Euphoria Series Review

『A Portrait of Youth Bearing Wounds and Depending on Each Other』

🎥 Series Overview

🎬 Title: Euphoria (2019–)
🌍 Country: 🇺🇸 USA
🎞️ Genre: Drama / Coming-of-age / Psychological
🗓️ Production and Broadcast: HBO, Season 2 (Season 3 in production as of 2025)
⏳ Runtime: Approx. 55 min per episode
📢 Director: Sam Levinson
🖋️ Writer: Sam Levinson
📺 Platform: HBO Max

👩‍💼 Cast: Zendaya – Rue Bennett
Hunter Schafer – Jules Vaughn

🧩 Deep Story Exploration (Spoilers)

🌟 Meeting as Saviors and Companions

Rue and Jules meet when Rue is just beginning her recovery from drug addiction. Jules’s arrival feels like a kind of “miracle” and “salvation” in Rue’s life.

• Rue’s perspective: Jules as salvation: When Rue first meets Jules, she perceives her as a kind of “new drug” — someone who suppresses her addictive impulses and gives meaning to her life. From the very beginning, their relationship is built on a volatile mix of love and addiction, creating an unstable emotional dependency.
• Jules’s perspective: Understanding and new experience: Jules, as a transgender woman who struggles with loneliness and identity, deeply understands Rue’s dark and complex inner world. Through Rue, she experiences a pure and intense emotional connection she has never found in her relationships with men — one that feels both liberating and dangerous.

💉 The Collision of Addiction and Identity Exploration

The relationship between Rue and Jules — affectionately known by fans as “Rules” — is deeply loved but also fundamentally unstable and destructive. This stems from the opposite dynamics they bring into the relationship.

• Rue displays a form of dependent obsession, believing Jules’s presence is essential for her survival. Her inability to fully recover from addiction places an enormous emotional burden on Jules. Rue treats Jules as both a “stabilizer” and a “drug replacement,” which inevitably leads to relapse and despair, destroying any sense of balance between them.

• Jules, on the other hand, exhibits traits of avoidant anxiety, feeling suffocated by Rue’s dependence and sometimes seeking escape. She tries to explore her identity and desires — including relationships with others — which deeply wounds Rue. Although Jules feels responsible and overwhelmed when Rue relapses, her attempts to regain her freedom and identity become another source of tragedy.

Ultimately, while Jules wants to save Rue, Rue’s addiction traps them both in codependency. Jules feels the crushing weight of being responsible for Rue’s survival, while simultaneously feeling her own freedom and self-discovery being suffocated.

🩸 Season 1: Salvation and Betrayal

• Salvation and romance: Jules gives Rue a reason to live, and the two fall into a love that feels both pure and passionate.
• Betrayal and separation: When Jules decides to leave town to follow her own desires, Rue feels abandoned, leading to her relapse into drug use. This devastating moment proves that Jules is not Rue’s salvation, but rather her ultimate trigger.

💊 Season 2: Descent Toward Collapse

• Reunion and hidden addiction: Rue and Jules reunite, but Rue’s addiction worsens. While she leans on Jules for emotional support, she secretly continues her severe substance abuse.
• Jules’s revelation: Upon discovering Rue’s relapse, Jules makes a desperate decision to tell Rue’s mother in an attempt to save her. Rue perceives this as a betrayal, igniting an explosive confrontation filled with verbal aggression and hatred. This moment reveals that Rue sees Jules as both the person she loves most and the one she most resents.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The Tragedy of Immature Love

Rue and Jules’s relationship portrays the darkest and most complex aspects of teenage love.

• The burden of being a savior: Jules carries the weight of being Rue’s “savior,” sacrificing her personal growth and self-discovery. The series exposes the impossibility of love sustaining one person’s survival.
• Lack of boundaries: Rue’s addiction and unstable mental health make it impossible to maintain healthy boundaries within the relationship. Their love, while beautiful, suffocates and destroys both of them.

The relationship between Rue and Jules is a tragic portrait of love, addiction, and mental health intertwined. Though they are deeply connected, the show suggests that without Rue’s recovery, their love can never be healthy — leaving audiences with a haunting emotional resonance.

🌊 Special Episode Part 2: “F*ck Anyone Who’s Not A Sea Blob” (Jules’s Perspective)

The second special episode of 《Euphoria》, “F*ck Anyone Who’s Not A Sea Blob,” contrasts with the first, which was told from Rue’s point of view. This episode dives deeply into Jules Vaughn’s inner thoughts and perspective. Co-written by Hunter Schafer herself, it offers an authentic portrayal of Jules’s voice and experiences.

The episode follows Jules after she leaves Rue in the Season 1 finale, structured as a “bottle episode” focusing entirely on her therapy sessions with Mandi Nichols. It gives Jules, who had previously existed mostly as Rue’s “savior,” her own agency and emotional depth.

Hunter Schafer’s performance and co-writing demonstrate her artistic insight, portraying Jules’s identity, love, and trauma with precision and intensity. This episode elevates 《Euphoria》 beyond a typical teen drama, framing it instead as a profound psychological exploration of gender, addiction, and trauma.

🎯 Personal Rating

💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥♥♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★☆