EUPHORIA (Season 1 – Episode 2)

Previously on EUPHORIA: 

1. Rue returned from rehab after almost dying from a drug overdose

2. Jules and Rue meet each other for the first time

3. Maddy’s rebound plan worked due to hooking up with a random guy in the pool in from of her on-again, off-again boyfriend Nate and everyone at McKay’s party with a guy named (?)

4. Jules met and hooked up with ‘DominantDaddy‘ who isn’t around her age and turned out to be an old dude

5. Kat finally loses her virginity

6. Nate tried to harm Jules in a drunken rage

7. Jules and Rue, mostly Rue, intends on the idea of getting high in Jules’ room with her despite being reminded by almost EVERYONE that she just exited rehab

8. the granddaddy reveal of all…’DominantDaddy‘ is the father of Nate

“Sometimes when I’m really high, I kinda think I’m psychic“. And that is the sign of bad (but expected) decision number 1 belonging to Rue. We first see her on the bus completely under the influence of drugs due to her close surrounding on the school bus. She then takes us back to a moment not in her time but in Nate’s as a little kid. One night small Nate went into his father’s porn collection. This is far from the corner store bootleg porn. Obsessive nature runs in his father Cal’s veins. In present day that obviously runs through Nate’s as well. However that’s not even the most out of bounce part. Just like his older self’s mind, young Nate quickly pieced together that the color cases for said CD’s weren’t set up just for shits and giggles. It was a code to make sure no one went into his shit. Well, it was a dumb as hell code because Nate popped a few in his dad’s computer and ‘DominantDaddy‘ has obviously existed way before Jules has. We are then shown clips of Cal’s past interactions with at least two young transgender and gay individuals; one male and one female. With the amount of CD’s in that drawer, one can only imagine the others he’s taken advantage of in the name of sexual pleasure. Nate hears his dad coming home and he races to put everything back and then races to his bed to make sure his dad doesn’t know shit either. Unexpectedly to Nate, Cal pulls down his sons covers to say something important to him.

“You’re a strong man, Nathaniel. I knew it from the moment you were born. You got an iron will, drive determination. I always admired that about you. Because some day it will lead you to greatness. But no one in this world will ever root for you. They’ll see what I see and they’ll despise you for it. Sometimes you’ll know, sometimes you won’t. But the farther you go, the sharper their blade. Just don’t ever give them an opening“.

Fast forward to 12 year old Nate, he had sticked to a new diet and a workout schedule. His body fat had dropped from 23% to 6% and his battle cry roar vocally dropped to the individual that we all know of today. At the start of his 1st year in high school he joined the football team and quickly moved up the ranks. By the end of that year he became the team captain. One of the way’s Nate has had experience euphoria is through winning. He loved the cheers, the pats on the back, the whole entire nine yards. But the worst time for him is being in the locker room. He disliked the casualness from his teammates when it came to being comfortable being naked. He would always try to keep eye contact like, anyone would for that matter, but as always like everyone else, he would always end up looking at a guy’s johnson. I get that this is an HBO show but I can’t believe there was more controversy talk about the multiple penises rather than Cal tricking underage, let me rephrase, teenage, transgender and gay people. Oh. But let’s not forget about Mckay falling under the pressured spell of being less of a gentleman towards his lady love Cassie thanks to twisted best friend, Nate. Obsessive or just out of his damn mind? We’ll just have to keep watching. Now as for the the rest of his family;

1. His older brother Aaron was the airhead of the family. Both in strength and intelligence. Nate and his father collectively can stand him. Despite not having a much talkative father-son relationship. Some families just work different.

2. His mother? In his eyes she’s the weakest female he’s ever known. She’s never taken good care of herself. One can only guess why.

Now when it comes to women, Nate is the textbook definition on what a guy shouldn’t be like around women. He’s always had this checklist about his likes and dislikes about women. I mean let’s be honest, way deep down all men have a checklist but let’s just focus on Nate’s list.

1. Likes: tennis skirts and jean-cut offs

2. Dislikes: Jean-cut offs in which you could see the pockets

3. Likes: Ballet Flats and Heels

4. Dislikes: Sneakers and dress shoes

5. Likes: Sandals (unless they were worn with a fresh pedicure)

6. Likes: Thigh gaps

7. Dislikes: Cankles

8. Likes: Tan lines, long necks and slender shoulders

9. Likes: Good Posture and fruit-scented body mist

10. Likes: Full lips and small noses

11. Likes: Chokers but the more elegant lacy ones with delicate patterns

12. Dislikes: Girls who were tomboys – sat, talked, acting like a boy

13. Dislikes: Body hair

Now his ex-Maddy, the best thing that he liked about her was that she had zero body hair. When it came to Maddy, he would do anything to protect her from all kinds of guys. Men who would drive by and be obscene to her. College guys who would have a field day on her after drugging her. Kidnappers who would rape her, torture her and sell her body into sex slavery. Instead of thinking about those things, he would think the opposite; the steps he would do to protect her. In his mind the best, best thing about Maddy was that she was a virgin. While having sex with her he would sometimes even think about marrying her and starting a family. The night at Mckay’s party when they were off, something had changed. Every guy and girl had their anger issues but when it came to Nate, it just hit different. At the end of the day, that was who Nate Jacobs would always be regardless of any situation.

We are now back to Rue’s point of view. She finally arrived to school on her first day of junior year. She felt like she was going to walk the halls alone and high as hell. Then she remembered, Jules existed and she became friends with her. Since leaving rehab, she actually started to think positive thoughts about the world. I mean, at least it’s better than leaning towards the negative. We are taken back to two days ago and as expected, while Rue suggested to get high with Jules, ms. Jules along with Fezco, Rue’s mom and probably everyone else she’ll encounter this season is one the long list of humans who have told Rue that she just exited rehab. Now as expected does Rue give a shit? Not really. Should Jules be any smidge concerned? Apparently not at all. With that, over a distorted version of ‘Mount Everest’ by Labrinth, sprinkled with glitter on their faces, the two take a slow bending journey all the while just sitting right in front of each other. Rue knows to not say out loud that drugs are kind of cool. They can be for a temporary moment but take them too much and they can potentially cost you your life.

With that being said we are taken to an extend flashback on the day that Rue almost died in her own vomit due to heavy drug usage. Gia looking understandably traumatized looks on as her big sister is injected with one dose of narcan. It’s basically a drug that counter acts bad drugs that mess with your system. She is completely out of her body as she looks on and ignores the EMT’s request of getting a towel for Rue. Gia then sits on the couch and looks on as Rue is taken to the hospital. Watching TV until their mom gets home can’t distract Gia from what she just saw. We are then bounced right back to the first day of school. Rue thinks that EVERYONE knows about her near death experience. Jules reminds her that people might just be talking about the incident of her cutting herself in front of Nate at Mckay’s instead of the overdose. My guess is; it’s high school so there is a 50/50 chance people were talking about both. Along with that people might also been talking about Maddy having sex in the pool to get back at Nate. But here is the kicker in this. Apparently, Maddy has an optics issue, along with evidence. While texting Nate the night before school, she came up with a lie and said that she blacked out. She doesn’t remember a darn thing about the whole fiasco. But on to more peer pressuring matters, Kat finally lost her virginity. Although she doesn’t remember the guy’s name, she was just relived that she wasn’t ammunition for virgin jokes anymore. Kat meets a boy named Ethan and besides giving off school shooter vibes, there could be something to begin with this guy but we shall see in the long run. Next class is I’m assuming theater and it’s for juniors. The teacher wants to begin the first day with a bit of improv. She wants her students to tell a five minute story about a memory from their story. Out of everyone, she picks Rue to go first despite her anxiety. Rue heads up and the spotlight effect clicks as she tries to come up with an alternative summer memory. She’s nervous and anxious to do so as we are taken to the hospital to the aftermath of almost fatally OD’ing. One of the nurses recommends to her mom that after discharging her, Rue should spend the summer in rehab. While that conversation occurs, Rue dances toward Gia in order to lighten the mood after being discharged by the hospital. this scene leads us to a back and forth of flash forwarding and flashback as Rue tries to anxiously explain a peaceful memory with her mom and little sister. It’s a mix of moments. Rue snorting up cocaine. Her just hanging around her house with her mom and little sister being silly. But as we then learn, what lands Rue in rehab is she ends up taking drugs again in her room but this time, her mother catches her. Rue threatens to leave. Straight to the point that she breaks a nearby hanged picture frame and uses one of the shards to threaten her mom. If any of us didn’t know any better this was the nail in the coffin. We are then panned back to the hospital. Rue awakens and finds her sister and mom sleeping right beside her. She then starts to silently cry due to the pain she brought on to them emotionally. We are then given a full flash forward back to the gym and Rue is a panic type mess. She doesn’t like public speaking and the stress from the summer wasn’t helping. Everyone knew what happened to her. Even one person goes on to say that Rue is possibly suffering from brain damage. Rue runs to the panic and tries to snort a drug to calm herself down. Lexi catches up to her in time and Rue flushes down the small baggie that held the said drug she brought to school. Lexi and Rue end up getting into a heated argument. Lexi tries to defend the fact that since she and Rue went to preschool together, they’re best friends. Even though since then in Rue’s eyes, they have been completely distant. Lexi misses the old Rue and she wishes she could just see her one more time. That’s thing, the old Rue is gone and she changed.

Across town, Nate starts to stalk Tyler. Tracking his footsteps and movements as a “vigilante” stalker for Cassie despite her lie. We are then taken back to Rue and she is at a mandatory AA meeting. While sitting in the back, Rue remembers the first time she took drugs. She was 13 years old. The available drug was Oxycontin. She took it while tending to her cancer stricken father to help ease the pain of the reality she was living in. She would take care of her father after school despite a nurse arriving their everyday. Only to end up not doing her job and playing candy crush on her phone. Her father had a drawer full of pills and Rue saw her escape from the pain. A father and daughter’s love. Although it’s physically gone, in spirit, it still lives on. Fast forward, it’s the end of Rue’s AA meeting. She was suppose to go to but she didn’t. She tries to convince a male AA worker to sign the back dates. He won’t do it but she proposes an idea by exchanging to suck the guy’s dick in order to get the backdate signatures. He actually thinks about it for a moment. What he says next, only suggests he’s done this to other minors. This guy then asks if Rue wants to suck him off in his car. Rue counteracts and reveals to the guy that she is 17 years old. He silently panics and quickly signs the backdates just so he wouldn’t have had to see Rue ever again. Rue shows the filled slip to her mom and low and behold her mother is pleased with the fabricated result.

We are then taken back to Jules’ house. She’s laying on her bed minding her own business while watching a movie or porn scene on her laptop. She then gets a notification from the dating app she’s been using. A guy with the username ShyGuy118. He’s 18 years old and identifies as a cisgender male. He’s new to the app, no one close to him knows about this. Rather than a sleazy hookup, he wants someone real and he’s looking for something real too.

*sighs* In this day in age of social media, don’t we all? It’s tragic but that conversation is meant for a different post.

We are now brought to Kat. She receives a strange text from Maddy, asking her if about something she saw on the Internet that might have something to do with Kat. Obviously, Kat doesn’t know what in the hell Maddy is talking about until she sends her a link to a pornhub video. She runs to her room to check the link on her computer and sees that the guy she met at Mckay’s party filmed her while he and her were having sex. In her case, while he took her virginity. Kat obviously panics because the video was obviously her. However, she texts back Maddy and says that the chick wasn’t her. Maddy believes her but she then goes on to say that everyone is convinced that it was Kat. Her paranoia kicks in and she is convinced that everyone in school saw the video. In her mind, the whole world saw the video. She then confronts one of the twins, Troy on who posted the video. All signs point to his twin brother Roy even though he told him to not post the video. Troy doesn’t believe Kat when she says that since they are all minors, they can be in danger for releasing child pornography. I took the liberty of using Kat’s words and rephrasing them to Google them. Long story short: you can ABSOLUTELY get in trouble for releasing child pornography especially if you are in a similar situation like Kat is in. With wanting to report it to the police, Troy gives in to Kat and asks what does she want from this situation. She wanted the video to be permanently deleted. Troy to tell everyone that it wasn’t Kat in the video. She then has a third request but first a revamped spread of the rumor comes first. Troy ends up telling everyone that he mixed Kat up and it was some other girl in the video. By the end of the week, it works. That is until the principal’s attention has been caught and Kat is called to the principal’s office. He knows about the video and he is fully convinced that Kat is in it despite claiming he’s never even seen the video. In rightful terms, Kat claims that offensively speaking the principal is body shaming her and quite frankly, I myself am considering that as well. There are other girls who can have Kat’s style but just modified. He promised that he would do everything in his power to put an end to the rumor and that he very much did. Everyone moved on from the situation.

What comes next in typical high school fashion is the school’s football team, the East Highland Blackhawks and it’s cheerleaders invading the cafeteria while everyone else is eating lunch. There are a few glances among our main characters and those who they have interacted with so far in the two episodes that have aired. Honestly Jules, if I was there I would 100% wouldn’t have felt safe either. It’s after school and Nate offers Maddy to take her out during that evening. Of course he wants her back.

We are then taken to a nice pleasant view of Jules and Rue riding on their bikes to a distant location away from the town. They stop to admire the view and then Rue invites Jules to dine with her family tonight. Jules unfortunately has recurring plans with her father and she has homework assignments to tend to. Rue hopes that at some point Jules stops by her house so she can introduce her to her mom and obviously this delights Jules. Even though Rue doesn’t want to fully admit that Jules has had a positive impact on her. Jules leaves and Rue calls herself a loser, even though she isn’t. It’s normal to talk highly of a friend even though it may as well be only one friend.

We are taken back to Nate and Maddy. He tries to apologize to her all the while she turns up his car’s radio. We are then taken to Kat’s location and she is at the mall in Sephora. Using Troy’s money since he rightfully owed her, Kat buys baskets and bags full of makeup. From the looks of it, he might total it due to a shopping spree but it’s Kat’s day so only she knows the rest of it.

Next off, Mckay finally meets Cassie’s mother and basically their exchange is what you would exactly expect in the typical scenario of a parent meeting their child’s significant other. But of course with a twist of Euphoria. After their encounter, Cassie appears and they both choose to have an in-home movie date.

Nate finally drops Maddy off at her place and he’s still asking her out. She still hasn’t made up her mind and has him just text her. Elsewhere, ShyGuy118 is clearly making an impression on Jules. He is simply getting to know her. Learning that she only lives with her father and that her mom is out of the picture. Still alive but just not talking to her daughter. ShyGuy reassures her and tells Jules that like any interested guy, he just wants to get to know her. He then reveals that in a similar boat, his father left him and his mom when he was a child. Calling him an asshole which just signals the fact that this dude was dealing with an absentee father. Who this guy is at this point beyond my guesses. “Smart ass” Jules and her father finally sit down and have dinner together.

Elsewhere, Rue is riding her bike in the rain. Instead of heading back to her own house, she heads over to Fezco’s place. Now he really doesn’t want her to be there at the moment, lord only knows why. It turns into a back and forth of Rue still asking for a new batch of drugs, finding some dry clothes and Fezco telling her repeatedly that it’s not his problem and she has to leave. Rue catches a glimpse of what seems to be Fezco’s mother basically in a hospice care setup. Fezco really doesn’t want Rue around when his supplier comes through the door. This argument continues until Fezco’s phone rings and he checks to make sure his gun is loaded and all set. His supplier has arrived and Fezco has instructed Rue to behave herself while he is present.

After continuing to stalk him, Nate finally ends up near Tyler’s apartment and breaks into it.

What happens on the other side of town is Mckay and Cassie are still just relaxing and watching a movie. Or at least Cassie is the one relaxing. Mckay is stressed due to the fact that his coach doesn’t want to start him despite having his impressive stats. Cassie hears all of this and to make Mckay less stressed, she tries to seduce Mckay into having sex with her. Now Mckay, he’s not having any of this. He wants to have a real serious conversation with Cassie without anything sexual happening. She obviously doesn’t know how to be less playful and this makes her sad.

Back at Fezco’s place, we are face to face with his dealer and his partner in crime. His supplier’s name is mouse and he goes on to creepily introduce himself to “little sis” Rue. Ashtray comes into the frame to silently warn Fezco that Mouse’s goon is packing. Just in case if anything goes wrong. He hands Mouse the money that he made from his dealings in order to get the new drugs. Yet, that doesn’t stop there. When Fezco rejects Mouse’s offer for some Fentanyl, he comes on to Rue. Fezco does not want her to take it but Mouse heavily convinces Rue to take it much to the dismay and worry of Fezco and looks on. He can’t help his friend out or else things will end in a bloody mess. She takes it in the hopes of not leaving Fezco’s place in a body bag.

Tyler returns to his apartment only to find that vengeful Nate is sitting in it. Nate accuses him of raping Maddy in the pool at Mckay’s party. Tyler keeps trying to defend himself by saying Maddy was never blacked out and she was the one who asked Tyler to have sex with her in the pool. She lied about her age and said she was 18. She’s 17 and in Nate’s mind, Tyler raped a minor. This angers him and he starts to beat the crap out of him. Simultaneously, Tyler screams out that he never raped Maddy but that only inflicts more pain brought on to him. Quite frankly as a viewer, it’s out of my hands with the ways that I look at the situation.

Our next shot is at Rue. The effects of the Fentanyl starts to take over her as she slumps to her left onto the couch. With the patches and the drug, Mouse informs Rue that it’ll cost her $300 for the drugs. Like me, she only has two dollars to her name. Mouse doesn’t like that and Rue offers to return the drugs. He has a “strict” no-return policy so with Rue’s pants off, Mouse suggests that there is, in his mind, another way for her to pay her debt. That way quite frankly is the most frightening imaginable that could’ve been played out on national television seeing as how far this show is willing to go. After repeating himself 3 times, Fezco offers to pay the $300 then turned $600 to make sure Rue isn’t harmed. Mouse leaves and Fezco instructs Ashtray to flush down the fentanyl and have emergency Narcan on standby in case of another overdose situation. Fezco sits by Rue while covering her with a blanket while she quietly says under the influence “I’m so happy”. Much to the sadness of Fezco, he says that he knows she is happy.

Briefly we see Cassie sitting by the window as she sees Mckay driving off while it’s raining. She wants to try to be more serious with Mckay when he needs her to be but she doesn’t know how yet.

Nate is taking a shower in Tyler’s bathroom to get rid of the blood that was on him. Much to the pain of Tyler himself who is barely breathing and lying on the floor with a bloody face and bloody eyes to match. Nate says nothing as he changes into some dry clothes, takes Tyler’s umbrella and leave Tyler on the floor while he exits the apartment.

We then are taken through multiple settings of where the characters are at in their current situations over the tune of ‘Mount Everest’:

1. Fezco calls up Jules to help Rue take her to her house so Rue doesn’t have to deal with her mother.

2. Kat’s video is reposted long after the original owner of the video deletes it from his page. She then sees the comments on the video. Apparently a lot of people loved seeing her having sex. One user even asked if she does live cam. She ends up joining the Pornhub Model Payment Program.

3. After a successful bowling date, on again couple Nate and Maddy makeout in the rain. Much to Nate’s hidden agenda of wanting to know what really happened in the pool. He sends her home with a present. It turns out to be lingerie that at first she considers to be tacky but she ends up loving it.

4. After apologizing to Cassie and speaking to her a bit about their relationship, Mckay pressures her to send her some nudes. Much to the dislike of Cassie herself.

5. ShyGuy hits up Jules after not talking to her all day. He missed her despite himself thinking it’s weird. But it’s normal. Jules then comes to the realization that she doesn’t even know this dude’s name. She asks him and he says it’s Tyler AND I OOP. It turns out that ShyGuy118 is actually Nate. Things can only grow more deeper and mentally/emotionally harmful with Nate’s story.