{"id":618389,"date":"2026-04-20T03:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T03:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618389\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T03:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T03:36:09","slug":"euphoria-season-3-has-ruined-sydney-sweeneys-character-cassie-in-humiliating-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618389\/","title":{"rendered":"Euphoria Season 3 has ruined Sydney Sweeney\u2019s character Cassie in humiliating ways."},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I had ever watched a minute of HBO\u2019s teen drama Euphoria, I had already seen the bare breasts of Cassie Howard, played by Sydney Sweeney. In the GIF I glimpsed, shared online, she was in the bathroom at a high school party, making out with Jacob Elordi\u2019s character Nate, the longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend of Cassie\u2019s best friend. Plenty such GIFs exist on the internet\u2014there are many horny users devoted to capturing, for posterity\u2019s sake, any scene with topless Cassie\u2014but in this specific context, the poster was deploying it to advance an argument that Sweeney was, counter to her apparently MAGA fan base\u2019s beliefs<\/a>, far from a heartland sweetheart on the brink of ending wokeness forever. She was, instead, they suggested, just an actress who would take a part requiring that she show chest early and often, while playing a character who was a dirty cheat.<\/p>\n

That may have been the impression that Cassie left many viewers with by the end of Euphoria\u2019s second season, but she wasn\u2019t always like this. When I finally watched the show, in the lead-up to the long-awaited release of its third season<\/a> this April, I felt a bit defensive on her behalf. It may be difficult to remember, considering the number of years that have passed in between seasons, but back then, there was a pathos to Cassie that justified all the humiliating storylines thrown at her, and even her many nude scenes. No longer. Now, in Season 3, Cassie has lost everything that made her even a little bit interesting. Those omnipresent GIFs<\/a>\u2014yes, more of them!\u2014of current-day Cassie dressed as a sexy little puppy are not, as a Cassie defender might still hope, obscuring some more interesting or subversive ideas about her character (at least, not in the three episodes that critics were able to screen). Finally, after all these years, those Sweeney haters who think her part on Euphoria is a useless humiliation ritual have been vindicated: Euphoria\u2019s most pitiful character has become the worst possible version of herself.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Nadira Goffe
\n One of HBO\u2019s Most Divisive Shows Is Finally Back. It\u2019s Completely Different.
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<\/a><\/p>\n

Euphoria\u2019s first two seasons were about high schoolers wrecking themselves on the rocks of life, largely unencumbered by parental guidance. It made sense for creator Sam Levinson to include a character like Cassie, a girl cursed with a handsome, absent addict of a father, who\u2019s been told since she was in puberty that she has the best face and body in school. (Parents of girls often wonder whether it is a bad thing<\/a> to tell your daughter she\u2019s beautiful. Cassie is proof it probably pays to be careful.) In Season 1, you feel for Cassie as she tries to keep a relationship going with McKay (Algee Smith), a boyfriend who\u2019s gone off to college and is distracted by his new life. He won\u2019t claim her in public, and he talks constantly about football. She reacts by taking ecstasy at a carnival, making out with another guy, and having a very public orgasm<\/a> while riding a carousel (ah, Euphoria), all of which only creates more problems. At the end of the season, after she terminates a pregnancy, her sadness about breaking up with McKay feels overwhelming.<\/p>\n

In Season 2, which opens with that infamous bathroom moment, Cassie, uncomfortably single, swoons into a dalliance with Nate, who has long been involved with her best friend Maddy (Alexa Demie). Although he, a sadistic jock with high standards, doesn\u2019t seem like someone who\u2019d brook a fool like Cassie, he can see the advantage of being with a woman who would do anything to keep him. \u201cPretty girl with daddy issues\u201d is hardly a groundbreaking archetype, but something about Cassie made it hard to look away, especially in Season 2. She\u2019s liquid without a bottle\u2014constantly in tears, drinking too much, and throwing up in the hot tub. A memorable montage<\/a> follows Cassie setting her alarm for 4 a.m., shaving her legs, donning beautifying masks, using rollers on various body parts, and painting on her makeup, as she prepares for school during a period when she and Nate are on a break. \u201dEven if Nate pretended not to notice her, it was her way of telling him she was his,\u201d Zendaya\u2019s character Rue says in voice-over. In this phase of her life, Cassie\u2019s volatility gives Sweeney scope as an actress. Cassie\u2019s mother, Suze (Alanna Ubach), a wine mom in a bad way, can\u2019t get on board with her affair with Nate, confronting her<\/a> about the \u201cprinciple\u201d of \u201cnot fucking your best friend\u2019s boyfriend.\u201d Sweeney ugly-screams: \u201cThat is what I\u201dm trying to tell you, Mom! They weren\u2019t boyfriend and girlfriend, god!\u201d (\u201cI just want to watch my Millionaire Matchmaker in peace,\u201d her mom replies.)<\/p>\n

But in Season 3, after the show\u2019s five-year time jump, the spectacle of Cassie\u2019s former messiness has resolved itself into a dry, boring caricature of money-hungry self-obsession. She and Nate are still together, and living in an unrenovated palace of a house in their hometown, while the rest of the characters have scattered to cities, doing the things twentysomethings do. Cassie used to prostrate herself for love; now, she\u2019s motivated by money. She wants a fancier wedding than Nate can provide\u2014specificially, a wedding with $50,000 worth of flowers. \u201cI didn\u2019t wait my entire life to have a ghetto wedding,\u201d is how she puts it, in a way crueler formulation than Season 1 or Season 2\u2019s Cassie would have ever used.<\/p>\n

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The Pitt Prides Itself on Accuracy. So How Did It Mess This Up?
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Cassie turns to the idea of earning money on OnlyFans after flirting with posting risqu\u00e9 content of herself on TikTok. Maybe she does so because, as Rue says in voice-over, she\u2019s \u201cso desperate for attention she\u2019s willing to humiliate herself.\u201d Maybe the puppyplay photos\u2014and the other pics and videos that Juana (Minerva Garc\u00eda), their housekeeper, helps her take, including one deeply awful one of Cassie holding her feet in happy baby pose and sucking on a pacifier\u2014can be explained by Cassie being a former high school hottie whose distracted husband isn\u2019t providing what she wants. But these new humiliations feel distant, provoking no sympathy at all from viewers already repelled by Sweeney\u2019s public persona<\/a>, still reeling from the slap of that \u201cghetto.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the most embarrassing Cassie scene in Season 3\u2019s newly aired second episode is the one in which Cassie and her former BFF Maddy, who now manages talent including actors and influencers, have poolside drinks after years of no contact. This interaction shows Cassie at her least interesting: silly, grasping, ambitious but incapable. Cassie humiliates herself, and she has no idea. \u201cI just feel like if more people knew me, I would be huge,\u201d she says to Maddy, who not-very-gently breaks the news: \u201cThe market\u2019s just oversaturated with a lot of girls like you.\u201d Maddy tells Cassie she doesn\u2019t know the right people, and has no taste; in Maddy\u2019s professional opinion, her content looks desperate. It \u201ctries too hard, instead of just being.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing what?\u201d Cassie asks, to which Maddy replies: \u201cYourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho am I?\u201d Cassie asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a really good question,\u201d Maddy replies.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Sam Adams
\n Netflix\u2019s Answer to The White Lotus Is Back. It Cuts Even Deeper Than Before.
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Once upon a time, in the far-off world that was Euphoria\u2019s first two seasons, Cassie was somebody\u2019s daughter, somebody\u2019s friend. You could even squint and see that she believed she actually loved Nate, even if that was a dangerous delusion. The vulnerable qualities Sweeney brought to the role gave you the feeling that this girl was intensely needy. For a star sometimes accused of doing too much for attention<\/a>, who was at the time right at the precipice of fame, that old Cassie made perfect sense. Now, Sydney Sweeney is a household name and a political lighting rod, and the character she became famous for has become inhumanly awful, with no relationship to anyone at all, except herself. \u201cI honestly can\u2019t tell whether Levinson is obsessed with Cassie or hates her\u2014probably both,\u201d wrote a fan<\/a> on Reddit about this new season. Before Season 3 started, I would have picked the first option. Now, I\u2019m not so sure.<\/p>\n

Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before I had ever watched a minute of HBO\u2019s teen drama Euphoria, I had already seen the bare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,447,134,9054,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-618389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-hbo","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}