I honestly thought the last season of HBO’s Euphoria would never see the light of day.  The first season came out in 2019, the second season came out 2022, and this one came four years later. It’s striking to see a show so famous for its visuals make a complete pivot from grungy glittery public high school to the warm tones of a Western. 

We follow Rue’s misadventures as a drug mule for Laurie in Mexico. The show explores new locations as we watch her encounter a random family farm in the middle of nowhere and interact with the new antagonist, Alamo Brown. Brown is a pimp who buys drugs from Laurie.  The first time we see this man, he is wearing a cowboy hat, a robe, and a Speedo. 

Mind you, this is also the outfit in which he played Russian roulette with an apple on Rue’s head. So if this doesn’t give Western, I don’t know what does. But even with this change, I feel like the show still keeps the aspect of lush visual aesthetics, even though they can be extremely disturbing at times. 

The exception of this is when we see scenes that take certain aspects too far. Like when Rue and Faye are getting the balloons out of their system, we see a dog lick the feces off of Faye’s butt, which is not something I thought I would see that Sunday night. Or, seeing Cassie pretend to be a dog for her social media page. With these types of scenes, you can always tell that they are for shock value, and with this show’s track record, we are bound to see shocking things. I guess I just wish that they would happen in a different way.

Now on to the characters we’ve seen in this episode.

First, let’s start off with the girl of the hour, Rue. I feel like with previous seasons, we’ve learned that Rue Bennett is always going to get herself into some trouble. This season is no exception. The fact that the money owed to Laurie went from 10k to 43 million, then dwindled down to 100k is still crazy work. Later in the episode, we see her stay longer at a pimps place than expected, leaving her in an altercation between Alamo and Laurie because of drugs that were laced.

I feel like with the Rue we see now, we know that even with how messed up her life is, she is still trying to improve it.  I kinda have to give her props for it. It’s nice to see her still have connections with people who care about her, like Ali and Lexi, especially when in previous seasons she hurt them with her actions in some type of way. She is even getting into Christianity, of all things. 

You can tell that with this choice that she is trying to find a greater purpose and to be happy. Like the family on the farm that she met. She saw that they were perfectly content with their lives, and she just wanted to be content too. Christianity is her way of getting that. Do I think that is going to be the thing that sustains her, especially with this new plot line we are about to go through? No. What happens with Rue is that she looks for answers in the wrong places, and that is how she stays in trouble, but maybe when it comes to these odds against her, she may rise above it (even though I don’t really know how she’s gonna get out of this).

Now let’s talk about the lovely couple…

When it comes to the relationship of Nate Jacobs and Cassie Howard, I think that I could speak for the masses when I say I’m upset to see them on my screen together. 

I’m truly suspicious of Nate and his behavior this season. Simply because he’s too calm when it comes to his construction issues and the wedding with Cassie. Just a reminder, in the first episode of the series, we see him threatening Jules at a party. Moving forward, we see him conduct acts of terror to the people around him, especially the women in his life. His warming up to the idea of Cassie and OnlyFans made me raise an eyebrow.

I’m honestly waiting for him to do something; he just seems off to me. Except for him driving a Tesla, now that I understand completely.

Now with Cassie, I’m really disappointed with how they took her character in the first episode. I feel like, with a lot of the female characters in this show, they haven’t really been portrayed in the best way, and I truly think that Cassie is the prime example of this. Having the opening scene of her pretending to be a dog for content was shocking. Then later in the episode, we see her planning a career on OnlyFans, so she could pay for 50K in flowers of all things. 

We see that she wants her wedding to be this extravagant thing for it not to be “ghetto” in her terms. But it’s not just that, it’s also her wanting the house to represent this specific vision that she has for her life. We see that she is unfulfilled with how her life is, especially after seeing that she stalks Maddy on Instagram, watching the new life she is living. We see that she keeps wanting more, but I think when she eventually gets what she wants, it’s not going to be like what she imagined.

I also think that both Nate and Cassie think about Maddy a lot. What I think is going to happen is that Cassie is going to bring Maddy on as a manager for her social media, and that is going to cause a rift in the relationship between Nate and Cassie. I think it’s going to be clear that they both still think about Maddy in some way. Which is going to cause everything to blow up.

Speaking of Maddy, even though we see her a little bit in this episode, I’m glad she is doing okay. I think the managing job is a good fit for her. 

Literally the only problem with this job is that it doesn’t make enough money. Which is why I think she’s going to look for other job opportunities, like more clients. While looking for those clients, she’s going to run into Cassie, which is how I think they are going to reunite in this season. I don’t know what’s going to come out of her reuniting with the couple. If she gets revenge in some way, I wouldn’t blame her. If she gets a business opportunity out of this, then good for her. I don’t know where this plotline is going to go, but the one thing I do know is that it’s going to be one hell of a ride.

Now, to move on with Lexi, I’m glad that she got a job in Hollywood. I think that with the greatness that was her play, it was bound to happen. We get to see her around people she admires, gain respect from her boss, and maybe a new love interest, too. In the show, Fez got put in jail to explain why we don’t see him this season. We all know that this is because of the passing of Angus Cloud, who played the character of Fez. With this explanation, I think we are going to go through a storyline where we see her move on with what could have been with Fez, and if we do, I hope it’s done in the most respectful way possible. 

Even though Jules is supposed to be in this season, she wasn’t present in the first episode. I personally think that was to add mystery to her character and what she’s up to now. Especially since Lexi revealed to Rue that Jules is a sugar baby. I hope the writers make her storyline an interesting one, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

This first episode overall feels empty. A great chunk of the cast is not in the show for one reason or another. It kinda feels like we are getting scraps of the story when we got to know a wide cast of characters from previous seasons. 

I can tell that this last season is going to be entertaining, but I’m not sure that it’ll be good. I truly wonder if this season is going to give these characters the justice of having a compelling narrative, especially since I think that this could be the last season of the show. While I can’t answer if that’s going to happen right now, I do know that I’m going to be seated every Sunday to see if they do.