Euphoria Season 2 is perfect for our pandemic era as it continues to build on the strengths of Season 1

NBC News

"This new season continues to dip into the hidden, darker corners of life. It’s delightfully absurd, dazzlingly beautiful and almost criminally fun to watch," says Sarah John. "The show’s surprising, off-center gimmicks land well, including a scene in episode three in which Rue breaks the fourth wall. She regretfully informs viewers that if they’re looking for a 'beloved character' to give them hope in these troubled times, unfortunately, she is 'not it,' before cheekily taking a swig from a bottle. But the new season also improves in areas where the first season lacked. The scattered plotlines for the other cast members felt underdeveloped in season one, and the show missed opportunities to peek meaningfully into the other characters’ heads. Instead, it often gave them unrealistic story arcs meant to shock more than to comment insightfully on the teen experience." John adds: "Season two had big shoes to fill, and fill them it did. Moreover, the show returned at just the right moment. The isolation this new season of Euphoria depicts is not too different from the isolation many have felt and continue to experience because of the pandemic."

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• Euphoria feels remarkably grown up in Season 2: "The seven episodes provided to critics (there will be eight in total, released week to week) are as stupefyingly bold as any of Season 1," says Alison Foreman. "But in Season 2, Euphoria's flagrant disregard for mainstream acceptability is elevated by an earned confidence in Levinson's writing and direction, making the series' ballsy bluster feel better justified. If previous episodes left you wondering what the kids of East Highland High School were being put through all this emotional, psychological, and even physical hell 'for,' these new installments defend and deepen the meaning of that suffering expertly. Maybe I'm projecting. But two years into a global crisis, Euphoria feels remarkably grown up in its broadening of traditional teen narratives for an audience permeated by insecurity and fear at all ages."
• Euphoria no longer needs to depend on shock value: "In its first season, Euphoria could seem torn between conflicting desires, not unlike the typical teenager," says Alison Herman. "There were obvious attempts to make waves and horrify parents with tales of leaked sex tapes and drug deals gone awry; at the same time, in a nod to one of the wholesome forebears it so pointedly isn’t, the show tried to tell grounded stories about the secret life of the American teenager. Sometimes, those two goals worked in concert, especially when it came to Euphoria’s portrait of addiction. When Rue (Zendaya) turns to pills or a new crush to numb the pain from losing her dad, it’s often harrowing, but never sensationalized. But Euphoria’s impulses could also feel at odds. In a cast that otherwise avoids stereotypes or at least shades them in, the blunt-force cruelty of villain Nate (Jacob Elordi) is out of place. And while Kat (Barbie Ferreira) has body-based insecurities rooted in emotional reality, doing online sex work for Bitcoin made more sense as a bid for notoriety than an in-character choice. Yet the further Euphoria progressed, the more the built-in incentives of television nudged the show in the right direction. Eight hours is a lot of space to fill. Levinson used that time to flesh out his ensemble, focusing on a new player in each week’s cold open and deepening the relationships between different characters. This was evident in the extended break between seasons, when the auteur put out two contrasting quarantine projects. The Netflix movie Malcolm & Marie, also starring Zendaya, suffered from its namesakes’ existence in a vacuum, making their two-hour argument more of an abstract debate than a visceral fight. Euphoria’s two special episodes, checking in on Rue and her love interest Jules (Hunter Schafer), had no such issue earning viewers’ investment. We’d already seen Rue relapse and Jules run away, developments that jeopardized their intense, if fragile, bond; we were anxious to see how the pair were holding up. Euphoria thrives not as a capital-s Show About Teenagers, but as a show about these specific teenagers. In Season 2, it leans into the latter, though that shift feels less like an intentional adjustment and more like the natural result of extending the narrative past its initial burst of intrigue. Once you’re done making a splash, it’s time to sink or swim."
• Euphoria struggles to emerge from its own long, dark shadow in Season 2: "Despite the jarring familiarity of its opening sequence, Season 2 doesn’t live, like its predecessor, on the constant brink of disaster," says Ben Travers. "While Rue Bennett (embodied by the magnificent, Emmy-winning Zendaya) is still pushed to the edge at every turn, her fellow high schoolers retreat into troubles more commonly experienced at that age: Relationships begin and end. Sexualities are explored. The school play takes center stage. For those who felt overwhelmed by the acute peril facing every character at every moment of Season 1, this new dichotomy, contrasting every parent’s nightmare with every student’s day-to-day, should theoretically draw viewers closer to these perturbed teens. But for the most part, it doesn’t. Without getting into spoilers, Season 2 suffers as much from trying to top itself through repetition as it does from downplaying aspects that were working (which, for a freshman hit, are common Season 2 issues). Everyone shows up for the premiere’s New Year’s Eve party (a solid episode built on questionable choices), but the events set in motion by this rager, as opposed to Season 1’s fateful opening bash, fall apart quickly. Established characters from Season 1 are either written out (McKay, played by Algee Smith, pops in for the first episode and then disappears) or they’re sidelined. (Barbie Ferreira’s Kat gets the worst of it, saddled with a stagnant arc that could’ve wrapped in two episodes yet gets stretched thin over the full season.) Big, magnified moments are tossed aside too quickly. Seemingly smaller hijinks are stretched into unreal drama." 
• Euphoria is a creative triumph: Creator Sam Levinson's "work in this second season makes the case that viewers are watching the lives of a coterie of very specific people mired in their own dysfunction and damage, each self-medicating in different ways, toward an almost universally tragic and emotional result," says Eric Deggans. "That Euphoria somehow manages to make you keep caring about often-unlikeable folks on such brutal and dark journeys, is a testament to the uniquely creative voice distilled in each episode. It is thrilling, daring, disquieting and compelling – a triumph at a time when truly unique storytelling remains unsettlingly rare."
• Zendaya gives Euphoria fans a trigger warning for the Season 2 premiere: “I know I’ve said this before, but I do want to reiterate to everyone that Euphoria is for mature audiences,” the 25-year-old wrote on Sunday. “This season, maybe even more so than the last, is deeply emotional and deals with subject matter that can be triggering and difficult to watch. Please only watch it if you feel comfortable.”