions throughout this whole season whether to get back with him or not i think this indecisiveness makes sense i think it's consistent with maddie but it takes nate's sort of psychotic attack and cassie's betrayal to finally break her it isn't really a decision she comes to on her own it's more like she's forced to then again maybe that was just the wake-up call she needed to finally walk away so what about her view of love has she changed it and this is sort of questionable because maddie has this theme that she needs to have a dark relationship which i totally get with her because she likes power she likes manipulation and it's so easy to do with nate and she does speak with samantha the mom who she babysits for who tells her that she used to be very messy in her relationships but now that she's with the right man she's very happy and they never fight maddie is only 18 and she has time so i love that she gets that role model aspect from samantha but i just wish it was that realization that made her break up with nate rather than the crazy cassie innate drama the fact that maddie is also a victim of nate's in season one isn't really brought up again in addition to the fact that she accused tyler and i feel like there should have been some aftermath there as well and lastly does she learn when to pick her battles i really like that maddie says that she realized she isn't an awful person when she broke up with nate because nate brings out the worst in her she is definitely still confrontational this season like we saw with the disc and wanting revenge she also fights cassie i do think that it's very consistent to keep maddie being that very combative fiery person because that's who she is but i would have also loved to have seen them talk it out because maddie is aiming to be more mature this season i don't know why they cut away from that moment it was really fun to see them fight on stage but we really want to see them discuss it as friends or as ex-friends the last thing i want to touch on with maddie that did feel inconsistent was the fact that she gets a job babysitting i think the main reason they did this is because they wanted to soften her character and that's totally fine but again it has to make sense for maddie because in season one she really liked being a sugar baby so we kind of need a reason for why she switches i feel like what would have made more sense is maddie being forced to get a job for money but not really wanting to work but then once she gets the job she has a realization maybe she sees what samantha has and she wants that for herself i could totally see maddie being a girl boss because she has so much confidence she's very driven she absolutely could enjoy making her own money if it is what she's passionate about like fashion and i think that's what they were trying to do but i didn't really get the sense of that it just wasn't a very clear through line another thing they could have done with the babysitting thing is realize that yeah she actually hates working but she loves kids and maybe she decides she wants to be a stay-at-home mom that would still be consistent with her not liking work but then realizing what she is passionate about but i just felt like the babysitting thing was just kind of thrown in there to help you like her more rather than make it make sense for her character whereas it should have been both i do like in the end how maddie says she wants to leave town and reading interviews from the costume designer and makeup artist it seemed that that was supposed to be a through line for maddie the whole season trying to be more mature and i definitely saw that in her in terms of her visual aesthetic but i didn't really get the sense of that through her story and again i think it could have just been a bit more clear [Music] nate is a typical overly masculine jock who is struggling with his warped perception of being a man emotion regulation and his sexual identity this plus his dad's toxic parenting style has made him fear anything that is emasculating or what he thinks is considered not manly and in response to that nate has become extremely masculine nate likes being protective to the point where he fantasizes about violence he is strongly influenced by his father who reinforces the idea of not being weak and the importance of being great he has a long list of things he likes in girls which are all hyper feminine and again this is to get away from anything that is manly especially in a romantic sense it is worth noting that jules fits all of these characteristics the nate has a very strict view of conventionality and because jules is trans she doesn't fit into his idea of what a conventional girl should be and so he feels threatened by her and also confused when he starts to like her in girls he values loyalty and feminine looks it's interesting because in season one he thinks so little of cassie because of how many guys she's been with and also how she has a sex tape so much so that he makes fun of mckay for even being with her you also see this come out with maddie's carnival outfit because it isn't sweet it's a sexy outfit he finds it disrespectful and shameful especially if it's in front of his parents he literally doesn't view her as a person because she's dressed this way because nate doesn't know how to handle his emotions it manifests into being violent against maddie his girlfriends but interestingly he quickly becomes remorseful when he realizes she could hurt him another important plotline with nate is that he catfishes jewels it's a really interesting montage when he's texting jules because it's to show the differences between masculine versus feminine and also during this montage you get the sense that he really does enjoy texting her when he reveals himself to jules he blackmails her in order to protect his dad because he's seen the disc of her and cal but when he confronts her he doesn't want to ruin her life he threatens her because he doesn't want her to ruin his now this is going to be maybe a pretty unpopular opinion but in season 1 i actually really loved nate now let me explain nate is very clearly an awful person he is abusive and violent and disrespectful if i were to meet him on the street i would run as far as i could away however as a character he is so fascinating we rarely see why the bully jock is the way that he is it's so interesting to learn that he is this way partly because of a result of his environment his toxic parents obviously he still has to be accountable for his actions but it's interesting because we can understand him better and that makes him a really compelling character let's talk about where we leave off with nate in season one nate is questioned by maddie about the pictures he has on his phone and we don't really know as the audience were they just to catfish jewels or is he actually questioning and this happened right after he violently accused her there are some lingering questions with whether he actually likes jewels or not and my interpretation of nate's sexuality is that he is straight but because he likes jewels and because he grew up watching his dad's tapes his sexuality just becomes very confusing to him but we still don't really know what the answer is and in the very end we see that nate rages against his dad for making him the way that he is [Music] i was so excited to see where they would take nate in season two and here are the questions that i had for him one how will nate resolve his feelings for jules and or maddie will he become more clear with his sexuality how will his relationship with his father progress now that it's at this breaking point where they're both dominating and powerful and will his view of masculinity change in season two let's just start off with how does his masculinity change it absolutely is not changed in fact it is even it is heightened and i actually think this is pretty consistent with who nate is he's just gone the completely opposite way of where you kind of want him to go but he has this super hyper sexualized male fantasy now the one thing that i found with nate in season two is that he's less this alpha shirtless domineering teen and he's more just psychotic and with his perception of masculinity he also goes to the extreme again with his violence in terms of threatening maddie with a gun i guess this is consistent with nate being somebody who fantasizes about violence but i just felt this scene was just so ridiculous i mean in season one he does break into tyler's house and beat him up but for some reason i felt like that was more believable than this whole like weird fake russian roulette situation and then we have how is nate going to resolve his feelings for jules and or maddie and like sam just said you know what how about we disregard both of them and we just add a third person into the mix nate suddenly becomes interested in cassie and here is where i have his inconsistent problem why does nate suddenly like her it is literally love at first sight and this man is so confused in season one which is by the way only like a month ago at winter formal i don't know why we decided to just give him another girl like we already have so much to figure out with nate in terms of maddie and jules it's also very confusing because nate hated cassie in season one he viewed her as someone who isn't loyal which is why he liked maddie in fact cassie just being with nate is literally cheating on her best friend the act of being with nate makes her a not loyal person all we needed to do was just to justify it in some ways it is consistent because cassie is very feminine she's easy to control she would fit all of his criteria that he looks for in a girl but given that he was so annoyed with her we just need to see what makes him interested in her it is also frustrating that nate is considered to be so in love with cassie and yet we don't really ever see him be loving to her and i realize that that's the point it's a very surface level relationship just based on sex but that was also kind of the same thing with maddie but yet at least with maddie you could kind of see his like twisted view of love with her like he would still buy her flowers and like he got her that luxury coat and lingerie like he would smile to himself about her yes it was not love but you could kind of understand how he would think it's love with cassie he is just so annoyed with her like in every scene he doesn't even like i don't even think he really likes her honestly he has sort of a very weak plot line with maddie kind of thinking about maybe getting back to her but it never really seems believable you kind of already know he's over her they try to play it off as if he doesn't know if he ever loved maddie which i guess is a fun question for him to have but again we never really see him figure that out on his own and then with jules we only get really one scene and very quick flashes of jewels throughout the season i was so excited for nate to figure out his feelings on jules but we just get this one scene where it seems like he's trying to make amends with her even though 10 seconds ago he was terrorizing maddie and the fact that he's so kind to her and says that he actually meant what he said when he was texting her it seems like he's already come to terms with the fact that he likes her but like the whole point of the nate and jules thing was to see how he would get there how would he accept his romantic feelings for jules and then we have nate and his sexuality this also isn't really talked about much in the season we do get that one scene where nate is offended by the jock scene in lexi's play nate gets offended at this scene because he takes it personally lexie doesn't actually know if nate is gay or anything she's really just making a joke about jocks just like she made a joke about the hypersexual cheerleaders and nate because he is so insecure about his sexuality takes offense to it personally so obviously he's still struggling with this because in nate's viewpoint if he was gay or if he was associated with being gay this would make him less of a man which is of course not true but this is really the only scene that we get a hint of that and lastly we have the plot with his relationship with his father i do think this plot is a little bit inconsistent given where we left off in season one because nate wanted to protect cal that's why he blackmailed jules but very quickly in season two he decides he no longer needs to protect him and he's okay with people knowing about his father but in season one he would be so embarrassed if people knew that that was his dad however i really liked the fact that cal is still in his nightmares obviously that is incredibly terrifying and it's not fun to watch at all but it gives you the sense that nate still feels suffocated by what his dad did to him he's still really confused he doesn't want to become cal despite his dad leaving he is still terrorizing him so much so that nate wants to get revenge on his father for messing him up so badly in season one it kind of feels like he wanted to be a good son but when he talks to jules now he knows that nate himself is not a good person but the point of nate is that he thinks he's a good man but it's a toxic form of masculinity so again that gets a little bit muddled in season two [Music] cal is nate's father who lives a closeted double life with violent fetishes we get the hint that he's not happy because he can't live his truth but he is very aggressive and has very uncomfortable sexual desires so we immediately don't like him cal strongly believes in this idea of greatness he wants power and status and outward success it's quite ironic because he is actually not himself or happy he's just obsessed with the image of it and this is also what he wants nate to strive for because he doesn't have it himself cal of course has a very illegal encounter with jewels and he also worries a lot about the impact he's had on his sons he actually confides in one of his hookups cal thought that being as masculine as possible was doing the best thing for his sons so that his sons wouldn't turn out like he has but now his sons have intense rage and now he fears it's too late cal eventually criticizes nate for winning a football game but losing control of the team and this exchange is very domineering it's very cold cal doesn't give nate any love or affection just pointers he does eventually win against nate's rage but he leaves feeling like he's created a monster plotlines we leave off with cal are it's hinted that cal knows that nate abused maddie but he still wants to be protective over him you've seen hints that his image in the community is shattering slightly because of the actions of nate and of course cal still lives in fear of his secret getting out with jewels and also that he continues to live a double life i didn't know whether we were going to cover cal in season two but i guess the most natural questions for him are what is his backstory will his secret get out and what will happen if it does and will he mend his relationship with his sons so with his backstory we do end up getting one and i think that this is pretty well done he had to deal with an unplanned pregnancy he never got to fully explore his relationship with derek or any other men he's had to repress it from such a young age despite having a little taste of happiness and cal is just longing for that so he's almost living in the past while trying to protect himself for the future his secret eventually does get out and we see the aftermath of that cal does continue to have a protectiveness over his son but when he learns why nate was beat up and that nate knows about the disc he just completely falls apart and in some sense this does make sense but in another sense it doesn't and let me explain because in season one cal has this image of male greatness i don't know if it would dissolve so quickly after nate knows his secret would he really give up his legacy that easily cal has this whole episode with his family humiliating himself and to me this was a bit unclear whether he was having an actual mental breakdown or did he go crazy because he had a concussion i i really wasn't sure and i do feel like it kind of came out of nowhere you would think it would be hard for him to release the secret considering he is losing his quote-unquote greatness that he's achieved i do like that he ends up taking ownership of his life and living his truth i just feel like it isn't gradual enough i'm also fine that he goes to jail lastly there is cal and his relationship with his sons is he going to be able to mend them it's interesting to learn that cal thinks that nate is his biggest regret because cal just doesn't know him cal blames himself for messing nate up however i still feel like he should want nate to be great he finally does voice his regrets to nate about not being a great father and how he caused his son to become a monster which i think is a great realization again i just think it happened a bit too quickly because again i think it could have been believable for cal to spiral and feel like his life is over i guess i just prefer them to show the progression of that rather than to explain it with rue's narration [Music] cassie in season one was the girl who fell in love with every guy she ever dated she deals with daddy issues stemming from when her father left her family when she was younger because she's so desperate for affection this leads her to have some not so great taste in guys she was also a victim of somebody releasing a tape of her as revenge in season one cassie is very much a girl who is willing to please especially for boys she is a very soft person and she's also very sexual but it's almost in this naive way especially when mckay wants to have a real conversation with her she thinks that sex will make him feel better but really all he wants to do is talk what's interesting with cassie is that she always goes to another guy whenever she's hurt with her boyfriend specifically she always goes to daniel and almost every time it reinforces her sexual image whether it's on the carousel or daniel telling her that no guy would ever want to be with her besides just sleeping with her cassie also eventually gets pregnant and initially is almost a little bit hopeful about it kind of viewing it like a fairy tale although she eventually does have an abortion and it is so hard and sad to watch assumedly her and mckay do a breakup and by winter formal she's ready for a clean slate and swears off boys it's also worth noting that her and maddie do have a pretty strong friendship in season one cassie is one of those characters who so clearly does wrong things but you sympathize with her because she's just so naive and troubled from her past trauma i personally really liked cassie in season one i feel like she's a very realistic character of girls who are so willing to please boys that they forget how to be themselves she has no idea who she is and she defines herself completely through her relationships we leave off with cassie not wanting to fall in love no longer being with mckay and just after her option and i think the natural progression for cassie would be will she be able to avoid boys and if not what will she learn will cassie learn how to be herself how will her abortion affect her will she be able to heal from her daddy issues season two cassie again is somewhat consistent but mostly inconsistent and i think the main problem i have with her is her personality is just so different i think in some ways her general story could make sense but i do think that the execution of it again is just very dramatic with the very first question will she be able to avoid boys very clear answer is absolutely not and i actually think this is very consistent and realistic for cassie i did not expect her to stay single the entire season i fully expected her to get with another boy because it's not realistic for someone like her to heal that quickly i do like that when we meet her in season one cassie is struggling she wants to learn from her pattern of mistakes she's trying to not be in a relationship but then very similar to nate cassie so quickly hooks up with him one thing that is implied is that nate was there at her lowest moment because she had been suffering from a little bit of depression and that made her want to go back to a boy i think they did have a flashback about rue narrating that depression thing but it wasn't very clear and we should have had that in the first episode so that we understood what her head space was at cassie is very emotional she is very sensitive she takes things very personally and nate constantly made fun of her in season one i think what i'm trying to say with cassie and nate is that i could completely understand how cassie would be a victim of nate because she's so easy to control and nate wants to control the woman he's with but they don't really show us the state that cassie is in and it's so important that we see that rather than just accept that they can become a thing i don't think that those small flashback scenes are enough to really sell that to us and so i'm just talking about this from a writing perspective they really needed to show cassie's very dark mental state or very lonely mental state so that when she gets with nate you actually understand why she would because nate's consistently made fun of her she is betraying her best friend knowing all of that what would make her have very little resistance to nate and i think what would is showing us that mental state that she had i also think that the level of obsessiveness cassie has with nate is very jarring compared to the love she had for mckay cassie and mckay of course were not perfect they didn't have a healthy relationship either but you could see how they might think that they love each other but with nate he doesn't show her any interest and previously if she didn't get attention from a guy she was with she would go to the other one who was interested i just think that this very mentally unstable and hysteric cassie is so different than the very soft naive and pleasing cassie in season one and even though this is meant to show her desperate need for male love i just wish we explored her emotions more and swapped out some of the unnecessary sex scenes and drama especially the fact that cassie has gone through a lot of trauma i feel like that is what we're most interested in not necessarily this dramatic secretive love triangle however there are two things that i think is really interesting about cassie and nate and one is how obsessive cassie gets with her look and trying to please nate she's always been the person that dresses and does her makeup for boys it was a really interesting way to show that her self-care montage was really for the care of another guy and the second thing i thought was interesting is her struggling with the morality of getting with nate's because cassie does have a terrible moral code like when she thought that kissing daniel was okay and it wasn't really cheating because she didn't sleep with him i think that cassie trying to defend her getting with an eight because maddie had broken up with him for three weeks was an interesting stance to take and also shows that she still hasn't really learned how to deal with boys in a moral sense it is sad to see that cassie is so hopelessly in need of love that she would rather choose a boy over her best friend but like i mentioned with maddie i would have loved to have her say something what did she have to say for herself to the friend she helped when her parents were fighting like yeah cassie is a mess but why don't we ever get a resolution to this whole conflict that was the main plot point of the whole season lastly we don't really get to see how her option affected her what we see instead is her and lexi's relationship i still would have liked to have seen the aftermath of her abortion but i do think that this is an interesting dynamic to also look at cassie gets mad at lexi because she is the one that has lived through all of this pain i understand what she's saying that lexi is kind of just a judgmental bystander even though the point of flexi's play was to hold up a mirror to everybody i still think it makes sense from cassie's view that it's unfair of lexi to not tell cassie that she was going to release all of this information to everyone however again i do think that she kind of goes from hysterical to villainous and it's just so different from her soft nature in season one although i guess you could say she does finally stand up for herself rather than just taking it and i do have to say that even though i think cassie's character is all over the place i really did love sydney sweeney and i thought she did an amazing job with what she was given and her performance almost makes up for it [Music] i'm going to cover mckay fez and lexi quite quickly because i don't really have that much to say about any of them mckay is unfortunately completely written now in season two so i can't really compare consistency to season one because he only has one scene it's okay if they need to write out characters for the purpose of the story if it doesn't serve the story well but mckay is nate's best friend he is the ex of cassie so you would think he would still be in the picture somehow for fez overall i really like him i don't have that many problems with him his conflict with nate doesn't really go anywhere and the whole setup with his conflict with a mouse is ended quite quickly and then we bring lorien but honestly you know what i'm fine with his story i think he's okay i i like fez for lexi i also don't have too much to say on consistency because she's just the opposite of mckay she doesn't have many scenes in season one but i really enjoyed lexi's story in season two i thought episode seven was really fun and i think she's a really great character for those shy quiet creative introverts i do think she's also fairly consistent the one inconsistency that i can really think of with her is that she doesn't really question fez that much for beating nate up and i feel like for a character like lexi that would be a pretty important thing to discuss one thing that i wanted to mention that euphoria season one has that season two doesn't there is actually this subtle commentary on gen z and how they develop relationships as well as the dangers of technology such as having tapes and nudes and erotic fan fiction and bonding through texting how this is all commonplace now and it's also problematic i kind of miss the texting in season one although it can get annoying sometimes but it really was effective in showing how texting has become so essential in relationships for young people i think euphoria season two is also a great example of prioritizing visuals over story i think sam is a beautiful visionary he has an excellent idea of how to make scenes look gorgeous i love a lot of his concepts it just unfortunately isn't held up by the story and that's the most important thing are your characters and your story i also think in season one the main theme or point of the show was a little bit more clear which was that every single one of these characters does wrong things cassie is a cheater roo uses people maddie is a manipulator and a liar nate is violent but they are also all victims of traumatic circumstances and so while you want them to be held accountable for doing these wrong things you can also have a little bit of empathy for them because rue didn't ask to be born with an addictive personality and nate didn't ask to be born into a house of very toxic parents of course it doesn't excuse their actions in any way but it does make these characters feel a little bit more human and i think that was a really interesting concept in season one and i don't know if season two carries that forward as well but maybe they'll tie it all back together in season three let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts on euphoria i am sure i missed some things this is my first youtube video so please subscribe if you liked it if you got this far i don't know how many people are going to watch this or even get to this point but thank you if you did let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see me cover yeah i'm not sure how i'm supposed to end this but have a good night have a great day and thank you so much for watching

Channel: art at midnight

Views: 1,485,959

Keywords: art at midnight, euphoria, hbo, hbo max, artatmidnight, sam levinson, commentary, analysis, video essay, zendaya, alexa demie, sydney sweeney, rue bennett, maddy perez, cassie howard, nate jacobs, kat hernandez, jules vaughn, season 2, euphoria season 2, euphoria analysis, euphoria season 1

Id: laEC-8_kwPo

Length: 57min 40sec (3460 seconds)

Published: Sun May 22 2022