“Lexi.
We’re ready.”
The penultimate episode of Euphoria Season 2 was fantastic.
Apparently, Samantha did see Maddy on the alarm clock camera, and as a result, she gifted
her the sparkling dress as a going away gift since Maddy plans on leaving town once she
graduates high school.
We learned that just like Jules and Elliot, Rue and Jules haven’t spoken to each other
since the intervention.
Cat has begun to cam again, and Cassie and Nate have gone public with their relationship.
Jules burnt the CD of her and Cal.
And now we know why Lexi dressed up as Bob Ross for the Halloween party.
Episode 6 ended with Rue telling Gia that she felt like she didn’t know anything about
her life anymore.
In Euphoria Episode 7, Gia went on to say that her memories of her father were fading,
and Rue responded by saying that there’s no way to stop that from happening.
That back and forth spoke to framework of this episode.
Lexi put on a play about her, her sister, and their friends, and old memories resurfaced.
Before putting on the play, Lexi shared her concerns about it with Fez.
Lexi worried that people might get upset about it, but vowed that her intentions were good.
And for the most part, they were.
But it was a mixed bag.
Let’s break this down by the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The play opened with a poem that Lexi had read to Rue.
“It’s called ‘Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower’ by Rainer Maria Rilke.”
When the 5 main characters were introduced, Cassie kept a straight face, so it’s unclear
whether or not she realized it right away.
But Maddy and Kat were immediately concerned, whereas half of Rue’s mouth began to crack
a smile.
This is life.
Not everyone’s life.
“But our life.”
And the R dropped.
Scene 1 was Cassie going through puberty.
“Wow!
Wow!
Look at you!”
And Rue was like “here we go.”
Cassie began to get tense.
But Lexi threw out every possible compliment to Cassie.
So so far, so good.
And Suze and the crowd loved it.
Lexi had dreamed of being as beautiful and as cool as her sister
“Hi.
Hey, Ted.
How are you?”
but when that time came, she wasn’t.
A young Rue convinced Lexi that it was okay to be different.
This was before Lexi’s dad left and before Rue’s dad died.
Before Rue did heavy drugs.
It was before they grew apart and before Lexi started doubting herself every time someone
would ask her if Rue was her best friend.
As this was happening, Rue looked over at Jules, and Jules looked back, but they did
not make eye contact.
At least, not yet.
Lexi recounted Rue reading at her father Robert’s wake, as well as the good times with her own
father, dancing along with her sister and mother.
And that brought both them to tears in the audience.
The good kind of tears.
The play covered the first and presumably only time that Lexi smoked.
How Rue drew a beard on her and they joked that she looked like Bob Ross.
On their way home, Lexi said that she didn’t like weed since she couldn’t control her
brain the way she normally could, and Rue countered that, for her, that’s the best
part.
So Lexi hypothesized that Rue used drugs to push away the bad thoughts.
But for her, it did the opposite.
All she could think about were the bad thoughts.
Things that could go wrong.
The people that she could lose and the million and one reasons why she wasn’t good enough.
Then, the street lamp then went out, symbolizing the moment that Lexi and Rue grew apart.
Around that same time, Maddy’s parents began fighting, so she spent a lot of time over
at Cassie’s.
Maddy seemed so confident to Lexi, and she probably was at times.
But she was also hurting, and Cassie was there for her.
So this part of the play reminded Maddy and Cassie that they once loved each other.
Cassie was so moved that she went to the bathroom in tears, and Maddy saw that.
So although Lexi was a tyrant of a director, her play was the catalyst to some positive
change.
Rue and Jules kept looking over at each other and eventually made eye contact.
And even Cassie and Maddy began to reflect on the good times together.
But while that happened, Fez ran into some problems.
Faye ironed Fez’s outfit and helped him get dressed for the play.
But then Custer came over.
He whispered to Faye to keep it cool, and unfortunately, Faye has yet to tell Fez what
is really happening.
Ash was already suspicious of Faye in the previous episode, so he kept his eye on Faye
and Custer, and then he sat down across from Custer with a knife up his sleeve.
So Ash is ready to do dance to the sweet steel song.
A knife in his hand and a foe before him.
Unfortunately, Fez never made it to the play, and we will learn why in the finale.
Now, the ugly.
Ali had told Leslie to shower Gia with love, and she has begun to do so.
Leslie told Rue that Gia is struggling to sleep and struggling in school.
So going forward, Leslie is going to focus on her younger daughter.
Similarly, Suze let Cassie leave the house, and now, she’s in the audience as Lexi’s
number one fan.
So both Sue and Leslie are now focusing their efforts on their younger daughters.
That’s actually understandable, in fact, Rue said as much.
“Nah, that's fair.”
But there was some very ugly stuff in Lexi’s play.
Lexi’s play is based on memories, but the thing about memories is that they are subjective.
As an example, when Suze and Gus had split up, Gus drank a lot.
Lexi still remembers the day that she told her older sister that they should call their
mother for a ride, but Cassie convinced her not to.
So Lexi got into the car and was terrified down to her core.
Gus drove poorly, evidence by the horns beeping in the background, but thankfully, he got
them back home safely.
Unfortunately, not long after, he got into a nearly fatal car crash.
So Lexi’s fear was more than justified.
And the point is, memories are subjective.
So scenes in Lexi’s play can mean one thing to one person and something completely different
to another.
Case in point, the dance number.
The dance number was incredibly homophobic, but the audience laughed.
Even Jules laughed.
By this point in the play, most of the students realized who was who, so a few of them looked
over at Nate to see his reaction.
Maddy and Kat knew that this would hurt Nate, so they loved it.
And Rue and Suze loved the spectacle of it.
The audience gave it a standing ovation.
“Lexi, you’re a fucken G!”
But again, it was incredibly homophobic.
Don’t get me wrong.
Did I laugh?
Yes.
But was it right for me to laugh?
No.
Definitely not.
Nate has been suffering from nightmares about his sexuality.
He dreamt of Maddy, Jules, Cassie, and Cal.
It’s very traumatic for him.
It’s unlikely that he is the only high school student struggling with his sexuality, but
this scene of the play hit him hard since it was about him and the student’s knew
it.
So Nate walked out, and Cassie followed.
Nate went on to break up with Cassie, telling her to get her stuff and move out of his house.
And because of that, Cassie went back to the play fuming.
One of the biggest questions going into the finale is: how far into the current timeline
is Lexi’s play going to go?
“Well the second parts kind of sweet.”
“Is it?”
Since Cassie is on the brink of raging, we may never get that answer.
Regardless, the play has brought about change.
And as the great Drizzt Do’Urden once said, “Change is not always growth, but growth
is often rooted in change.”
“a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.”