Euphoria Recap – Season 2, Episode 6 – Just One Girl's Opinion

Recap and opinions from the sixth episode of the show’s second season.

Where We Left Off

Last week’s bottle episode followed Rue on the run from her sobriety and those who want to help her get there.

The episode wasted no time before diving right into the meat of the storyline. After being confronted by her mother about her using, Rue goes on an emotional rampage throughout her home in an effort to find her suitcase full of drugs. Unbeknownst to her, Jules and Eliot – having just ratted her out – are sitting in the living room witnessing the whole tirade.

Her confrontation of Jules puts Zendaya’s acting in the spotlight and oh boy did she live up to the moment.

She soon submits to her mother’s wishes to go to the hospital and gets into the car only to realize while sitting at a light that they weren’t going to the hospital – they were taking her to rehab. With that realization, she jumps out of the car and goes on the run. Throughout the rest of the episode she weaves in and out of people’s houses including her iconic stop at the Howard’s where she revealed Cassie’s dirty little secret.

In the end, she gets an injection of morphine from Laurie the teacher turned drug-dealer and staves off her withdrawal symptoms – for now.

Catch up here if you want a closer look at last week’s episode!

Season 2, Episode 6 Deep Dive

Last week we experienced a high not only for this season, but for the series as a whole. With a singular character focus, we were able to fully flesh out a storyline and really get into the nitty gritty. The formatting allowed for the season-best storyline and acting.

But alas, not every episode can be a bottle episode.

This week saw us return to the typical episode layout that we have come to expect from season two: we got a little bit of everyone, leaving a lot to be desired. We checked in on each of the main characters this week, touching in on the goings on of their lives, but rarely did that feel like enough. I am tempted to rewatch season one in an attempt to compare the means by which the show writers are telling the story, because something about this season feels jumpy and rushed. I just can’t quite put my finger on it.

Either way, considering all that, it only feels right to break the recap down by major character and their aligning storyline.

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Continuing her campaign for a repeat Emmy – Zendaya went full-blown withdrawal as Rue this week. The opening and closing minutes of this week’s episode are a testament to the fact that this show can in fact, do both. So many of it’s viewers were drawn in my the glittery make-up and beautiful shots that made this shows first season so popular. They were seduced by the big and spectacular. Yet, Euphoria is also able to shine in the simplicity of a girl sitting at her kitchen table trying to open a jolly rancher.

Or in the simplicity of forgiveness.

During perhaps the most touching moment of the episode and one of the more heartbreaking of the season thus far, Rue calls Ali to apologize for what she said to him outside of their NA meeting earlier this season. The moment was an illustration of Rue’s ability to push those trying to help her away. Her tendency to use cruelty and anger to distance herself from their care. In this instance she weaponized the information Ali had trusted her with. She whipped these cruel words at him knowing they would hurt him, ruthlessly making an enemy out of someone who supported her. As Rue calls him, she is sure that this action was unforgiveable. Not only will he not forgive her, but he will be right in his decision not to. She didn’t deserve to be forgiven for what she had done.

The call is winning in it’s simplicity. The shot of Rue with her phone sitting on the table in front her. The sound of Ali’s tender voice coming to us over speakerphone. The incredibly powerful, yet short-winded act of forgiveness and it’s impact. The shock of receiving forgiveness when you don’t think you deserve it. And yet, the relief of hearing those words from the mouth of someone you care about.

“The hour is certain to come, so you must forgive graciously,” Ali says over the phone, quoting the Quran to Rue as she wears wears a Malcolm X t-shirt. His influence on her shown perhaps a bit too literally in this moment.

This act of forgiveness births an appearance by Ali when he arrives for a dinner with Rue’s family. He cooks for them and also serves up some of his own wisdom. The energy he brings to the house shakes things up. His opinions on how to treat Rue, how to feel about her actions, and how to move forward are different from theirs. Just because they know that she has a disease and needs their support, doesn’t mean they can’t be angry. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t believe their own feelings of hurt from her actions in her darker moments. They cannot constantly shrink themselves and their feelings to make room for Rue. These are real, legitimate emotions that they need to sort through. And that is okay.

Sometimes I find it funny that in a show where Ali imparts wisdom from his own life experience is the same one where Maddy sips wine in the pool with the woman whose child she babysits. They feel like two different worlds. But I also wish the rest of the storylines and characters I will talk about throughout this recap received the thoughtful attentiveness and authenticity that Rue and Ali do in this episode. Because as the show dove into other storylines throughout the episode, I was left wondering. About the simple moments with Rue and the not-so-simple moments. Her shaking, drooling, crying, and moaning in pain. I wanted to know how she was doing, I wanted to follow her through an entire episode like we did last week. But I know that is just one girl’s opinion.

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Euphoria viewers rejoice – we finally got some Fexie content after being teased by their flirtation in the season premiere!

With the exception of Fez’s ever-present joint, their hangout was very PG. It featured a wholesome viewing of Stand By Me and the space for two more people between them on his sofa. Before we dive into that, however, we have to talk about something else. The very thing that lead to their viewing of that particular flick: we need to have a full-blown conversation about Cassie.

Last week Rue masterfully delivered the long-awaited reveal that Cassie is fooling around with Maddy’s ex-boyfriend. The reaction – in the presence of Maddy, Kat, Lexie, and Mrs. Howard – lived up to expectations and produced one of my favorite quotes from the season so far from the mouth of our lovely Maddy Perez: “I am literally going to get violent.” In the aftermath of all this we are left with a woman hysterically trying to clear her name and acknowledge her innocence all while clearly not believing it herself.

It was a trip to watch Cassie rant around her house attempting to justify her actions and avoid any sort of admission of guilt. If we thought her meltdown at Maddy’s party was bad, we clearly didn’t know what we had coming. When their mother suggested that they hide all the knives and other sharp objects outside so that Cassie won’t hurt herself, I matched Lexi’s skepticism. And yet, not long after that moment, she is on the ground in the kitchen attempting to slit her wrists with the wine bottle opener.

So when Lexi suggests to Fez that it might not be the best idea for her to put on her play and expose Cassie to something that will likely make her feel worse, you kind of want to tell her to call the whole thing off.

Things only seem to be trending downward for Cassie right now, though she probably wouldn’t agree. From her point of view, things look pretty buttoned up and solid. She finally has Nate to herself. When he calls her and tells her to pack a suitcase and come stay with him, she dutifully complies. To her, this is an act of heroism. The boy she loves is rescuing her from her family and bringing her in close to offer the support they refuse to give her. The support she deserves in this situation. Everything is going to be fine as long as she is in Nate’s loving arms.

Yet to the viewer, things couldn’t be less fine. The ice is getting thinner beneath her feet and before she knows it, she will be plunged into the cold realities of her situation. Based on a conversation he had with his mother, this boy she loves doesn’t even remotely want to spend time with her. In fact, their entire situation seems to be created as a way for him to finally receive some distance from Maddy. Oh yeah and her best friend Maddy is not only angry, but incredibly hurt by her actions. Adding to all of this, she is about to find out just how her sister really feels about her in an incredibly public way. All that considered, she doesn’t seem to have anyone there who will help her out of the dark, cold ramifications of her actions when that ice inevitably melts.

But anyway, let’s get back to Fexi.

Sitting on the sofa with Fez, Lexi walks through the potential harm that her production could do to her sister’s already deteriorating support system and mental state. She weighs Cassie’s situation against the fact that – as we have come to find out this season – she never does anything for herself. This is her chance to do that, to take the reigns and hold center stage in her own life. For everyone to be looking at her instead of Cassie.

In this moment as she walks through this moral quandary, Fez cannot take his eyes off of her. For him, in this moment at least, Lexi is the star.

After asking what they play is about and likening it to Stand By Me, the two settle in and decide to watch the movie. Now, if Lexie wasn’t already my favorite character on the show, she really made a case for herself in this episode. Though her time on the screen was brief, it was charming and sweet. This is perfectly captured by the fact that she was comfortable enough to cry as she watched Stand By Me with a boy she is clearly interested in. It locked in my adoration of her and also made her all the more relatable to a frequent movie crier like myself.

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Imagine your best friend sleeps with your ex-boyfriend. Only now, imagine that this same ex-boyfriend is kind of (read: totally) abusive and manipulative and your best friend is in a cry-for-help like mental state. I wouldn’t be as mad as Maddie – at least I like to think I wouldn’t be. But we wouldn’t love our little, vengeful lady if she wasn’t plotting their deaths now would we?

This is how Maddy came onto our screens this past week, plotting Nate and Cassie’s deaths over the phone with Kat. As Rue describes so accurately in her voiceover, Maddy’s loyalty makes this betrayal larger than life in her eyes. It’s unforgiveable. Yet underneath the anger and violent fantasies that she projects, Rue also tells us that Maddy is heartbroken and depressed by these betrayals.

Let me say that again, your ex-boyfriend sleeps with your best friend and you just have to magically move on with your life. It feels impossible and sort of makes you want to bury yourself under your covers with a gallon of ice cream doesn’t it?

Instead, Maddy plots revenge and babysits. She continues living like she needs to in order to keep up the image of not being the victim in this situation. Regardless of the wrongs done to her, she is determined to be the predator, not the prey. It’s how we are used to seeing her in this show. She is strong-willed. She is a survivor.

That is part of what makes the scene where she returns home to Nate holding a gun so impactful. Without her knowledge of his presence, she comes in and gets changed in her bathroom. Stripping off the jeans and strappy top she wore to show the world she was still put together, and pulling on a comfortable lounge set. Then she spots him in the corner of the room. She is cold and calm in a way that seems all together unrealistic. So it makes sense that she eventually crumbles under the literal weight of Nate threatening to shoot himself on top of her if she didn’t tell him where the disk was.

That stinking disk that started all of this drama in the first place.

When he finally leaves and gaslights her for being afraid since there were no bullets in the gun, she is left crying in fetal position on her bed. It’s heartbreaking to see this woman who is so powerful and loud, so strong and willful, crumble like this under the weight of a man who is so beneath her. One can only hope that this trauma is enough to shake her out of his grip once and for all.

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Without an appearance in last week’s episode, the last we saw of Nate was from his stoic perch looking down as his father unraveled before him two week’s ago. With Cal gone for the foreseeable future, Nate if finally free. Free from the burdens of his over-powering daddy. He can finally smile.

But only for a minute. Only until he realizes the hellfire that rained down at the Howard’s house thanks to Rue. The frantic missed calls from Cassie and radio silence from Maddy tell him everything he needs to know. And it brings him right back down.

Most of our time with Nate this week was spent with his mother. Like Nate was for all of about twenty minutes, she is finally free. Free and getting day-drunk in the kitchen with her teenage son. Martha’s drunkenness allows her to say some things she never has to Nate. It seems that while Cal is gone, the impact of his last evening has stayed. In a house full of secrets and closed lips, all that was locked up is finally coming out into the light of day.

The highlight of this sequence involved his mother’s diagnosis of Nate as an angry person. She is startlingly accurate in her prognosis. So much so that upon hearing it, Nate gets angry. Shocking, I know. She goes on to tell him and us that he changed on a dime. He used to be so caring and loving and sweet, but one day that all stopped. Without really directly asking she wonders what could have caused this 180. We know the answer is his discovery of his father’s forbidden disks and are left wondering why – now that the floodgates are open and the truth is pouring out – Nate doesn’t just tell his mom. Is he too damaged to recognize it? Or does he not want to stoop down to the truth-telling level his parents have?

As usual with Nate, we are left guessing.

Later in the episode, after tormenting Maddy, he delivers the disk to Jules. It’s her only appearance in the episode – unless you count the hilarious moment where Rue starts to talk about Jules in voiceover only to decide she was upset with her and didn’t want to. She runs out to the car in the rain to meet him. The rain fell throughout each story in this episode as if to signify that they all occurred on the same day around the same time.

Nate’s delivery of the disk to Jules is, in some ways, a clear act of self-preservation. Here is a way that he can protect his family’s legacy and his future in his father’s business from the shameful discovery of his antics. And by doing so without revealing his motivations, Jules is so touched by his kindness that she will likely never blow up his dad’s spot. Yet, underneath all of this selfishness we have come to know from Nate there is the lingering feeling that this is because of Jules and his feelings for her.

Just a few episodes ago Fez revealed to us that Nate was in love with Jules. That this was the information he was harboring and not any knowledge of the disk in question. With this in mind, his eyes seem more tender on her in the car and his actions seem to be less motivated by protecting his family and more motivated by getting into Jules good graces. The other kicker? The acknowledgement of their past catfish relationship. He meant everything he said to her, he tells her before she jumps out of the car and back into the rain. So did she, she says.

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Oh Kat. Oooooooh Kat.

Like many others, I have been incredibly disappointed by the lack of Kat time we have gotten this season. With the exception of a sweet moment between her and Maddy during the latter’s ill-fated birthday party and the hilariously accurate sequence about the self-love boom on social media, she has essentially been a background character. This is very likely due to all the drama that has been coming out about Barbie Ferreira and Sam Levinson. Which truthfully, sucks. It sucks that something happening off camera is impacting the storyline that was not only one of the most popular amongst fans last season, but also had a lot of promise coming into season two. Instead we are left with this terribly awkward, skin-crawling scene between Ethan and Kat.

To kick things off, Kat sits in a diner on the phone as Ethan sits flat-faced in front of her. She cackles and laughs with Maddy, agreeing with her hatred for Cassie and encouraging her violent fantasies. She has shrunken into Maddy’s little side-kick and for anyone who cared about Kat last season (read: me), it is a sad sight to see. After hanging up we see her cower in the face of breaking up with Ethan and instead telling him that she has a terminal brain condition.

Yes you read that right. And it was just as awkward a thing to hear as it was to read.

Ethan – bless his soul – sees right through the whole things, identifying the root of her actions with eerie accuracy. Behind all my anger for what Kat’s storyline has dwindled into this year, it was kind of a simple and beautiful moment. He knows her so well, knows the way her mind works, that he can comb through all her BS. And based on the circles under his eyes, it looks like there has been a lot of bullshit to sort through.

Where Kat goes from here is a mystery to me. One I am almost afraid to see solved.