By Carly Novell, News and Opinions EIC
Euphoria’s season two viewership rose by nearly 100% compared to its first season. By the hour after the newest episodes aired this season, Twitter and TikTok were filled with spoilers, fan theories, inspired makeup looks and outfits. Despite its record-breaking viewership and inspiring content, many fans were left disappointed by the season’s eight-episode arc.
The season’s premiere had viewers excited for what was to come, but by the eighth episode, the show was left with plot holes and neglected storylines. Twitter users say the only person to blame for this is the showrunner: Sam Levinson.
Similar to the show itself, Levinson has been both praised and scrutinized for the job he did with Euphoria. Levinson is the show’s creator, director, producer and sole writer. While most shows have a collaborative writers’ room, Levinson is wholly responsible for the majority of the content in Euphoria, which makes it easy for fans to blame him for what they dislike about the show.
Fans noticed that the character of Kat (played by Barbie Ferreira) was completely whittled down compared to the first season. Ferreira was also missing from the season premiere. The Daily Beast reported that the actress stormed off set twice, and that she had disagreements with Levinson over her character’s trajectory. In watching the show, this was very apparent. The scenes that Kat was in felt out of place, random and inconsistent compared to the show’s first season. It almost seemed as if Levinson was punishing the actress for disagreeing with his creative liberty.
Rather than spending time on the characters that audiences got to know and love in season one like Kat and Jules, Euphoria wasted precious moments of the season on Nate and Cal Jacobs. Specifically, one episode spent about 15 minutes on Cal’s backstory of unrequited love as if that excuses his actions in the present. The trope of Cal being a gay man, who is a pedophile, is especially harmful because homosexuality has a history of conflation with pedophilia.
The show has also been criticized for its excessive amount of nudity. Multiple actors on the show have spoken candidly about Levinson’s plan for nude scenes that sometimes felt unnecessary. A common joke among fans is that Levinson writes nude scenes for his own gratification.
HBO is known for its graphic content, but Euphoria takes this to a new level, especially considering that the show is supposed to be about teenagers. Scenes like Nate fantasizing about impregnating Cassie feel unnecessary and uncomfortable. Maybe these scenes are supposed to be uncomfortable, but it feels more like a waste of time when thinking about all the plotlines that were left open such as the Jules-Rue-Elliott love triangle.
While plot holes can be filled in later seasons, it does a disservice to fans when they have to wait until 2024 for a new season. One of the reasons that seasons of the show take so long to film is because Levinson does not come to set with a shot list. Shoots can last from 16 to 18 hours long because of this.
“Most of the dailies of Euphoria are just me yelling out lines off-camera and then seeing what happens,” Levinson explained in a conversation with Interview Magazine.
It is important to allow flexibility during production, but it is unfair to the cast and crew for Levinson to be unprepared in this manner, and it affects the outcome of the show.
Euphoria is visually stunning, undeniably entertaining and suspenseful, but it leaves viewers wanting more which isn’t always a good thing. Regardless of its problems, this won’t impact the viewership because fans are invested no matter the outcome which is why it is such a successful show. However, next season would be a lot better if it incorporated a writers’ room so that Levinson isn’t dictating as much during productions.
