Here are some of the things that happen 45 minutes into the pilot episode of HBO’s Euphoria: frequent nudity , characters shooting up, the aftermath of an overdose, a faked urine test, multiple violent sex scenes including a graphic rape. Then there’s a scene in which a high-schooler named Kat, who is desperate to lose her virginity, finds herself being manipulated in the back room of a party by three greasy boys.
It follows Rue, a 17-year-old drug addict fresh out of rehab but with no intention of staying clean; her new friend Jules, a trans girl she meets at a party; Nate, an angry and violent 22-year-old who may be following in his father’s predatory footsteps; and a gang of other unruly teens.
It’s a line The Handmaid’s Tale often straddles, too, with its ceaseless barrage of oppression, torture and, yes, rape. In that story, there is a strong sense of fight that permeates, building toward a future empowerment for its subjugated female characters. But in the way The Handmaid’s Tale uses anger as a tool to inspire and motivate, Euphoria only has ennui, leaving its characters constantly grasping at straws for action and hollow validation.
It’s difficult, then, to determine who exactly this series is for. With the casting alone of Zendaya, possibly teenagers, but the network and the show’s rating seems to contradict that. So perhaps it’s a kind of warning to parents, an elevated “do you know where your kids are?” But even for that demographic, it seems too out-of-touch, trying too hard to project a stratospheric cool that might belong better on, say, Vice or MTV, or in the ’90s in the hands of Larry Clark or Harmony Korine.