Children are scary. I am sorry to your daughter, Blakaney, or your son, Thermos, but they are unbridled, nuclear energy with the full potential for widespread destruction.
What have we become? Parents. Responsible. Insured. Really, millennials? We let ourselves get old and that is embarrassing. That is on US. I am reminded of this mundanity with every episode of Euphoria.
My relationship with the HBO show has been inconsistent in the past. The show can be emotionally and physically draining to watch—sometimes, I'd like a shot that isn't rigged or bathed in lighting reminiscent of an Abercrombie and Fitch. It's overstimulation that verges on gimmick, and, despite its acclaim for originality, I find it lacking. If you've ever watched Thirteen or Skins or any European film about teenagers, then you have seen this story before. (I wrote a little on this last year when talking about the personal influence of Thirteen.)
Even the recent season opener, Fez's story, arguably some of the best television in years, is really just copied from the Martin Scorsese playbook. All art is derivative of something, but I find it distracting at times with this particular show. What works in Euphoria's favor, though, is the acting. I think Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney are doing some of the best acting of their generation.
I was talking to friends recently about the season two premiere and mentioned that these characters remind me of kids who grew up around Lake Norman. Something is in that water. If you know, you know. I had limited experience with rich kid house parties, but the few I went to are burned in my memory. Those kids were unnatural in how easily they crossed the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood, how little they seemed to care, and how good they were at obliteration. I was always very aware of my inadequacies in their finished basements or sitting at their patio tables. We were all just trying to have our movie moment—something not just worth remembering but worth passing along.
This is all to say that the characters of Euphoria scare me. Imagine attending that high school. No teachers. No dress codes. Every other student is a drug dealer. Glittered sociopaths roaming the halls. A mad house! I would love a spin off about the "normal students" and their reactions to the complete anarchy. Amy cowering in her locker when Maddy walks by. Bobby confounded by Rue's account of her weekend spent with a drug dealer.
It's what Euphoria does best, portraying all the extremes of those first blooming emotions. That's why it is called Euphoria and not Happy. Where's the fun in happiness? Euphoria is just the other side of the coin.
"Hell is a teenage girl," said Amanda Seyfried in Jennifer's Body. And she's right. I can't decide who is scarier: the Euphoria teens or the cannibal soccer players on Yellowjackets. (I will write about Yellowjackets once I finish the season.)
Despite my reservations, I like all this youthful rage from the safety of a tv screen, whether bent on destruction (Euphoria) or survival (Yellowjackets). In reality, these real life characters end up dead (drug overdose or eaten) or they survive to become the most frightening form of all—adults with student loan debt.