On this very special episode of Euphoria, Rue’s on the road to redemption, Alamo gets a back story, Maddy lays the foundation for her empire, and Cassie receives a gift. Are we any closer to knowing how this brand new series…I mean, season will close out? No, no we are not. But we agreed to go on this ride, we can’t get off now. Let’s get into it. It’s a recap y’all, hella spoilers below.
In Six Days the Lord Made the Heavens and the Earth
We start off the episodes with a young Alamo (played by Ca’Ron Jaden Coleman) probably about ten years old. He’s at home with his mother, played by the unbelievably talented Danielle Deadwyler, who’s explaining that the man she was talking about is finally coming over to meet him. That he loves her, but it doesn’t mean anything if he doesn’t also love Alamo too. That “He’s [Alamo] the most important thing in the world” to her. Also, Alamo is not allowed to say anything about his scars. The man is the sweetest guy! He treats Alamo like his own son, he clearly loves his momma. What a perfect scenario. You always hear about that person whose dad was an a–hole and they were raised by their phenomenal stepfather.
How did he get these scars? Story is, Preston (played by Kwame Patterson) worked at a chemical factory and a vat exploded in his face. So yes he IS the Joker, if the Joker turned to God instead of chaos. Long story short he gets his settlement and they are rich! They get new clothes, furniture, go on beach vacations. Everything’s coming up Alamo. Until they get home and they’ve been robbed blind. This just won’t do! Alamo’s mom says we out!!! Clearly revealed as a gold digger. But that’s not even the half of it.
They ride off in the night to a whole new city. Walk into an apartment with a new man, who doesn’t even acknowledge Alamo. As he looks around – all of their fancy things are there. The couches, the clothes, paintings, the whole nine yards. You realize the call was coming from inside the house! His mom’s con worked, the only thing is, Alamo had no idea and, in reality, he lost the best thing – a dad who cared, a true caring human. So the resentment starts there, the childhood trauma that makes him overcompensate and need to feel respected as a big man. That was the beginning. Why he rides for Westerns, and why he’s a real cowboy in control.
For a minute there, it felt like the old Euphoria. The one where the characters are built with real depth and woven with threads that reveal the human condition. Problem is, it’s the last season. We don’t have very far to go with these characters, so starting a whole new world feels like we’re the ones getting conned.
Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth, Hand for Hand, Foot for Foot
Back at Alamo’s ranch. Rue is still buried to the gills and a grown Alamo is riding towards her ready for heads to roll. Like we thought, Rue does not get whacked. She begs them to let her fix it. She can get the money back. Somehow we’re relying on Faye to take a picture of the safe key next to a quarter for scale so they can make a replica. Rue promises Faye she can keep the money. So no loyalty all around. None for Faye and her new Noxi beau, not for Laurie, not for Rue, not for Alamo. Snitching and turn coating is just going around. Rue’s main mission is still working with the DEA to nail all of these people. That pack of drugs she was carrying when feds picked her up, they replaced with laxatives, and Faye knows this because she snorted them and shat her brains out. No one listens to Faye, but I just know that is going to come back around some how. This is all going to end in a bloodbath and arrests and somehow Rue is going to get away scot-free or really go to prison and live her best life in jail away from the world. Either way it’s a shitty ending.
The gangsters meet up. Let me be specific: Alamo and Laurie have a meeting IRL at his place. Drinks are served.
Laurie reveals her terms which are: Alamo uses his plastic surgery business to get over the border on a medical pass and bring back an ambulance full of fentanyl so they can truly ruin a generations worth of people’s lives. If he doesn’t, they’ll send the drugs they have from his stash to the FBI. (Which the FBI already has and had replaced with Dulcolax.) He agrees because they say they’re going to snitch. Laurie asks Rue to be the driver because she’s good at it. Which obviously would be a trap. She definitely wants Rue to get got after she got her bird killed. Which I really didn’t like, the bird, the pig, these animals don’t have anything to do with this! Either way the DEA has what they need.
Rue meets with the DEA for probably one of the last times. They’re like, “we good!” These guys will go down for life and “the U.S. attorney will look at your case favorably.” What in the hell does that mean? I’m only going to go to jail for 20 years instead of life? Like I said, either way it’s a shitty ending.
Maddy, on the other hand, is just getting her partnership with Alamo started. Maddy introduces herself to Bishop. “I’m Maddy.” He says, “I know.” Bishop reassures Alamo that Maddy is not the one to look out for when it comes to traitors. I see sparks in her eyes for Bishop. What if, at the end of all of this, Maddy runs off into the sunset with Bishop with all of the money and a harem of girls to continue making millions on OnlyFans. That’s a fine ending for me.
Who Made You a Prince or a Judge Over Us?
We get back to our fully formed backstory with Jules. Rue professes her long-lasting love for Jules and how she wants a family with kids and normal American problems. I think we’re having normal American problems all the time and it is not better. Girl, we can’t even buy groceries right now. That said, she proceeds to insult Jules and shove in her face that Jules’s sugar daddy is never going to leave his family, and she’ll forever be someone’s pet. Jules smacks the ISH out of her. Paintings go flying. I honestly think this was a mistake that they left in. Rue falling off her rocker was planned but the painting falling on top of her – had to be a mistake. They kept it in and that made the scene that much more awkward. She literally smacked the taste of fantasy out of Rue’s mouth. She fell like…
You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me
We’ve made it to shoot day with Cassie. She’s on the set of LA Nights overprepared to play “job applicant.” She’s at her marker. She just needs to enter, say her lines and cut. First, they comment on her being very womanly. I’m trying to understand what’s the purpose of that comment. Aren’t they in charge of wardrobe, you gave her an outfit with her tatas out. I mean I know directors don’t review every outfit for extras but if you don’t like it – cut, get her a different shirt.
Anyway, she jumps on the scene and says her three lines. Get’s triggered by the word “honeymoon” from when her 70s brand of gangster gave her a bloody nose. She carries on about ‘you think you know someone, then you’re bleeding.’ The other actor goes with it, a whole improved scene with ‘job applicant.’ Now Cassie is crying. It’s a whole thing. The directors like it so they keep it, even though it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Now they want to write her into the show as long as she deletes her OnlyFans. F- that! Porque no los dos?? Hollywood is not recession proof – quite the opposite. What did we learn from the last episode? We have to diversify our revenue streams. But this season Cassie has lost many brain cells during the five year time jump.
For some reason Cassie is back at her apartment, and the scene is over dramatic once again. Old Hollywood thriller and horror music playing, reminiscent of her long giantess scene. She’s in her underwear again trying to hype herself up to delete her OnlyFans. You spend this scene trying to understand why we are dragging Cassie along like this. Sure, she would make terrible and irreparable mistakes in previous seasons. She was never booksmart, but her character had a certain depth that fit within the jigsaw puzzle of Euphoria.
Now, they’ve placed her in lingerie and made her a mouthpiece for the manosphere. Every scene she is whining or smiling larger than her cheeks can take her lips, or crying helplessly, squealing and running around as hard as her boobs can jiggle. I have no problem with jiggling or characters like this. But we’ve lost the depth her character had, and seemingly for no reason. She’s not connected nor grounded in her own story and a thin thread for others like Lexy, Maddy and Nate. I guess we have three more episodes to see if she gets a glimmer of her former multitudes.
Cassie deletes her OnlyFans, which nothing is ever actually deleted on the internet. Maddy is going to come for her with that signed photographic evidence of that breach in her contract. You better reinstate that page girl. On the other thread connected to Cassie, Lexy has now been tasked with writing Cassie’s character ‘job applicant’ into a fully formed part of the show. Lexy’s neighbor – whom I would not even take advice from on where to place my furniture – is advising her on what to do. Her neighbor suggests Lexy kill Cassie’s character off. Really though, if she can’t do it in a compelling way the directors will just reject that, but this season does not have the most intentional writing, so let’s see.
Meanwhile, Cassie receives that gift. No, not her extended role on LA Nights. None other than her husband’s severed finger. Welp, we’ll be following that breadcrumb next episode.
I AM WHO I AM
Rue finds herself in church. Because remember her and Maddy are religious now. So, she gets a call from her mom, which is actually the feds. But wait no – it’s actually her mom! They have a heart to heart, and Rue is feeling pretty good.
I think she only knows what high feels like when you do drugs, short lived until you get the next hit. This brief chat is no different. For that moment, her current situation ceased to exist. Sadly, no – you still in danger girl. Back at the Silver Slipper, Alamo’s club, Rue is asked to feed the python where Bishop gives her yet another poetic warning for her life. This snake that used to curl up at night with one of the girls was just sizing her up to eat her. So…. after that story he says – oh your mom is so sweet, she was all happy to hear how well you are doing. Yup, snap back to reality.
On her ride home, she’s listening to the bible on CD, as one does. It’s skipping and she’s just trying to get it to work. On the road alone, it’s dark and she’s not looking. I said ummm are we about to kill her in a 90s dramatic TV show style car crash? But no, this season is a series of Rue close calls. She swerves out of the way of a big mack truck. It’s always a mack truck on some back highway in the desert?? How many of these 18-wheelers are taking the back highways? Here, we are spun out a bit in the dirt, and the glint of a flame appears in the car window reflection. Rue exits the car. She falls to her knees. Why? Because she has just witnessed the spontaneous combustion of the only tree out in the desert in the night right now. What in the biblical F is going on? Forreal? I also am sitting mouth agape. Am I supposed to feel things? A literal burning bush.
I hope she actually fell asleep at the wheel, veered off the road, and that was some insane dream brought on by her Book of Exodus on tape. I just cannot with the basic metaphor in a show that gave us some of the most extraordinary imagery we have seen in a long time. But I’m choosing joy these days as it does not come easily. So I’ll be positive and see what message this burning bush has for us next week.
Cover image via WB Press Room Photographer Patrick Wymore/HBO
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