Distributor: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Episodes: 18
Duration: 50 min (per episode)
Euphoria: Seasons 1-2 (DVD) – Series Review
In a landscape where fantasy, detective, and Sci-Fi shows reign supreme, drama shows often take the backseat and tend to draw in a more casual crowd due to their plots often revolving around relationships and other day-to-day problems. While at first it seemed as if Euphoria would also be one of those shows, albeit with a bit more flair, we were pleasantly surprised with the overall quality of the series. Even though the subject matter of Euphoria is dark and heavy, we were driven to the edge of our seats multiple times.
As we’re taking a look at a box that contains the two seasons of the series, it’s hard to put down the story in a few lines of text. The series starts out with a heavy focus on 17-year-old Rue (Zendaya), who overdosed and barely made it out alive. She had to go through rehab, and this is also where the story truly begins. She’ll have to adjust to going back to school, managing her friendships, and doing her best to stay clean. Sadly, it doesn’t take too long before she starts doing drugs again, and it’s clear that Rue is on a path of self-destruction. Along comes Jules (Hunter Schafer), and Rue and Jules immediately become inseparable. It doesn’t take long before Rue falls in love with Jules, but these feelings might not be mutual. Rue experiences new ‘highs’ with Jules around, but Jules herself also has a troubled past and needs to deal with her own demons.
As the series progresses, we also get to know a lot of other characters, who deal with their own addictions, love relationships, body issues, past trauma, and so on. The show is quite explicit and does not shy away from tackling sensitive topics. Our above description does not really do the series any justice, as the emotions the show evokes are quite intense. The characters evolve over the course of the two seasons and most of them show sides you didn’t know they had when you first saw them. Overall, we had a lot of bittersweet feelings watching the series, as Euphoria will not really make you happy watching it, but you’ll still want to know what happens next at the end of every episode. If we had to nitpick, we do have to mention that some of the characters’ storylines were perhaps a bit overly dramatic, to the point they lost a bit of their credibility.
The acting performances in the show are absolutely phenomenal. Zendaya hits the ball out of the park with her performance of Rue, as she manages to make the audience feel a lot of different emotions. At certain points, you care about Rue, while at others, you absolutely despise what she does simply to get her next fix. This is basically the case for almost all characters in the show, and the cast members bringing them to life do a superb job making us care about them or outright hate them. We do feel as if Sydney Sweeney did get the short end of the stick, as her character, Cassie, feels very shallow and one-dimensional. She still does a good job in terms of acting, but it feels as if her character was designed to merely be a nuisance rather than an actual important part of the show.
Each of the discs included in this box has some special features on it. Most of these features revolve around the actual creative process that went on behind the scenes. We’ll see how certain scenes were created, how certain characters came to life, how the actors feel portraying their characters, and so on. There is a lot of additional content here to explore, which adds a lot of value to actually buying a physical copy of the series. In this box, you’ll also get the two extra episodes that aired between seasons one and two.
Conclusion
Euphoria is one of those series that will not make you feel good by the time the credits start rolling, but it does manage to captivate you from start to finish. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and we do hope that the third season will still have the same impact as the first two seasons. If you’re in the mood for a show that tackles heavy topics such as addiction, suicide, neglect, and others, then Euphoria does give you a fairly interesting and realistic portrayal of said scenarios. While this is not a show that many people will look up themselves, we can wholeheartedly recommend watching it.
Euphoria: Seasons 1-2 (DVD) - Series Review,
No Comments