The Only Reason You Need to Check Out HBO’s ‘Euphoria’
With the end of the Game of Thrones era on HBO (at least until the dozen spinoffs happen) naturally comes the rise of other shows to fill the void.
There’s Chernobyl, a second season of Big Little Lies, a preview of Westworld season 3…that won’t actually premier til 2020…
…and then there’s this show Euphoria.
I watched the first episode of Euphoria last week, for the TV podcast I co-host with my sister.
It featured great acting (led by Zendaya as the main character, Rue), excellent cinematography, and over-the-top high school drama that you just can’t turn away from watching. As I put it simply on the podcast, I think viewers will enjoy Euphoria and ultimately the series will garner plenty of success.
In fact, Euphoria reminded me a great deal of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, a popular two-season show about teen suicide (among other serious issues that high schoolers face). Euphoria — at least based on the first episode — isn’t so concerned with suicide, but similarly finds itself tackling serious, very heavy teenage troubles like drug addiction, sex and sexuality.
I liken Euphoria to 13 Reasons Why also by the fact that the show doesn’t shy away from presenting the drugs and the sex in true, unfiltered form. Should we be surprised? No, it’s HBO.
Anyway, the real reason why you should check out this show is because of it’s uniqueness — the main way, as I’ll explain in a second, that Euphoria differentiates itself from a show like 13 Reasons Why (and also you could throw Riverdale or Degrassi in this mix of HS drama shows to compare/contrast it to).
That being Euphoria’s distinct focus on the issues that high schoolers are facing today.
The premier episode begins with Rue’s birth, occurring just days after 9/11, which in a major way suggests that those born after September 11th, 2001 grew up in a culture much different than any of us born before then.
I’m no expert, but this seems like a reasonable jumping off point to separate generations, and I’m not here to argue against that idea.
At the very least, we’re led to believe that all of the kids in Euphoria were essentially born after…
