By Tyler Banark

Season three of Euphoria has finally arrived after being in the works for years! In my opinion, the first two seasons are a rollercoaster of emotions, with a talented cast, amazing music, and cinematography. However, the writing, mostly done by showrunner Sam Levinson, is shaky. He made the show come off as though it was oversexualizing the high school experience with risque costumes and a musical number in season two having explicit imagery. He had also dumbed down several characters to certain tropes, making audiences question whether he’s wasting the potential of the actors involved. It really put people like me in a rock-and-a-hard-place situation. Season 3 Episode 1, titled Ándale, shows that not only is the show back, but so are Levinson’s heinous antics. 

For most of the episode, Levinson has the show spend its time catching the audience up on where a lot of our characters have been: the ones who came back and the ones who left. For those who returned: Rue is a drug mule for Laurie; Nate and Cassie are engaged; Maddy is a talent manager; and Lexi is a PA on a Warner Bros. soap opera. In particular, Rue is having a change of heart in her faith, as she recently met a devout Christian family and is starting to build a relationship with God. Her newfound faith gets put to the test towards the end of the episode, but it prevails. 

Cassie has become an erotic influencer and convinced Nate to let her do OnlyFans so they can afford the wedding she wants. Although the house they currently live in would suggest they both make enough to do so, Nate’s in the process of rebuilding his dad’s construction company. Lexi tells Rue that Jules is now a sugar baby in New York, but we didn’t see her at all. All of this playing catch-up has me worried that Levinson is hogging writing duties once more and forcing his cast to do whatever he wants. It’s not a good look, as this happened in season two, but a small part of me is optimistic (somehow) that things will change.

For the cast members who didn’t return, Levinson found ways to incorporate them with simple write-offs. Rue’s sister Gia (played previously by Storm Reid) is attending college in Arizona, and Fezco (the late Angus Cloud) is in jail for 30 years because of the events of the season two finale. No word on what happened to Kat and Ethan (played by Barbie Ferreira and Austin Abrams, respectively), but I don’t think we’ll hear anything since Ferreira argued with Levinson a lot during production of season two. I’ll be curious to see what comes of season two addition Elliot here, as Dominic Fike got demoted to a guest appearance for this season. Elliot was a controversial character last season, so that could’ve played a part in his demotion. I wonder if anything more will come of these characters, but we’re only one episode in, so we’ll see. 

A lot has been left to be interpreted about what will come of Euphoria season 3, but there’s still a lot of show left to see. Everyone is doing their thing, even if it’ll leave audiences shaking their heads, jaws on the floor, and the cast seems to be phoning it in thus far. Ándale was more focused on reminding audiences where our characters were, where they are now, and providing exposition. It’s a double-edged sword approach to start the season, but I sure hope Sam Levinson turns things around. If this season ends up being like season two, things may look dour. For now, I’ll tolerate the start to this season!

2 ½