The third and final season of Euphoria just ended, and boyyyy! To get the elephant out of the room quickly, I loved this season. It was chaotic, a little unfinished, and a little unfamiliar. Unfamiliar because we fell in love with the glitter and the high school of it. But we’re not in Kansas high school anymore. And that’s the part that everyone seems to forget. The first two seasons could accommodate flirting with the idea of fantasy because we were in high school. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered. Season 3 moves into the real world. And not just regular real world, a very dark part of it. Naturally, it would feel like a different show. And now that we’re at the end of even that road, I have very specific thoughts on:
It was always going to end this way for Rue
I love Rue. Zendaya did her big one with that role. I was broken when Rue died. But then, what was the alternative? At only 22, Rue had lived so many lives, and she had done some questionable things. Knowing she literally took Angel to her death, broke bread with Nazis, double-crossed career criminals, and let down her family so many times. Sure, she found the Lord and meant to live out the rest of her life on a farm, but would that have been enough? Our girl had too many close calls with death this season; it was literally only ending one way.
Rue is also a reminder that we only get so many chances in life; she just took hers way earlier than most of us do. Her last chance, a very juvenile decision to get in bed with Laurie at 17, leads to her death. And the saddest thing is, she doesn’t necessarily die because she is an addict, not directly. She dies because of the choices that her addiction leads her to. And no one (except Ali) ever gets to appreciate that Rue really tried in the end. That’s the tragedy of Rue; good girl, good heart, but she had already taken more chances than life affords anyone. And as Ali told her in season 1 or 2, she had been fighting a losing battle ever since the first time she got high.
Maddy is if Nate and Cassie had a love child
It wasn’t until I watched this final season that I realised that Cassie and Nate made so much sense because the parts of each other that they liked were the traits that existed quietly in Maddy. Bear with me.
Maddy bit off more than she could chew. And this has always been Maddie’s problem- her very overstated sense of self. In seasons 1 and 2, she believes Nate’s abuse comes from anything other than abuse, but the truth is, Nate is just abusive. There is nothing romantic about him or her that makes him act that way; he just is. Maddy doesn’t see this; she sees passion. She also believes she and Nate will be together forever. And then Nate and Cassie happen.
In season 3, she believes she is so special that she is immune to the way Alamo treats women. At the most inconvenient moment, he turns on her. Except…she should have seen it coming, but because she truly believes she’s different, she misses it. And because she misses it, she ends up with this man, who is eons older than her, threatening to marry her. I would scream. See, Maddy is just as naive as Cassie, if not more so-Maddy’s naivety costs way more than Cassie’s. And Maddy’s naivety is a lot more dangerous because Maddy herself doesn’t know it.
On the other end of Maddie’s naivety is again her false sense of agency. Maddy believes she lives by her own rules, yet the agency that she thinks she has was accumulated in high school, much like Nate’s. Whatever put Maddy on the top of the food chain stayed behind in high school but she still thinks of herself as high up in the hierarchy. In reality, she drives an old car, lives in a crammed apartment, and has a bottom-of-the-barrel job. Of course, she creates the illusion of some power, but Maddie, without the hierarchy of high school, is nothing. Just like Nate!
Maddie is a tragic combination of Nate and Cassie. She has smoke and mirror power and the naivety of a child. Nate gets away with his non-existent power (to a point) because he isn’t naive. Cassie gets away with her naivety (to a point) because she is not disillusioned about it. She has never thought of herself as having any agency. Maddie’s undoing is that she has no power and is naive, yet she is unaware of both these things. Which is how she finds herself a million plus dollars in debt over something that has absolutely nothing to do with her.
Justice for Lexi
People are mad at Lexi for judging her friends, for being mean to Rue, and for outing Rue to Maddy. Valid. But of all the characters, Lexi has my empathy. Lexi is all of us. She is a regular girl and has understood what the world needs from her: go to college, get a job, stay in your lane, be inconspicuous. She understands that. No one else around her does, though…best friend is a drug mule, boyfriend is in prison, sister is basically a pornstar, one friend is a pimp, and the other is a sugarbaby. Even I would be exhausted. I think these are very entertaining characters to watch on TV, but if you were Lexie, you would be tired! Imagine being around people who always have some sort of drama happening. Lexie has my heart. She is the only one in that group who lived a relatively normal life. I am happy that Sam Levinson didn’t mess that up for us; that whole ecosystem was so chaotic; we needed one normal thing to happen and Lexi has always been that.
Colman NqobizithaTM Domingo
Give that man every award and every extra coin at HBO. He carried the last half of that finale. A huge part of the series focused on Ali as a spiritual, grounded, neighbourhood-friendly AA sponsor, and we all forgot that he was a soldier. He killed people for a living! Then he reminded us. Oh man. I am so in love. His performance was gritty, pregnant with emotion, and resigned.
I was coming to terms with him also dying but no, a part of Rue had to survive. I understand why we didn’t get to grieve through the other characters, sure they loved Rue but they never fully understood her. Maddy even says earlier in the season that Rue has always been a little crazy. I do feel everyone knew how Rue’s life would end so while they grieve, they are not entirely surprised. But Ali saw the work Rue put in, he heard her plan one last rodeo and want to start her life all over. Would she have succeeded? Quite unlikely, but we will never know.
Now, why is a 30-year-old woman chewing your ear and eyes off about a TV show? Because that’s what good TV does. It captures you and holds you hostage. And then it ends, but you still want more, so you end up writing one of your longest blog posts about it while you grieve characters you only knew for 26 episodes across 7 years. I will miss Euphoria. It was always the right balance between discomfort and entertainment.
