The end of “Euphoria”: Somewhere between Manosphere and Christian propaganda

In 2019, the first season about a group of teenagers in suburban California was a huge success for HBO and made the cast, particularly Zendaya, Jacob Elordi and Sydney Sweeney, Hollywood stars. The show provoked excessive drug use, sex and violence, and looked so good that you could safely ignore the dubious script.

Based on the Israeli miniseries of the same name, showrunner and sole screenwriter Sam Levinson, son of director Barry Levinson, dealt with his own experiences as a teenage drug addict with “Euphoria”. Zendaya won two Emmys for Best Actress for her role as protagonist Rue, who is addicted to opiates.

Four years between the two seasons

It took over four years for “Euphoria” to come back with a third season. Four years of negative headlines: crew members complained about a “toxic” work environment while filming the second season. Barbie Ferrera, who played one of the protagonists Kat, left the series. She said in interviews that she no longer saw any development for her character. “I didn’t want to just be the fat best friend.”

Actresses Minka Kelly and Sydney Sweeney said they objected to certain nude scenes in “Euphoria” because they viewed them as unnecessary, which Levinson accepted. By the time his new show “The Idol” started on HBO in 2023, it became clear: Sam Levinson has a problem with women. The series, about a pop star who begins an affair with a cult leader, received scathing reviews, being called “torture porn” and criticized by The Guardian as “one of the worst shows ever made.”

It’s a miracle that Levinson was able to get his “Euphoria” stars together again. At the season premiere in Los Angeles, Zendaya only appeared for a few minutes and was not photographed with Levinson or the cast. Rumor has it that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with Sydney Sweeney, who has become something of a poster girl for the New Right in the USA since a controversial jeans campaign and the announcement of her registration as a Republican.

So the conditions weren’t the best for the third season, which takes place a few years later than its predecessor. The characters are now in their early twenties and, curiously, almost all of the protagonists have ended up in the world of sex work. Rue first has to work off debts as a drug courier for a Nazi gang until she joins the crew of the strip club magnate and pimp Alama Brown (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who also seems to be involved in human trafficking on the side.

Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) marries Nate (Jacob Elordi), who is in debt to a group of Armenians, after which she makes a name for herself as an Only Fans model – and earns a lot of money. She is managed by her former best friend, the proud Maddy (Alexa Demie), who tries to gain a foothold in Hollywood as an agent, but then prefers to concentrate on the much more lucrative world of online porn. Actually as a manager, in the end she also has to pay off debts to Alamo with sex.

The trans woman Jules (Hunter Schafer), who was one of the most important characters in the first two seasons and set out to study art, practically no longer plays a role in the third season – but of course she also prostitutes herself. She dropped out of art university and instead paints alone in the luxury loft of a married man whose “sugar baby” she is.

Only the ambitious Lexi (Maude Apatow) pursues a career as a screenwriter in Hollywood and shakes her head at the ambitions of her former classmates, but, like Jules, is only seen in a few scenes. Instead, Levinson spends a lot of time with the two rival gangs, the fentanyl-selling Nazis and the Alamo crew.

He was obviously much more interested in making a Western gangster epic than the sequel to “Euporia.” The whole thing looks great as usual, the music comes from Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer. You couldn’t have made more money. But for what purpose?

Is it a criticism of Gen Z, who seem to have nothing else on their minds than clicks and attention at all costs? But “Euphoria” itself has always functioned according to the logic of social media: provocation in order to provoke as many reactions as possible. Trolling, you could also call it.

Cassie, now a famous Only Fans girl, reels off Manosphere phrases about “man as hunter” in various podcasts. This is supposed to be satire, but it seems hypocritical given how much fun Levinson seems to take in degrading his female characters.

One of the actors died of a fentanyl overdose

Or does Levinson want to teach us about the dangers of drugs? In the final episode, he has Rue’s mentor Ali (Colman Domingo) give a long speech about the dangers of fentanyl, complete with statistics on how many young people are dying from it in the United States. Quite understandable, since Levinson lost one of his “Euphoria” actors, Angus Cloud, to a fentanyl overdose in 2023. But the serious tone doesn’t fit into the nihilistic “Euphoria” Edgelord universe.

Is the show ultimately Christian propaganda? In the third season, the Bible is quoted throughout, Rue recognizes God in a burning Joshua tree and, in the final scene, Ali finds himself on a Christian family’s self-sufficient farm, where he finally seems to find peace.

Sam Levinson told the New York Times that he found the ending to be hopeful. So is that the moral of the story? The American dream is not fulfilled by quick fame, money, sex or drugs, but only by returning to the simple life with God. The final image in the series is the American flag blowing in the wind next to the yard. Perhaps this is the ultimate provocation: “Euphoria” as a conservative manifesto. At least no one would have expected that.