Episode 4 of Euphoria Season 2 was perhaps the most intense episode of the season thus
far.
Cal (played by Eric Dane) was a drunk truth-telling mess, Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) genuinely hit
rock bottom, Jules (Hunter Schafer) and Elliot (Dominic Fike) hooked up, Fez's (Angus Cloud)
past began to creep up on him, and there's a fairly significant chance Rue's life could
be in danger...
Overall, no nobody walked out of Episode 4 looking like a saint.
Shockingly, Cal was the only one to look (sort of) good.
Long Live Young Cal and Derek
Since Episode 3 of Euphoria Season 2, people have been low-key rooting for Cal Jacobs.
Not the present-day Cal, but his backstory, the younger version of him.
In Episode 4, Cal appears to be rooting for his former, lost self, and his intoxicated
willingness to confront his past leads to some rather catastrophic and freeing results
in the present.
Cal spent the whole of Episode 4 extremely inebriated and thought it was a fantastic
idea to take a drive.
The entire trip, it looked like at any minute he was about to crash but happily he didn't,
and we were reunited with Cal's beloved homosexual bar that appeared in Episode 3 (shoutout to
teenage Cal and Derek) (shoutout to young Cal and Derek).
In the pub, Cal played Sinead O'Connor's "Drink Before the War" and slow-danced with another
man.
And he danced, the stranger turned into Derek (Henry Eikenberry), as Cal reminisced about
the finest moment of his life.
Holding back tears, Cal even murmured out loud "I thought I'd lost you," marking the
most frail we have ever seen Mr. Jacobs.
As the song came to a conclusion, Cal wasn't able to break out of his former personality,
and just like the good old days, he challenged "Derek" to a wrestling competition.
Eventually, Cal was kicked out and forbidden from returning to the bar.
His last secure space where he could well and completely be himself was gone.
Cal then returned home and started a diatribe of honesty at his family.
Unable to live in twisted reality any longer, excessively intoxicated, he came clean to
his family about his secret, double-life.
He admitted to sleeping with women, men, and transwomen, even disclosing to his oldest
son Aaron (Zak Steiner) he had sex with a man whilst his mother, Marsha (Paula Marshall),
was pregnant with him.
As part of his truth-telling, Cal resolved to uncover his family's secrets.
He told Marsha he knew she saved a shoebox of love letters from a camp counselor all
those years ago, saying "It feels nice to know you were loved by anybody other than
simply me."
He then stated he knew about his son's addiction with violent porn, before telling Nate he
was his "greatest regret."
And just like that, Cal grabbed the family portrait off on the wall (the one with the
mysterious Jacobs brother yet to be revealed) and walked out of his home, a free man.
Nate, Cassie, and Maddy Spiral
Nate, Nate, Nate.
He doesn't know who he wants or what he wants.
At the end of Episode 3, Nate turned up at his ex-girlfriends Maddy's (Alexa Demie) house,
a bunch of flowers in hand.
In Episode 4, he even pops up at her birthday party with a love heart Tiffany & Co. necklace
and hangs around for the celebration, prompting Cassie to utterly spiral.
If you thought Maddy and Nate were poisonous, Cassie and Nate are hardly any better.
Just days before Maddy's birthday, Nate and Cassie had a massive dispute regarding the
status of their relationship.
Cassie was very upset and saddened that Nate had paid Maddy a visit and for some reason,
Nate couldn't quite grasp why she was so mad.
Things between them swiftly escalated, especially when Cassie threatened to tell Maddy about
their connection.
As expected, Nate went into full defensive and possessive mode, but Cassie wasn't buying
it, standing up for herself and walking away from the scene, leaving Nate helplessly shouting
out after her "I love you."
Nate really can't handle not having control over someone, can he?
The question marks over their relationship, Nate's apparent affections for Maddy, and
the remorse that had taken its toll on Cassie.
Undoubtedly terrified about Nate coming to Maddy's birthday, Cassie drank herself into
a condition of no return and at any moment, it appeared like she was going to blurt out
the truth, since she was sitting NEXT to Nate in THAT bikini.
In the hot tub, Maddy and Nate clashed in front of everyone over the state of their
relationship.
Both agreed they were not together, but Maddy didn't like Nate's tone when he told Kat (Barbie
Ferreira) they weren't together, and Maddy and Kat, both did not appreciate how fast
he responded.
As a result, Maddy tore Nate to shreds with her comments, accusing him of gaslighting
her whilst at the same time making plans for the future.
When Maddy started rhyming all of Nate's bogus promises, including marriage and children,
Cassie violently threw up in the hot tub they were sitting in, sobbing out she was "sorry"
and "Maddy was her best friend," but happily, for her own sake, she was too inebriated to
come clean with the truth.
The Past Catches Up With Fez
Sorry "Fexi" stans, Episode 4 of Euphoria Season 2 contained hardly no Fez or Lexi (Maude
Apatow) stuff, let alone Fexi content.
However, Fez did appear and the circumstances that transpired seem to set up his story and
Episode 5 very nicely.
Towards the close of Episode 4, Fez was paid a visit by his drug-dealing acquaintance,
who delivered some fairly awful news.
Mouse's (Meeko Gattuso) girlfriend had supposedly showed up and was asking a whole bunch of
questions concerning Mouse's whereabouts.
Questions, nobody can answer, as Mouse is dead.
At the beginning of Euphoria Season 2, it was revealed Ashtray (Javon 'Wanna' Walton),
killed Mouse with a hammer to the head.
Rue's Trip
For four episodes now, audiences have watched as Rue's heroin addiction has spun out of
control and it is leading her to dramatically self-destruct, even affecting the ones that
care about her the most.
Towards the end of the episode, Rue pleads for Jules and Elliot to drop her off home,
which was a foolish move on her part because the sexual tension between Jules and Elliot
is almost too much to stomach.
Jules likewise doesn't know what Rue plans to do when she comes home, fully clueless
about Rue's relapse until Elliot tells her the truth in the last moments of Episode 4.
When Rue arrives home, she heads straight for the bag packed tight with $10,000 worth
of drugs.
High, she begins to hallucinate a funeral.
It's not obvious whose funeral she is at (thank the lord Ali is still alive), but there is
a potential she could be visualizing her own funeral.
On her trip, Rue hugs a performer at the funeral (hello Euphoria composer Labrinth), who is
wearing in a burgundy suit jacket, matching the color of her late dad's jumper.
Rue's imagination then bounces between her hugging the man at the funeral and recollections
of hugging her own father as she tears.
At this moment, we really begin to see the impact loss has had on Rue, and regrettably,
it looks like she may be about to lose the one person she genuinely loves.
Throughout Episode 4 of Euphoria, Jules and Elliot had been making out behind Rue's back
but it is severely hinted at in the last minutes they may have slept together only moments
after Jules learned of Rue's relapse.
As for Rue, here is hope she is still alive but the relevance of a burial as part of her
high shouldn't be discounted.
She has already averted cardiac arrest once this season, lets hope that is not the situation
she is in when Episode 5 lands.