Did Euphoria Lose the Very Thing That Made It Special?
The new season of Euphoria has finally arrived, but instead of feeling like a triumphant return, it left me with a question I could not shake: should this version of the show have existed at all? For many viewers, the loss of Angus Cloud changed the series forever. Fez was never just another character. He brought warmth, vulnerability, and a kind of emotional grounding that balanced the chaos around him. Without him, the absence is impossible to ignore. Attempts to keep his presence alive through references and phone calls only made that void feel larger. At the same time, the cast that once felt deeply interconnected now often feels separated into entirely different worlds. The chemistry that made earlier seasons so addictive is noticeably harder to find, replaced by storylines that rarely feel like they belong to the same show.
The writing is where the disappointment becomes harder to overlook. One of Euphoria's greatest strengths was its ability to explore messy, complicated young women with empathy. This season often feels less interested in that complexity.
→ Cassie Howard, once one of the show's most emotionally layered characters, is pushed into increasingly exaggerated storylines that flatten rather than deepen her character.
→ Maddy Perez and Jules Vaughn face similar issues, trapped in narratives that often feel more interested in shock value than genuine character development.
What once felt like an examination of identity, insecurity, desire, and trauma now occasionally feels like a collection of disconnected fantasies struggling to justify themselves.
Behind the scenes, the strain is equally difficult to ignore. The absence of key creative voices is felt throughout the season, particularly in its music and overall atmosphere. Combined with lingering criticism surrounding Sam Levinson's previous projects and creative decisions, the result is a season that often feels disconnected from the emotional honesty that originally defined Euphoria. By the finale, the show seems less interested in asking difficult questions and more interested in delivering conclusions that feel strangely safe, overly neat, and occasionally at odds with the characters we've spent years following. The most frustrating part is that glimpses of the old brilliance are still there. They just appear far less often than many of us hoped.
Did this season feel as hollow to you as it did to me, or are you still finding pieces of the old magic hidden underneath it all?