“Lexi, you’re a fucking G”…or how I came to respect Euphoria again.
Ok, so I was wrong about Euphoria. The penultimate episode was spectacular. While much of this season has felt like dangerous, high-tension torture porn, living in Lexi’s POV brought forth the tenderness that we’ve watched get obliterated over the course of the past two seasons.
Our Life offers up bits of rose-colored backstory and incisive contemporaneous commentary in turns.
While Euphoria the show bludgeons us with intimate portraits of addiction, and betrayal Our Life the play shows us a shadow version of the story we have watched unfold for 2 years.
A story of girls being girls, friends finding kindred spirits and friends holding on to each other for strength, it is a portrait of what they lost—a sense memory of what was.
In many ways, the play is almost a take on what we expect from high school shows. Indeed, one could imagine each vignette as an episode in as its own bizarro version of the Euphoria, one more positive and muted.
Outside of the universe of the play we still see the same tragedies slowly continue to simmer: Fezco and Fey each trying to carve out a tiny slice of happiness with doom and violence just a hare-trigger away. Leslie’s choice to “take Rue off her plate” — each storyline more devastating than the last.
Though it is not all tragedy, we do get bits of fun sprinkled in. Among the high points:
Mama Howard’s boozy support of her daughter’s play. Say what you want about her as a parent overall—at this moment—she was Mother of the Year.
Softspoken stage operator, you are an icon
Lexi sure did take to wielding power easily…
What can one say about a super gay locker room scene? Some things just speak for themselves
The rich lady that Maddy nannies for once again proves she is the real baddy of the series
Anyway, I am happy to see the show elevate and I am eager to see what comes next.