Warning: the following contains spoilers for Euphoria season 2 episode 3.

EuphoriaThe third episode of spotlights Cal Jacobs’ narration with a nearly 15-minute opening sequence showing his tumultuous senior year in high school. Cal is the weekly focus after Episode 2, during which he discovers Nate’s knowledge of his sex tape with Jules – and that the tape may not be in Nate’s possession. Episode 3 confirms this last detail, as Cal embarks on the quest for the holy grail of the sex tape. (Maddy has the tape, by the way, but Cal doesn’t know that yet.)

Episode 3 also gives us (finally!) more Lexi, whose play will add another touch of metafiction to an already confusing world of storytellers and fantasies.

Meanwhile, Jules and Rue begin to drift apart as the siren song of drugs calls Rue to her euphoric shores. While Rue’s relapse remains hidden from her friends and family, she now has a suitcase. And in that suitcase is enough drama to fill the rest of this season.

Before we get into the episode, we have a quick note on drug use so far this season (which, aside from gender, isn’t representative of the generational cohort the show portrays) – viz. , it seems to become cooler?

We better remember that the show takes us through cycles of abuse. So far this season we’ve been riding to the top with Rue – a top, so far, with no clear consequences. But the consequences are looming. The final image of the episode belies Rue’s opening dance montage. While Rue’s use temporarily thwarts her depression, it also isolates her, and the episode ends with her alone in the dark. She pushed away her sister Jules and Ali, who are all her support system.

As bright and technicolor and musical as the cinematography accompanying the drugs may be – and there can be an argument that these features tend to glorify drug use – the series is ultimately a cautionary tale.

Episode 3 laid the groundwork for what will be yet another drop arc for Rue.

Here’s how it went.

Cal’s Summer INXS

The episode opens with high school student Cal Jacobs. Rue recounts the extended footage, saying Cal spent every day with his best friend, Derick. The two drive around listening to INXS, they attend wrestling practices together, they meet girls, they date girls, and then they graduate. All the while, the two share intimate and increasingly tense moments, culminating in a gay bar kiss on a rainy summer night before college.

And then the summer of love is shattered by a phone call. Cal learns that his girlfriend is pregnant, presumably, with Nate. He is crying.

Roll title credits.

The street is high, like…so high

HBO

Rue dances around her house to a song playing in her head. She is spotted by her sister who asks her if she is stoned. Rue then stops to explain to the audience in a lengthy fourth wall breaking sequence that she is in fact stoned; however, she has a cover. Realizing that there is no way to completely hide her drug use, she decided to plant the idea that she uses weed in the minds of her friends and family. Jules and his sister buy Rue’s ruse and attribute his fluctuating emotions to the use of weed.

With this knowledge, Jules forgives Rue for hiding her relationship with Elliot. Still, Jules thinks Elliot just wants to sleep with Rue, and she interrogates Elliot to find out. The two trade accusations of sexual promiscuity but seem to get along. Jules discovers that Elliot does not rigidly categorize his sexuality, having relationships with both genders. The three seem to become friends and start hanging out.

Sexuality often comes up in their conversations. In Rue’s absence, Jules and Elliot discuss libido. Elliot discovers that Rue and Jules are not sexually active. He tells Jules that he first assumed Rue might be asexual and asks how Rue’s libido impacted their relationship, given that Jules previously admitted she was a more sexual person than Rue. Elliot then says he’s attracted to Jules and proceeds to validate him. (It’s insinuated that Rue didn’t say these things to Jules.) The camera pauses, suggesting the two are having a moment. We’ll see how it goes in future episodes.

Lexi! Oklahoma!

HBO

Lexi is writing a play since the tense confrontation between Fez and Cal. Lexi realized that her lack of intervention stemmed from the fact that she was primarily an observer. She begins to write about her observations, particularly her relationship with her sister Cassie and their dysfunctional family. The play will be staged by the school, leading to a fake behind-the-scenes sequence of Lexi explaining to the audience (us) her idea of ​​making the supporting character the main character. The footage features BTS’s mock interviews with Rue, who plays a supporting character. This is all very meta and seems to echo an earlier point made by Rue in her own fourth wall breaking when she said that people seek solace in entertainment/TV (referring to the very show in which She is, Euphoria, and HBO.)

If ever there was a scene crying out for film students to analyze, it would be this scene.

Notice me, Nate!

HBO

Meanwhile, Cassie wakes up at 4 a.m. to spend more time on herself. Her self-care routine, however, is also designed to get Nate to notice her in the hallways. He does not do. Cassie convinces herself that Nate is actually a sewing-minded man, and the sequence ends with Cassie and Maddy walking side by side wearing the same outfit. Cassie then flees when she realizes Maddy is realizing.

Later in the episode, Cassie begins to silently break down and is about to tell Maddy that she is in love with Nate. She later tells Maddy that she (Maddy) deserves someone who actually cares about her (Maddy), even though it’s her (Cassie) who believes she (Cassie) deserves someone who cares. really care about her. her (Cassie). We then cut scenes of Nate definitely not caring about her (Cassie). The compassionate sex fantasies are interrupted by Nate being a fucking creep and hooking up with Cassie while her parents listen downstairs.

What is this show?

At the end of the episode, Nate shows up at Maddy’s daycare house with a bouquet of flowers.

The street is broken

HBO

Realizing she can’t financially support her drug use, Rue offers Fez (who refuses) and then later Fez Plug (the terse woman in that creepy apartment) to use her to sell drugs. (Instead of just, you know, getting a legal job to make money.) She says she can avoid harsher sentences because she’s underage and suggests that because her friends are worried about her. admission to university, they won’t.

The woman – who knows Rue is a drug addict – inexplicably gives him an injection, supplying him with $10,000 worth of drugs in a totally Discreet black suitcase. On the way out, the woman tells Rue that if Rue loses money to her, she will kidnap her and sell her to “real sick people”.

Rue later takes the totally discreet suitcase to NA where Ali confronts her outside. Rue (after learning about Alli’s past during that dinner party episode) calls Ali a bad father, leading him to give Rue an ultimatum: if she disrespects him again, he’s done with her. Rue again disrespects him, citing his previous domestic abuse. Ali leaves. Rue sits alone in her room and starts getting high. Here we go again.

Back to Cal

HBO

After learning that Nate doesn’t have the tape, Cal goes to see Fez. The ashtray gun repeatedly whips Cal with a shotgun while Fez interrogates him. Cal, assuming Fez has the tape and blackmailed Nate (an accusation, we are led to believe, that comes from Nate), asks Fez to return it. Fez, who has just learned that Cal had sex with an underage Jules, and realizing that Nate made his father sick, drops the bombshell: Nate is in love with Jules.

Cal is completely puzzled. Fez is completely perplexed. Fez allows a completely puzzled Cal to leave.

The tables have turned against Nate.

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