Euphoria - Seasons 1-2

“In Euphoria, women and girls suffer endlessly at the hands of men while being both sexualized and infantilized.”

Title: Euphoria
Episodes Reviewed: Seasons 1-2
Creator: Sam Levinson 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Sam Levinson 👨🏼🇺🇸 (all episodes) based on the Israeli TV series by Ron Leshem 👨🏼🇮🇱

Reviewed by Ishmeet Nagpal 👩🏽🇮🇳🌈♿

—SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 3/5

Euphoria explores the lives of high school students in a small American suburb through the point of view of Rue (Zendaya), a teenager struggling with drug addiction. Creator Sam Levinson based the story on personal experience, a familiarity that’s reflected right from the start when Rue says during the pilot, “It’s all I wanted. Those two seconds of nothingness.” Along with distinct cinematography and excellent music that heavily features artist Labrinth, Euphoria quickly established itself as a driver of pop culture. Zendaya’s breakout performance earned her multiple awards, including a Golden Globe, while bold make-up used by the show’s Gen Z characters spawned the “Euphoria Aesthetic” on social media.

It’s no question that Levinson serves up a pretty package. But it’s hard to fully support its ascension on HBO. On the one hand, Euphoria delivers important portrayals of youth addiction and mental health issues. On the other hand, scenes of high schoolers—especially high school girls—having graphic sex are filmed with uncomfortable voyeurism, bordering on exploitation. Any discerning viewer understands that the show’s unhappy and abused characters aren’t meant to be aspirational. But it’s telling that Levinson’s body of work has often been called “torture porn”; with Euphoria, this description absolutely applies.

So why do people tune in? Is it akin to watching an escapist show like Gossip Girl, where teenagers make a mess of their lives and nobody attends class? Or is there a twisted pleasure found in the scandalous sex scenes that imagine high school children naked on screen, while technically remaining aboveboard because their actors are adults in their early 20s?

On the whole, the show is unsettling, made more so by its real-world context that blurs boundaries between reality and fiction. Levinson discovered adult performer Chloe Cherry on Instagram and cast her in Season 2 as Faye, a young woman who hangs out with drug dealers and uses heroin. Cherry then went on to film a porn parody of underage characters from Euphoria. And multiple actors have spoken out about unsafe working conditions, including complaints about being asked to perform unnecessary nudity. Martha Kelly, who plays a drug dealer named Laurie, describes how she felt about Laurie stripping Rue naked and injecting drugs into her veins. “The scene was even creepier because Laurie is helping her undress and get in the tub,” she says, “and it is approaching this gross pedophilia vibe.”

Euphoria’s controversies toy with ethics around how actors are treated, and around nude images of characters who are still minors. Wherever you think the show falls on the scale of what’s acceptable, chances are, you’ll still wind up feeling queasy.

Gender: 2.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? FAILS SPECTACULARLY

Euphoria especially leans into nudity in Season 1, with most of it involving female characters who are meant to be 17 years old—underage in several U.S. states, including California, where the show is implied to take place. Considering that the hypersexualization of girls in media is such a problem that the American Psychological Association has dedicated an entire task force to combating it, Euphoria isn’t doing young women any favors.

Not only do they bear the brunt of slut-shaming, rape, revenge porn, and intimate partner abuse, the script and art direction reinforce that sexism. Women’s inner lives are presented as one-dimensional afterthoughts, and the camera often lingers suggestively on their bodies—especially on Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), and even in scenes where they are being sexually assaulted.

It’s not just the graphic content itself, but the blatant male gaze employed that makes these scenes disturbing. Plus the visuals are not the only problem. At one point, Rue (as the narrator) provides this disturbing justification about her classmate Maddy’s (Alexa Demie) first experience of sex: “When she was 14 on vacation she met a guy who was like 40 which in retrospect seems kind of rapey and weird, but honestly, she was the one in control.” The only girl among the main ensemble to escape objectification is Cassie’s younger sister, Lexi (Maude Apatow), but even her character falls for an adult man.

To its credit, Euphoria does not sugarcoat how awful men and boys can be. However, it also goes to great lengths to explore why men turn violent or abusive, humanizing characters like Nate (Jacob Elordi) in the process. No such courtesy is afforded to most of the female cast, including his on-again-off-again girlfriend Maddy who is portrayed simply as a “gold digger” and a liar.

And when female friendships do come up, they’re also at the mercy of the boys in their lives. Childhood best friends Maddy and Cassie end up physically fighting over Nate. And the only queer relationship, between Rue and Jules (Hunter Schafer), goes sour when they include Elliot (Dominic Fike) in their lives. Women on the show rarely have moments where they can be themselves without considering what men think of them. Euphoria takes the worst stereotypes about girlhood and boyhood and runs with them, making every character a cautionary tale instead of a three-dimensional person.

Race: 3.5/5

The protagonist, Rue, has a Black mother and white father. But Euphoria avoids any commentary around what it’s like to navigate a largely white town as someone who’s mixed-race. That said, there’s some racial diversity though Latinas Maddy (Demie, who has Mexican ancestry) and Kat (played by Brazilian American Barbie Ferreira), who are part of the main group. In Season 2, we also see the addition of Dominic Fike (Filipino, Haitian, and African American) as Elliot, and Veronica Taylor (who is Black) as an adorable side character named Bobbi.

Black characters do enjoy some nuance. Rue’s mother Leslie (Nika King) is shown as supportive, taking care of Rue and her younger sister Gia (Storm Reid), while also having the room to make mistakes. Rue’s sponsor Ali (Colman Domingo, who’s Afro-Latino) also appears in several episodes, often wearing a Muslim taqiyah (skullcap).

Euphoria only broaches the topic of race once across the first two seasons, but it’s done well. In a flashback to a football game, 11-year-old sports prodigy Chris McKay (portrayed by twins Yohance and Zakai Biagas-Bey, who are Black) experiences racism when an opponent whispers a slur into his ear. Chris looks to his father (Cranston Johnson) for understanding, but is dismissively told to bottle up his anger and channel it into football. Through this scene, viewers understand how racism can fan the fires of toxic masculinity, when Black boys are faced with discrimination but given no healthy outlets to process their emotions.

LGBTQ: 2.5/5

One of the main characters, Jules, is trans (played by trans actor Schafer) and began hormone replacement therapy at age 13. The show never deadnames or misgenders her, and she’s shown grappling with her gender in ways that feel realistic to a young person exploring their identity. In Season 2, we start to see Jules experimenting with gender expression, wearing binders and cutting her hair short. She also dates different characters, such as Rue before they include Elliot (who refuses to label his sexuality) into their relationship. Rue herself displays asexual tendencies, whereas Jules and Elliot share more sexual intimacy. To quote a line from one of Jules’ childhood friends, portrayed by nonbinary actor Bobbi Salvör Menuez, “Queerness is infinite.”

It’s unfortunate, then, that Euphoria also uses the cliché of portraying repressed gay men as abusers, seen in other teen shows like Sex Education (2019–23). Nate struggles with homosexual urges, projecting his self-loathing outwards and harming everyone around him. He attacks Jules repeatedly, saying “I know what you are” in a threatening undertone at a party, and blackmailing her, among other transphobic aggressions. He hits Maddy and chokes her.

Nate also has a complicated and violent relationship with his father, Cal (Eric Dane). Both father and son exhibit clear signs of internalised homophobia. And the show uses this to box both characters into the gay villain stereotype. The indulgent flashbacks to Cal’s unfulfilled love story with his male best friend during their childhood are clearly an attempt to humanize him. But Cal is now a middle-aged man who rapes strangers and records the encounters without consent. Is it really necessary to tug at the viewer’s heartstrings by implying that his violence stems from the pain of having to hide his homosexuality? Whatever the intent, it looks like a lazy attempt to queer code the bad guy.

Bonus for Disability: +1.00

At the heart of Rue’s story is a heartbreaking struggle with drug abuse. She also has several mental illnesses including OCD, anxiety, and bipolar disorder—all diagnosed from an early age. When she’s caught between immense stressors, from active shooter drills at school to sexual harassment and rape threats from peers, the eventual death of her beloved father sends Rue into a downspiral.

Levinson might not be especially empathetic to experiences outside of his own, but he does understand addiction and the impact it has on family members. The dark and uncomfortable places Euphoria goes to deliver this story absolutely strike a chord.

Deduction for Body Diversity: -1.00

On the downside, why is it that every time a piece of media deals with a fat person they feel the need to include scenes of them eating, shot specifically to look “disgusting” with crumbs falling everywhere? Representation is great, but not when it’s stereotypical. In Euphoria, Kat is the token fat girl in a sea of stick-thin bodies. Whether she counts as a botched attempt at “empowerment,” or just another way to fetishize fat girls, it doesn’t work. The writing makes the mistake of tying her value to her sexuality; only by becoming a sex worker, and by having random sexual encounters with adults, does Kat ever appear confident. And her characterization could’ve been even worse; Levinson reportedly wanted the character to have an eating disorder, which caused a rift with Ferreira (who disagreed). “Sam writes, for like, things that he relates to,” she says on Armchair Expert with Dax Shephard after parting ways with Euphoria. “I don’t think he relates to Kat.”

Mediaversity Grade: C- 2.88/5

It’s impossible to separate Levinson’s other work, like HBO’s The Idol (2023), from Euphoria. In many of his stories, women and girls suffer endlessly at the hands of men while being both sexualized and infantilized. Euphoria does manage to capture reality in some respects, but there are no good intentions behind lingering close-ups of Sydney Sweeney’s naked breasts when she’s meant to be portraying a 17 year old. It’s just sleazy, lecherous, and all the other creepy adjectives.

Like Euphoria? Try these other teen shows with darker themes.

Grade: CLiApril 26, 2025Great for: Disability