![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9ee0bbcec18c511c5ec620fb855dc3045a-alexa-demie-1.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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Euphoria<\/a><\/p>\n America My Dream<\/p>\n \n Season 3<\/p>\n Episode 2\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 2 stars<\/p>\n **\n <\/p>\n \n Cassie and Maddy\u2019s reunion could be a commentary on sex work, OnlyFans, and American prosperity, but it just feels like a misogynistic joke. Need more? Sign up for Euphoria Club<\/a>, a newsletter overanalyzing season three of Sam Levinson\u2019s HBO fever dream, for subscribers only<\/a>.<\/p>\n The tagline for the Silver Slipper, the strip club Alamo owns, is \u201cFully nude, always lewd.\u201d This charming witticism might double as a tagline for the season writ large. Nearly all of our female characters \u2014 except for Lexi, absent from this week\u2019s episode \u2014\u00a0have grown up to either do or facilitate sex work. If in previous seasons, Euphoria foregrounded erotic imagery to make a point about the confusing and often painful process of coming to terms with one\u2019s sexuality, now that poignancy is gone. There are two types of women in Levinson\u2019s Los Angeles: The dumb ones and the smart ones. The dumb ones get naked; the smart ones puppeteer them. It goes without saying, but just to be clear: There are plenty of good, sensitive, edifying stories to be told about sex work in this country. But from where I\u2019m standing, Euphoria is not the show to tell them. That\u2019s because it has been colored with a light shade of misogyny since day one. It\u2019s part of the show\u2019s DNA, from the reports<\/a> of Levinson\u2019s (mis)treatment<\/a> of female nudity on set, to everything that has ever happened to Cassie.<\/p>\n In Euphoria, we hardly ever see men debase themselves. Even Cal, who ended up a \u201cbroke sexual deviant,\u201d according to Rue\u2019s narration, was always the dominant party in a sexual interaction. His humiliation has less to do with what he did than with the fact that he got caught. Drunk, demoralized, and devoid of his construction empire, he has managed to mend his relationship with Nate through undepicted means. Did they find peace in an inverted dynamic in which Cal has to respond to Nate, whose capacity for sexual intimacy he ruined forever? Or is the inverted dynamic the reason why Cal is drunk? At his Sex and Love Addicts meeting, Cal heard that Cassie is doing OnlyFans. \u201cOnce you give in to temptation,\u201d he warns his son, \u201cit\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n Cassie is still determined to make it big on \u201cthe platform.\u201d Her pictures, which start innocently enough from the puppy-dog idea, get increasingly demeaning. A baseball theme is indicated by a backward cap, some EyeBlack, and a glove, which is all she is wearing. The most disturbing tableau depicts Cassie as a baby, sucking on a pacifier and spreading her legs. Maddy scrolls through picture after picture of Cassie\u2019s naked body. \u201cBeautiful but directionless,\u201d she muses \u2014 the two essential qualities in a girl from whom a cannier woman might make a profit.<\/p>\n Remember in the first season, when McKay\u2019s frat brothers invaded his dorm room<\/a> as he was having sex with Cassie to humiliate him in a hazing ritual and then McKay resumed having aggressive, unloving sex with Cassie in order to reclaim his virility? When we were watching that episode, my (intelligent and observant) husband made a good point about the camera\u2019s perspective. That episode\u2019s cold open dived into McKay\u2019s background, which meant the hour\u2019s emotional core was with him; but in the moment of his humiliation, the camera held fast on Cassie, pornographically posed on all fours. It sent a signal to the audience: Euphoria prefers to see Cassie degraded. Is there any reason we should see so many of her OnlyFans photo shoots, besides Levinson\u2019s indulgence? The underlying misogyny of the previous seasons has transformed into full-on contempt for Cassie. She has been bimbofied into oblivion.<\/p>\n Last week<\/a>, I wrote that Cassie is nuts, not dumb, but after \u201cAmerica My Dream,\u201d I\u2019m reconsidering that idea. It\u2019d be generous to read Cassie as an ambitious woman who manipulates her image to get what she wants. Any good femme fatale knows who she is, a quality Maddy has and Cassie doesn\u2019t. And like any good femme fatale, Maddy is given savvy at the expense of moral scruples. This week\u2019s episode opens with an explanation of how Maddy came to work for Ms. Penzler (Rebecca Pidgeon). She pitches herself as an antidote to her generation\u2019s stereotypes: She\u2019s not \u201ca victim\u201d and she \u201cbelieves in capitalism.\u201d Maddy\u2019s career development slows down with the pandemic, which also shuts down her mother\u2019s salon. Determined to help her family, she finds a beautiful, directionless, new-to-L.A. girl named Katelyn (Bella Podaras) on TikTok. As her \u201ccareer architect,\u201d Maddy builds up Katelyn\u2019s following from virtually zero to more than a million followers. \u201cIt\u2019s important to have a moral code,\u201d she concedes when Katelyn says she doesn\u2019t want to do nudity. But it takes \ufeffonly a few photo shoots, and maybe some checks, for Katelyn to be comfortably naked in front of the camera.<\/p>\n Having established Katelyn\u2019s following, Maddy moves to make her socially relevant by introducing her to Dylan Reid. She shows him Katelyn\u2019s feed on \u2026 the Friends couch. But Penzler is still more powerful than she is, and despite Maddy\u2019s argument that \u201cthe norms are changing\u201d and girls like Katelyn are part of a \u201cbooming industry,\u201d Penzler maintains her clients shouldn\u2019t associate with \u201cporn stars.\u201d A year later, Katelyn is making $700,000 a month and Maddy is still Penzler\u2019s assistant. She vows to follow her own instincts from now on, which is why when Cassie messages her wanting to have lunch, she seizes the opportunity.<\/p>\n Their poolside \u201cmeeting\u201d is the highlight of this week\u2019s episode. Alexa Demie and Sydney Sweeney have electric chemistry, reuniting for the first time since high school. Cassie\u2019s jaw drops when she sees Maddy, who looks elegant and sexy in her signature fur coat, even though it appears to be 500 degrees outside. Maddy is a bad bitch, a fully formed woman with a career, perfect makeup, and manicured nails. She makes Cassie \u2014 rich and about to marry the guy they ruined their friendship over\u00a0\u2014\u00a0look painfully provincial. Cassie apologizes \u2014 not for what she did to Maddy but for how she did it. That Cassie thinks her engagement to Nate means their love was always real comforts Maddy: Cassie\u2019s life is so small that she\u2019s still holding on to that \u201cvictory.\u201d On her third Aperol spritz, Cassie admits that the real reason she wanted to see Maddy is that she needs help getting bigger on OnlyFans. Maddy advises that she\u2019s trying too hard and should try being herself. \u201cBut \u2026 who am I?\u201d Cassie asks. There is no pathos in Sweeney\u2019s delivery, only emptiness. Just like that, Cassie surrenders her image to Maddy\u2019s control.<\/p>\n That is, until Nate gets wind of the arrangement at the barbecue he hosts for his investors. Well, \u201cinvestors\u201d is a stretch \u2014 these are his neighbors from whom he\u2019s trying to pull together $100,000 by Friday so he can win back the good graces of Naz (Jack Topalian), a gangster-inflected funeral-parlor owner to whom Nate owes $550,000. At the barbecue, Cassie shows Heather her \u201ccontent.\u201d Heather is so disturbed that she runs to tell her husband, Fred, speculating that Cassie is on OnlyFans because Nate can\u2019t afford their wedding. But Fred blindly believes in Nate\u2019s affluence. Nate plays his older neighbors like a fiddle, seducing them with his beauty, money, and youth. It helps him to demonstrate that he can control Cassie. In front of Heather and Fred, he gets Cassie to delete her OnlyFans account by promising to pay for the $50,000 florals. Later, in bed, he tells Cassie that he grew up in a house filled with lies and secrecy, which is why he is sensitive about those things now. A vulnerable moment from our dark prince! For the sake of transparency, Cassie tells him about seeing Maddy about her career (which, according to Nate, is now over) and that she invited Maddy to their wedding.<\/p>\n Okay, that\u2019s what goes on in the burbs. But what about Rue? When we catch up with her this week, she\u2019s proved her worth to Alamo by doing his dirty work: She cleans up after the death of Tish, the girl who OD\u2019d on Laurie\u2019s fentanyl-laced drugs last week. \u201cYou killed one of my bitches,\u201d Alamo tells Laurie on the phone. \u201cNow I\u2019m taking one of yours.\u201d He offers to settle Rue\u2019s debt, and the deal is done, not that it goes politely or smoothly. It\u2019s not that Harley addresses Alamo by a racial slur that gets to him but that Laurie calls him a \u201cfucking pig.\u201d Days later, he\u2019s still thinking about it and vows to get his revenge. Meanwhile, Rue, now employed at the Silver Slipper, gets the lay of the land from the club\u2019s manager and becomes acquainted with the girls. There\u2019s Magick (Rosal\u00eda!), who is in the middle of a lawsuit and rocking a neck brace on the pole. And there\u2019s Angel (Priscilla Delgado), with whom Rue has very loud sex in the parking lot.<\/p>\n Within a few weeks, Rue goes from unclogging toilets to helping manage the girls. Angel, who was Tish\u2019s best friend, gets increasingly agitated by her friend\u2019s disappearance. Alamo insists that she \u201cfell in love\u201d and skipped town, but Angel knows that if that were true, Tish would have called her back by now. The manager can\u2019t get through to Angel, so Rue offers to speak to her instead. She tells her the truth about Tish\u2019s overdose, and Angel spirals; she passes out in the club, sleeps in her car, throws up in the bathrooms. The situation reaches a breaking point: Either Angel agrees to go to rehab \u2014\u00a0which Alamo will pay for \u2014\u00a0or she\u2019ll be fired. Alamo offers Rue another promotion if she can convince Angel to get treatment, but it\u2019s no easy feat (\u201cSuck my big fat fucking dick, bitch\u201d is Angel\u2019s first reaction). Still, Rue knows a thing or two about resisting an intervention, and finally they get on the road en route to Hope Springs, the rehab facility. Angel muses that California is a strange place: \u201cMore people go missing here than anywhere else in America. It\u2019s like there\u2019s a big magnet under the soil attracting evil.\u201d<\/p>\n There seems to be a desire to say something about the greed and corruption at the heart of American western mythology this season. While making her housekeeper, Juana (she better be getting a cut of the profits),\u00a0take photos of her dressed as a sexy baby, Cassie asks her if she thinks her life could be bigger. But Juana says \u201cno.\u201d \u201cAmerica: my dream,\u201d she replies with a smile. Combined with Angel and Rue\u2019s drive through the desert, Levinson seems to be pointing at the hollowness of the American Dream, which compels a person to risk their life, only to end up photographing dumb bimbos for OnlyFans.<\/p>\n Hope Springs is sketchy when Rue and Angel get there. There\u2019s no paperwork to sign, and the person at the front desk avoids eye contact and has dirt under their fingernails. Angel is frightened, but Rue promises to come back for her. From the way Angel looks back at Rue before disappearing behind a door, and the fact that someone watches Rue as she drives away, I suspect we\u2019ll never see Angel again. I hope I\u2019m wrong! Priscilla Delgado left it all out there; I loved Angel from the moment she threw the first shoe. Meanwhile, Alamo gets his revenge on Laurie. Wayne (who, by the way, has a swastika tattooed on his chest) and Faye are in the act when they hear a ruckus upstairs. \u201cIs that \u2026 a dinosaur?\u201d Faye wonders. But it\u2019s just a massive hog that has invaded the house, peeing and shitting everywhere. A flag on it warns \u201cRemember the Alamo.\u201d I already feel bad for this pig. He has nothing to do with any of this!<\/p>\n It\u2019s only in the last five minutes that Jules finally appears. She makes a smaller appearance earlier, in flashback, as Rue tells Angel about visiting her in art school in L.A. It was around that time that Rue relapsed. She had to beg her mom to let her come home, but they haven\u2019t spoken in two years, and Gia often avoids her calls. Rue hasn\u2019t been sober since, though she tells Jules she\u2019s \u201cCalifornia sober,\u201d which to her means some drinking and some weed but nothing \u201cthat can destroy her life.\u201d Rue first gets the inkling to reach out to Jules in conversation with Maddy, who assures her that it\u2019s fine to be a sugar baby. She only doesn\u2019t do it herself because she\u2019s \u201cnot a fucking hooker.\u201d<\/p>\n Rue misses high school, and in that, she\u2019s alone among her former classmates. Jules tells her it\u2019s easy to romanticize things from a distance. She is living in a swanky penthouse apartment that belongs to her boyfriend and wearing an expensive-looking wig that reaches down to her hips. Rue questions the nature of Jules\u2019s relationship, but Jules deflects. It\u2019s true that her boyfriend has a family, but (1) has that ever stopped her before? And (2) she doesn\u2019t think \u201cpeople are meant to be monogamous.\u201d When Rue takes that as a hint that maybe there\u2019s a chance for them still, Jules replies, \u201cYou can\u2019t just show up after all this time and think everything\u2019s gonna be the same.\u201d Jules is different now. She\u2019s cold, hardened, and distant. The lighthearted warmth of her teenage self is gone. She invites Rue to join her in the bath.<\/p>\n \u2022 I wish for Juana that she could get another job with some normal people, but I also think she\u2019s fucking with Nate and Cassie a little. As Nate waits for Cassie to get her phone to delete her OnlyFans account, Juana points to every item left over from the barbecue and asks Nate if she\u2019s supposed to save them. The list gets so long that Nate says, calmly, \u201cJuana, I\u2019m going to kill you.\u201d Juana doesn\u2019t even flinch.<\/p>\n \u2022 Speaking of the above interaction: Witnessing it, Heather and Fred exchange looks like, These people are weird. Uh, yeah! No one in this neighborhood is addressing the fact that Cassie and Nate are suspiciously loaded for 22-year-olds. It\u2019s weird!<\/p>\n \u2022 Cleaning Tish\u2019s room, Rue rolls a rug and something falls out. I couldn\u2019t tell if it\u2019s a key or an earring, but either way, it\u2019s something to watch out for.<\/p>\n \u2022 Laurie is sincere when she tells Alamo she didn\u2019t lace her drugs with fentanyl. It was an accident: Wayne forgot to tell Faye to clean the scale from the fentanyl that had been measured before, and the substance is so powerful that it can be lethal even at a vestigial dose. It seems as though Levinson is angling to make some kind of comment on the fentanyl crisis, but it hasn\u2019t come together just yet. Similarly, the passing acknowledgment of the pandemic\u2019s politically charged summer vaguely gestures at the social forces influencing the youth but stops short of examining how they do so. Speaking of 2020, which Euphoria characters do you think would have refused to mask and\/or get vaccinated? I think Cassie and Nate for sure, and I could see Maddy going \u201cIt\u2019s just a flu \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 One last thing on the sex-work theme: There was more depth and intelligence to Kat\u2019s season-one camgirl arc than there is to any of Cassie\u2019s OnlyFans fantasies.<\/p>\n \u2022 I mentioned Jacob Elordi\u2019s new, confusingly goofy Nate in my last recap. Elordi returns to form in the sequence with Naz when he embodies Nate\u2019s fear so completely that you can see red patches rising up his neck and flushing his cheeks. You can\u2019t pretend that kind of bodily reaction; that\u2019s some serious channeling. A few months ago, on Actors on Actors with Gwyneth Paltrow, Elordi said<\/a> about season-three Nate, \u201cThere\u2019s a chance that what I\u2019ve done is not good.\u201d Jury\u2019s out, Jacob. But for what it\u2019s worth, I\u2019m a believer!<\/p>\n \u2022 It\u2019s melancholy watching Eric Dane return to his role as Cal in this episode. On the one hand, it\u2019s a joy to see him as attuned and funny as ever; on the other hand, Cal\u2019s slurred speech \u2014 though consistent with the character\u2019s alcoholism \u2014 is only too poignant a reminder of his untimely death.<\/p>\n Join New York Magazine staffers in the comments section to discuss the same burning questions we\u2019re trying to answer in Euphoria Club<\/a>, our subscriber-exclusive newsletter. <\/p>\n Sign up for Euphoria Club<\/p>\n A newsletter overanalyzing season three of Sam Levinson\u2019s HBO fever dream, for subscribers only.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Eddy Chen\/HBO\n <\/p>\n