“Euphoria” Weekly Season Finale Weekly Review: An Open Door Closes

EUPHORIA

SEASON 2, EPISODE 8 “ALL MY LIFE, MY HEART HAS YEARNED FOR SOMETHING I CANNOT NAME”

EDITOR’S RATING: ★☆☆☆☆

Contains major spoilers.

What is it about “Euphoria” that keeps me coming back every week? It’s not the stunning cinematography (they dropped most of that this season), its trademark ambience and fluorescent environment (that’s gone too), or its well-crafted plots (season two struggles with consistency throughout). Perhaps every loosely unresolved ending, which is both stylistically and structurally aggravating, leaves me longing for closure. 

“Euphoria” can’t even remain structurally adequate after setting up an eye roll-worthy ‘to be continued’ cliffhanger last episode. It seems like every risk “Euphoria” takes this season incontinently backfires in its face. The beginning of “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For Something I Cannot Name” doesn’t even acknowledge last week’s plot and had me asking myself,  “are we trying out nonlinear storytelling?” 

This cluttered approach could be applaudable if it was done right, but it can’t help but come across as if even the writers are done with this season. This is “Euphoria,” not “Twin Peaks.”

Beyond its first couple minutes of confusion, it’s clear that we’re reliving the events of Lexi’s opening night in Fez’s point of view as he readies himself for “Our Life.” This led me to think “we’ve already seen this before!” What we’re witnessing at the beginning of episode eight is simply an extended version of what we didn’t get to see last episode. At this point, it’s clear that episode eight is nothing more than a direct continuation of episode seven; I was extremely disappointed in the wake of this revelation. 

Again, this may have worked if episode seven was interesting enough to stand on its own, but with a show that relentlessly suffers with pacing and plot, why did stretching out an already irrelevant plot  seem like a good idea to those in the “Euphoria” writing room?

Firstly, I take my previous praise all back—I was not at all on board with Fez and Lexi this episode. Their stunted conversations were blurring such an odd line between being friends or more. Either their fleeting development before Cassie takes the lead suffers from bad writing, or these two are really incompatible!

Speaking of Cassie, we are undoubtedly subjected to her absolute breakdown teased by last week’s cliffhanger; she stands proudly on East Highland’s stage, rips “Our Life” to shreds, and attempts to gain approval and praise from the audience members. Instead, she’s left with a whole bunch of awkward silence until Maddy begins directly responding to an audience member questioning why the character based on Cassie is so awful. Soon enough, an explosive fight ensues where Maddy finally unleashes on Cassie, resulting from a season-long internal struggle. This had to be the sliver of satisfaction that the episode offers — this edge-of-your-seat setup was, dare I say, well-crafted? 

It may be rare that I praise “Euphoria” this season, but this culmination offered substantial hope that was later crushed by the remainder of the episode.

From this point on, it seems that Ashtray is only digging his, Fez, and Faye’s graves more and more as he unnecessarily pounces on (and kills) Culter; which escalates to a deadly encounter with the police, eventually costing him his own life. Whatever emotions I was supposed to feel during this “plot twist,” if we can even call it that, were not felt in the slightest. Ashtray’s abrupt and messily executed death felt so out of place that it throws off the steady climax the first thirty minutes of the episode tried to establish.

Javon Walton (who plays Ashtray) coincidentally shared that Fez was meant to die instead of Ashtray and that the death was changed last-minute, which only cements my belief that everything “Euphoria’s” second season had to offer was a weak, last-minute attempt that abandoned anything consistent with its debut season.

What bothers me the most is that the show conveniently forgets to address Rue’s colossal debt to Laurie after the events of “Stand Still Like The Hummingbird,” and instead decides to devote four minutes of precious screen time to an unbearable song Elliot sings to Rue. “I think you might’ve accidentally saved my life,” Rue tells Elliot. If we’re touching on the idea that Rue made a considerable amount of progress, why is the “closure” we receive so lackluster? 

What’s most heartbreaking about “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For Something I Cannot Name” isn’t the sudden death of one of the show’s most beloved characters, it’s the absolute lack of closure that disarms the grueling journey viewers went through this season. Even the attempt to end the season on a bittersweet note—Rue kisses Jules on the forehead and exits the theater, which subduedly confirms she’s finally moved on—falls so underwhelmingly flat and showcases that “Euphoria” is out of things to offer.

Nonetheless, it’s no surprise to me that “Euphoria” has been renewed for a third season said to premiere two years from now. Will its rapid popularity increase only push it farther down the rabbit hole? Or will Sam Levinson’s plans for the third season get “Euphoria” back on track?

As Maddy says in season two’s final minutes, “this is only the beginning.”