HBO
It says quite a bit about Euphoria’s second season that final week’s episode, primarily centered on the present’s important protagonist and central narrative, felt oddly like a standalone occasion. To this point, this season has largely reveled within the explosive secrets and techniques and underlying pressure amongst (a few of) the present’s supporting forged and has typically been extra entertaining when doing so than when spotlighting Rue’s struggles with sobriety. Even when these moments aren’t executed completely—and we nonetheless have some plot holes and unfastened threads hanging round—you may inform that Sam Levinson is having extra enjoyable leaning into the sequence’ extra frivolous, soap-y and even comedic features than expounding on boilerplate concepts about dependancy.
Likewise, “A Thousand Little Timber of Blood” solely spends about 20 minutes with Rue following the harrowing occasions of the previous 24 hours. This seems like an acceptable dose on condition that Rue is kind of actually shaking, crying and throwing up, as Twitter likes to say, your complete time as she waits for an open mattress at a rehab facility. Nonetheless, this episode options what I think about a extra vital improvement than what we’ve seen over the previous two weeks, in that she mends issues with Ali after throwing his abusive previous in his face a number of episodes in the past.
Rue’s demons are outlined greatest when she’s being psychoanalyzed by Ali relatively than narrating via her internal monologue, as seen in her 2020 particular. Therefore, their reunion may have performed with out Levinson’s clunky dissertation on why everybody in our society is a cop by way of Rue’s voiceover. Her concise, tearful apology to him over the telephone is transferring and emphatic sufficient by itself.
Upon accepting Rue’s apology, Ali visits the Bennetts and prepares them dinner. The humorous banter and chemistry inside their makeshift household feels very lived-in and speaks to how a lot their explicit unit thrives with a father determine current. All through these scenes, there’s a uncommon concentrate on Gia, who has been traumatized by her sister’s dependancy however not given a lot in the best way of introspection past the truth that she’s emotionally drained.
The remainder of the episode largely belongs to Nate, as we circle again to his house life following Cal’s departure and regardless of the hell is occurring with that DVD. It turns into clear on this hour how Nate has insidiously grow to be a unifying power in a reasonably indifferent ensemble, accruing fraught entanglements with a number of of his classmates. Moreover, he’s quietly made for one in every of Euphoria’s extra intriguing characters, given how self-contained he's. And within the moments he’s violent and intimidating, it reads so clearly like a masks.
Therefore, it’s simple to scale back what Jacob Elordi is doing on-screen to a normal highschool douchebag efficiency. However there’s a form of moodiness he carries and the awkward method through which he wears his masculinity all through this episode that feels very James Dean-esque, along with his bodily look resembling that of a traditional Hollywood main man.
Regardless of Cal’s exit, the Jacobs are nonetheless a totally dysfunctional, loveless family, as seen throughout an alcohol-fueled dialog between Nate and Marsha. Like Cal, Marsha appears disgusted within the boy Nate has grow to be however is oddly encouraging of his poisonous methods, together with his abuse of Maddy in season one. The contradictory nature of her mothering is seen in Nate’s actions afterward within the episode, through which he makes an attempt to redeem himself for his earlier bullying however has to commit one other act of terror to take action.
However first, on the Howard residence, Lexi and Suze are hiding kitchen knives in bushes in case Cassie decides to kill herself following her and Nate’s affair being uncovered. The monster that inhabited Rue’s physique final week has seemingly been transferred to Cassie, who’s at her most deranged this episode. After watching Cassie wail on a kitchen flooring and attempt to stab herself with a corkscrew, it’s honest to say that Levinson has squeezed all of the comedy and leisure out of this explicit situation. At this level, it’s virtually offensively passé how totally hysterical this lady is over a man who treats her like trash, notably when season one’s finale noticed her try to achieve some personhood past her relationships with boys.
Lexi is worried that the portrayal of Cassie in her play will ship her over the sting. So she goes to Fez’s home to get his recommendation, which then turns right into a viewing of Stand by Me and a cute sing-a-long of the titular tune. Levinson has been unusually cussed in depicting their romance—if it would even totally blossom into that—all through the season, given how a lot of the present revolves round that form of drama. However his resistance to go all-in with Lexco is a refreshing departure, contemplating how rapidly the relationships on this present are corrupted.
Talking of which, Maddy is rage-texting Cassie and ruminating on methods to break her life. Alternatively, she hasn’t despatched Nate a single textual content, which leads him to consider that she’s going to launch his father’s intercourse tape as revenge and break his dream of inheriting Cal’s real-estate enterprise. (Apparently, Cal just about disavowing him as a baby hasn’t ruined this hope). In an equally terrifying and ridiculously over-the-top scene, he pops up in Maddy’s home like Michael Myers and taunts her with a gun till she offers up the DVD. Even after she fingers it over, he places the gun to her head once more to additional traumatize her.
Unusually, that is all so Nate can have a restorative second by giving the tape to Jules as a substitute of destroying it. It’s unclear whether or not he believes she’ll be moved sufficient by his kindness to not share it with anybody else. In any other case, it doesn’t actually make sense that he’s not simply eliminating it. In the end, this gesture feels extra indicative of his uncommon emotions for Jules versus a brand new ethical code he’s making an attempt to dwell by. On the finish of their alternate, he grabs her hand and says, “For what it’s price, every part I ever stated was true,” referring to their earlier catfishing saga.
After all, after this, he formally makes Cassie a prisoner of his love by transferring her into his bed room.
Additionally, on this episode, we be taught that the police are investigating Fez and Ashtray as suspects in Mouse’s homicide, and Custer is cooperating with them. We additionally get a barely longer however disappointing and redundant scene with Kat, who makes an attempt to interrupt up with Ethan by saying she has a mind dysfunction after which makes use of phrases like “gaslighting” and “incel” to make him really feel unhealthy for not believing her.
“A Thousand Little Timber of Blood” ends on an particularly miserable word: Leslie on the telephone begging the rehab facility to confess Rue as a affected person as a substitute of simply detoxing her. We’ve watched Rue dodge dying so many instances, together with in final week’s episode, that it’s simple to take her life without any consideration, however listening to Leslie say that her daughter “goes to kill herself” reminds viewers of an consequence that would considerably alter the course of the present.