‘Euphoria Sundays’ – Episode 2, ‘America My Dream’ Revi

Previous seasons of Euphoria have tended to begin back in time. They provided viewers insight into why a character is the way they are by giving them a backstory. I believe that is what is happening in this week’s episode, “America My Dream,” as we see Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie) meet her now-boss, Miss Penzler (Rebecca Pidgeon), in a diner and tell her why she should hire her. Then, as fast as the actual national shutdown happened, viewers are thrown into the Euphoria-fied version of the COVID-19 pandemic. People are shown wearing masks for approximately thirty seconds and then disappear, dissimilar to the real-life climate of Los Angeles during that period.

This was a completely unnecessary plot line, as all it added to the story was a reason why Maddy was working a side job managing an Instagram model and why her mother’s salon shut down. Usually when Euphoria incorporates flashback scenes into the show, it is obvious when it returns to the regular timeline, but in this case it was not. Maddy’s introduction is concluded by her receiving a message from her old friend Cassie Howard asking to meet up.

Now, the last episode ended with Rue Bennett (Zendaya) deciding she was going to work for a cowboy, Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who owns a strip club. Her job consists of feeding pigs and cleaning up the scene of one of Alamo’s stripper’s deaths after she overdosed on fentanyl that was brought into Alamo’s house by Rue. As a result of it being Laurie (Martha Kelly), Rue’s now former employer, who supplied the drugs that killed Alamo’s employee, he calls Laurie and tells her that in order to make up for it, he will keep Rue.

Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer) is mentioned in this episode and shown briefly, but not enough to provide any answers as to where she is at or what she is doing. Rue says she used to visit her in the city years prior (the city remains unnamed), but the visits end after Rue relapses again. With this, she mentions she has not been sober since, even though we have yet to see her do any drugs since the season began.

At the end of the episode, Jules makes a reappearance and invites Rue to bathe with her. The dynamic of all these people remaining in contact and forgetting all the trauma they put each other through in high school truly fascinates me.

Cassie Howard’s (Sydney Sweeney) character development continues to plummet as she begins her OnlyFans career and meets up with Maddy. They speak amicably with each other despite the fact that the last time viewers saw them, Maddy was attempting to beat Cassie up.

Cal Jacobs (Eric Dane) makes a grand entrance as a career-less, washed-up drunk. It would have been nice to see how he got to that point, considering the last time we saw Cal, he was spinning around his family’s foyer, urinating on the floor and being arrested for the sex crimes he committed.

We see the lowlife father-son duo with a, once again, less than impressive performance given by Jacob Elordi as Nate Jacobs. After a continuously boring performance this season, it is clear Elordi has no desire to be in this series.

If you asked me to tell you what I thought would happen next at any point in time in this episode, I would not know where to start. With the non-linear storylines, drugs and white people saying slurs they shouldn’t, things are shaping to look like a poorly done modern remake of “Pulp Fiction.”

It is truly disappointing what “Euphoria” is turning into. The lack of depth in characters, the sudden introduction of multiple new people and nonsensical story lines make the story so disconnected from the original two seasons. At this point, viewers could start the show at season three and not be confused about the show’s happenings. New characters, plot lines that should never happen and a lack of what once was is just the beginning of the demise of “Euphoria.”