Euphoria’s third season has amounted to a full reboot, starring most of the same people in the same roles but with little else in common. It truly can’t be exaggerated what a difference the shift between Labrinth and Hans Zimmer as composers alone makes to the overall vibe, much less having Rue make border runs and Cassie make actual porn and Jules wear multi-thousand-dollar garments instead of stuff from the Salvation Army. These aren’t the kids we knew, fucked-up kids though they may have been, and this isn’t a show about those kids anymore. It’s a show about sawed-off shotguns. You have to make your peace with that.
Which I have. Euphoria Season 3 doesn’t feel like a memorial service, it feels like a viking funeral. It’s not about first kisses and popularity and suburban secrets, it’s a VistaVision fantasia about a hell on earth governed by a devil named fentanyl, and the lost souls fighting against the demon lords responsible. It’s not how I saw this story ending when it started, but it’s one of the wildest and most beautifully filmed neo-Westerns in the history of TV, big and bold and bloody against blue skies, like Pluribus for perverts. I’m only sorry you can’t light the same ship on fire twice.
I reviewed the series finale of Euphoria for Decider.
Tags: decider, euphoria, TV, TV reviews