Euphoria

HBO’s Euphoria follows a seventeen year old Rue as she readjusts to life and school after returning from rehab for her drug addiction. While Rue is the main protagonist and narrator, each episode focuses on a different character who Rue is friends with or otherwise associated with. The show tackles many issues such as drugs, mental health, catfishing, toxic relationships and so on that many teen dramas before it have explored- however, Euphoria seems to get its target audience in a way many others don’t. It never speaks down to the viewers or portrays the characters in a way that would be totally out of the realm of possibility for their ages. The situations are dramatized, but only for the purposes of entertainment. The connections the characters have with each other also feel realistic; while some shows might portray a hierarchy of students, the characters in Euphoria are all either friends or know one another and are kind to them, more similar to the actual experience of high school. I’m glad that the show has such a diverse cast as well, with a black female lead who is in an interracial relationship with another girl, and the reminder of the cast being of different ethnicities and sexualities. Though intense, the show is groundbreaking in that in subverts a lot of expectations.