The second season of HBO’s Euphoria has dramatically come to a close. This season was, in many ways, visually and aurally beautiful chaos. The emotional and dramatic season ended with many cliffhangers and moments for viewers to ponder and examine as they await Season 3. As we look back on this season and prepare for two years without the Sundays that the internet has lovingly named “Euphoria Day,” it’s time to reflect on the season and dig into its many details, questions, and important moments. And, as surprising as it may be, there is one thing that ties this season together: bathtubs.
The world of the internet played a major role in Euphoria’s second season. In fact, Euphoria-inspired internet content became so widespread this season that it’s become the decade’s most tweeted-about show in the U.S. (That’s over 30 million tweets.) In the wake of the season premiere, there was a still from that first episode that became a meme, itself. It showed Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) hiding in the bathtub at that fateful New Years' Eve party.
In this moment, Cassie was desperately hoping that Maddy (Alexa Demie) wouldn't discover her and thereby unmask her betrayal - Cassie is sleeping with Maddy's toxic ex-boyfriend. This image became representative of one of the core plotlines this season: Cassie slowly descending into madness whilst juggling keeping Nate’s (Jacob Elordi) attention and ensuring that Maddy stays in the dark. This plotline polarized the internet: the “Cassie hive” VS. those who were Team Maddy (though most were able to agree on a shared anti-Nate sentiment.)
But, regardless of what side you found yourself on, you can admit that while this plotline made for good TV, we’ve seen it before. Two high school best friends fighting over a boy? What teen TV show doesn’t have that? And, for anyone who may have experienced this in their own lives or can muster up the empathy, you can imagine that this situation is traumatic for these characters – each in their own way.
Whether or not you think Cassie’s behavior is forgivable or even sane, that image of her in the bathtub conjures up negative feelings. It looks almost like something from a horror movie. And, whether you find sympathizing with Cassie possible or worthwhile, it’s clear based on the image that being discovered by Maddy is terrifying for Cassie. Cassie would spend the rest of the season with her metaphorical hand clenched over her mouth, fighting back tears to keep Maddy from knowing the truth. Maddy does find out and she reminds Cassie in the finale - "This is just the beginning." The situation is a difficult one.
Another plotline deliberately and intricately woven throughout the season is the story of Fez (Angus Cloud) and Ashtray (Javon Walton.) The season opens with the backstory of how the two became brothers and how they came to live the dangerously precarious lives that they live. This was not a predictable way for the season to start, but it showed that Fez and Ash would be an important component of the season to come. Both the internet talk and the season’s penultimate episode built up anxiety and predictions about whether Fez would survive the season’s ending and what would come of him and Ash.
In the end, Fez was shot and probably arrested, and Ash was shot (likely to death). While fear and violence and danger are rampant in Euphoria, the death and gunfire and blood are not. This scene was planted in unusual soil: Coming off the first half of a two-part finale that very much left fans worrying for the now-beloved Fez and Ash’s safety.
During this intense scene, Ash hides in the bathtub as he waits for the police to break in. Seeing Ash hiding in the bathtub in fear in the season’s final episode couldn’t help but conjure that now internet-famous image of Cassie trapped in the bathtub in this season’s premiere. And, once this connection is drawn, it’s hard not to compare the two moments. It’s difficult to ignore that the image of Ash is life or death, and the one of Cassie very much isn’t as when you look at them both, Cassie is the one that looks the most scared. It’s hard not to think about how Ash seems courageous and selfless and hardened beyond his years, and Cassie seems selfish and immature and cowardly - and she has about six years on him.
In many ways, Euphoria is composed entirely of this dichotomy. The series is constantly perched between a typically shallow mix of high school tropes and acknowledgment of a darker reality. Nate fits the normal jock trope, but his backstory is hardly the one you’d imagine from your typical TV high school jock or bully. It’s more nuanced, painful, and real. Viewers got to watch Fez and Ash grow up; they got to experience how they came to be where they are. It’s nearly impossible not to feel that Fez and Ash don’t need to be punished, to be shot at; they need help. Euphoria, as it has before, takes a magnifying glass to the lack of help from the world for people who need it.
The two bathtubs put an exclamation point on Euphoria’s frequent oscillation between small, normalized, interpersonal problems and bigger, circumstantial life-or-death situations. It’s the embodiment of both the concept of “suck it up— other people have it worse” and the counterargument that that sentiment helps no one. The characters’ experiences couldn’t be much more different, but it’s all deep, profound, life-shattering fear and pain, all the same
While it may not have made you do the quick double-take and compare-and-contrast that Cassie and Ash’s bathtub moments did, there’s another important tub scene in the middle of this season. When Rue (Zendaya) is going through withdrawal and the cold, mysterious drug dealer, Laurie (Martha Kelly). offers her morphine, she first helps her into the bathtub. This moment in Rue’s life is a terrifying and dangerous one. And, while Rue made it out of this interaction okay (so far). it still showed a moment that no one, especially a teenager, should ever have to suffer.
Water in literature often represents rebirth, cleansing, and life flowing forward. But, water in a bathtub doesn’t flow, and an empty bathtub really doesn’t. It’s stuck, stagnant, and preventing change when it's needed. All of these characters are stuck in situations they’d surely rather not be in. And, while the situations are all very different, these characters find themselves in the same place: pain, fear, and the bathtub.