Yes, I’m taking it all for us, oh
Reviewing the first episode
Doing it all for love
For HBO’s “Euphoria”
The long-awaited time has finally come. “Euphoria Sundays” are back with the premiere of season 3 debuting on April 12, 2026. Yes, baby, we’re back and… definitely not better.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Honestly, with the show initially premiering in 2019 and its third (possibly even final) season airing 7 years later, I’d expect that there would be some top-tier production; however, show writer and director, Sam Levinson, has had a grand change of heart regarding the show’s direction. While initially captivating viewers for its well-crafted, euphoric, indie, drug-hazed dream sequences and stellar soundtrack, the show has completely ditched its original formula, pun intended. The second season takes on a darker, grainier, surreal and yet, somehow real aesthetic and now its third season has taken a wild turn to the wild west.
We are dropped off several years after our beloved characters Rue, Maddy, Lexi, Jules, Nate and Cassie have graduated from high school. Gia has gone off to Arizona for school and Fez, R.I.P., has been written off to a 30-year jail sentence following the raid of his house at the end of the second season. With Angus Cloud, the actor who plays Fez, having passed away in 2023, audiences eagerly awaited how his death would be worked around in the show, especially with Fez being a character loved dearly by fans. For me, it felt like poor writing to cast Fez off to jail, but hopefully, as the season goes on, we will hear more about his character, specifically the budding romance that has faded, but isn’t completely gone between him and Lexi.
Rue, still in debt to Laurie for the suitcase debacle, is now working somewhere in California, traveling across the Mexico border as her drug mule to pay off her accumulated debt of $43 million, which Laurie has so generously agreed to knock down to $100,000.
Cassie and Nate, not-so-happily engaged, have adopted a conservative way of life and are having money troubles with Nate struggling to successfully head his father’s construction business. Cassie, effectively a trad-wife, is trying to become an OnlyFans star, posting lewd and provocative content for money, which she aspires to acquire to pay for the $50,000 bouquet Nate won’t pay for at their wedding. As shown through scenes of Cassie checking Maddy’s Instagram, we see that their relationship is still severed and she still yearns for her best friend.
Maddy works as a manager for celebrities and influencers, hence the several photos of celebrities on her Instagram page that Cassie so pitifully regularly checks; however, we see that her life, too, isn’t as glamorous as we’re led to believe. She is living in a basement, also having money trouble with several bills awaiting payment.
Lexi, our breakout star, is living in Los Angeles, working as a Production Assistant to Hollywood’s hottest shows, occasionally letting Rue couch surf in her apartment.
Kat has fallen off the face of the Earth following Barbie Ferreira’s departure from “Euphoria” sometime during the wrapping of season 2.
Jules, not shown during the episode, is mentioned by Lexi, who heard from Maddy that Jules is now a sugar baby, or a “hooker.” I will say that it’s nice to see that despite the fallout with Maddy and Cassie, she and Lexi, alongside Jules and Rue, are all still friends with one another.
The plot of this third season feels like a poorly executed rendition of Levinson’s other controversial project, “The Idol,” which stars Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd. With Rue merging worlds of drugs and sex, there are some weird scenes with her and Faye, played by Chloe Cherry, struggling to swallow several lubricated white balls filled with drugs to smuggle for Laurie. There’s a lot of gagging, spit and drool, making it not only gross, but close to some sort of grotesque reeking male sex fantasy. Alongside the prostitutes, there’s a huge amount of other freaky (in a derogatory way) sexual innuendos. Cassie is on her OnlyFans journey, dressing up as a dog, wagging her derriere on camera with a tail and drinking water from a bowl. And that’s just one of the several weird, conservative-esque fetish scenes. In Cassie and Nate’s discussion about OnlyFans, it feels very forcefully like propaganda branded as “women empowerment.”
Safe to say that we probably haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg for the weirdness that’s to come. And, secretly, I’m very intrigued to tune in for the madness of the next episode.