Review: 'Euphoria' Season 3 Is Chaotic Fan Fiction, but Proves Zendaya Can Do No Wrong

The third season of Euphoria has arrived, after much back and forth about whether or not it would materialize, and perhaps appropriately, it’s left any semblance of its former self behind. The three episodes made available for review chart a drastic shift for the series, not just in its five-year time jump but in the taste of fervent fan fiction that each leaves. This is a new era of Euphoria, one that is even more self-aware than the previous two incarnations while abandoning any hint of verisimilitude for which Sam Levinson’s watershed series became known.

Season 3 Picks Up Five Years After Season 2

It’s five years after the events of season two, and the East Highland gang hasn’t changed much. Rue (Zendaya) is working off her debt to drug dealer Laurie (Martha Kelly, this season’s MVP) by filling her intestines with golf-ball-sized bags of heroin and shepherding them over the Mexico-Texas border, sometimes with Fezco’s former trap-house girl Fay (Chloe Cherry). Maddy (Alexa Demie) is a high-powered manager for a super-hot star, while her former boyfriend Nate (Jacob Elordi) has taken over the family construction business and is about to marry Cassie (Sydney Sweeney). Meanwhile, Jules (Hunter Schafer) is earning her living as the kept woman of a married billionaire while still circling her flirtation with Rue.

Much like its characters, Euphoria’s third season is wrestling with some growing pains. But it’s a testament to the enduring power of these characters and the show itself that, even with some very poor writing on display, Euphoria can still command attention. In particular, the Nate/Cassie storyline seems at first to be in effect simply because Sweeney and Elordi are two of the hottest actors in the world at this moment, but the third episode takes events far beyond what we anticipated and makes a nice case for this being the most potent storyline of the season.

Zendaya Triumphs Over a Thin, Peculiarly Retooled Role

Things are less interesting on Rue’s behalf, though in no part due to Zendaya’s performance. She’s one of the most authentic and changeable actors to come along in a long while, and her talent is most visible when she’s saddled with sub-par action. Levinson has written Rue as a hyper-sexual, borderline predatory character in this season, which is an odd choice considering where the character has been and is now. It’s also a disappointingly wan touch in a show which is notable for its nuanced portrayals of characters that aren’t often seen on TV. The final moments of episode three set up a major reckoning for Rue moving forward; but at this point we are watching her character not to see what happens to her, but to see how Zendaya acts her way out of a proverbial corner.

Growing Pains Are Evident, But Not in Series' Elevated Style

But one element of season three works without caveat is the neo-noir inflected style, the trajectory of which can be clearly marked from season one. While Levinson may struggle to cleanly evolve his characters, the same cannot be said for his style. Season three develops itself as an eerie psychosexual thriller, something akin to the heyday of Brian De Palma but also not a million miles away from the sexy, adult headgames of Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape (1989) and Black Bag (2025).

A lushly photographed sequence in which Jules and her paramour engage in kinky foreplay in her penthouse apartment visually recalls the otherworldly horror of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy, a device which smartly brings us into the emotional state of the two characters. It’s a departure, but one which fits with the tone of the series. Whereas much of this current season feels like manic provocation in search of a target, it’s in these small touches that one remembers how potent the original seasons were and how indeibly they changed the television landscape.