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Euphoria Specials Review

HBO Max released two specials for Euphoria – one at the end of 2020 and the other at the beginning of 2021. These special episodes were obviously made on the cheap due to budgetary constraints of the Covid era, but that reflected well on character development as it let us rewind and spend quality time with our two main ladies.

Part 1: Rue

This is the better of the two specials. Rue meets Ali at dinner and the two have a spirited, moving discussion about life, death and everything in-between. This is an incredible episode that is actually my favorite so far in the series’ run. It was a difficult thing to do – to have an episode so confined in its setting and character count – but when it’s this well made, not only did I have no issues with its cheapness, but I actually loved every second of it.

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I haven’t talked about Ali before in my Season 1 review, but he is this mentor of sorts for our heroine, a guy who shares addiction problems and disillusionment with life and people with Rue herself. Colman Domingo portrays him and his performance is simply phenomenal and one of the best of the series, showcasing his undeniable talents as an actor.

Rue is humanized here quite a bit and we get to see that she’s after all a very good person. There is a lot of emphasis here on her thoughts and ideas about the world and I particularly loved the discussions about religion, death and morality. There is this incredibly heartbreaking moment toward the end where Rue signals that she doesn’t want to live for much longer, which honestly touched me deeply. But the special episode still ended on an optimistic note, which was wonderful. It’s an essential glimpse at the current era’s disillusionment, nihilism and hopelessness.

My Rating – 5

Part 2: Jules

This second special was quite inferior to the first one unfortunately. It’s still solid television, but nowhere near as emotionally engaging or as thematically and philosophically sophisticated as the former. Jules talks to her psychiatrist about her current issues and the bulk of the episode concerns her grappling with her transition, femininity and gender identity and what these things really mean for her. It was brave for the show to even tackle the idea of detransitioning and the different ideas and goals that might drive people to transition in the first place.

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This element worked in the episode, but other elements did not suffice. In particular, the flashbacks to her sexting with Nate were over-indulgent and too lengthy. They tackled the mysterious allure of anonymous sexting very well, but still they felt repetitious toward the end. This episode emphasizes Sam Levinson’s obsession with music video-style filmmaking, which really got the best of him in this particular instance.