Everyone Loves to Be Loved in 'Euphoria' Episode Two
Early on in this week's Euphoria episode, Cassie and Lexi, naturally, are hanging out in a purple-lit hot tub, floating opposite each other. Cassie is monotoning about the wonders of abstinence when Lexi says, "Bitch, I don't believe a word you're saying. Because you love to be loved." If the show has anything close to a thesis, this might just be it.
Season Two, Episode Two of Euphoria, "Out of Touch," is long-panning shot from series creator Sam Levinson playing out that exact line. The installment opens with Nate Jacobs, who plays out a white-picket-fenced future with Cassie while he's comatose. Cassie, of course, serves as the inspiration for the "everybody loves to be loved" bit. Maddie considers getting back together with Nate, watching the perfectly happy Kat and Ethan cuddle and bowl. Or so she thinks. Kat's struggling because she's not loving the love she does have. Lexie and Fez continue to orbit each other, Rue and Elliot's friendship starts to make Jules jealous, and—you get it. Everybody loves to be loved.
While we all wait for Tom Holland's certainly-not-but-maybe-happening cameo at the end of the season, let's run down the rest of Season Two, Episode Two.
Aside from the trippy bowling scene adding more fuel to the Sam-Levinson-needs-to-direct-a-sports-movie fire, we pick up with the budding something between Nate and Cassie, which—as Nate predicted—will surely lead to a Maddy meltdown. On the other end of potentially fatal beefs, Cal Jacobs returns to the mix, finding out that Fez was the one who nearly Tito's-bottled Nate to death. More on Cal towards the end. Dominic Fike's Elliot is shaping up to be one third of a love triangle alongside Jules and Rue. If he's lucky, Elliot will be the lucky recipient of Rue's cold open treatment in the next episode. We're also treated to yet another dick, that of an imaginary Game of Thrones-esque Norse dude in Kat's bedroom.
In the rest of the episode, we get somewhat of a postscript to the great Euphoria bridge episode, where Rue and Colman Domingo's Ali spend Christmas Eve together. Seeing that Rue's showing up to rehab high, he quips that she's still on her "suicide mission." Remember, it's only been a couple weeks since Rue admitted to Ali that she's suicidal. Like the occasional function of alcohol itself, Euphoria's party trick is using "Return of the Mack" needle drops to make you forget about the pain inside nearly each and every character in the show. After rehab, Ali insists that he meets Rue's mom, Leslie.
After Rue pulled a shard of broken glass on her earlier in the season, we're hoping that relationship is somewhat repaired by the end of Season Two. But given what Zendaya has been saying to the press? We're not optimistic. "This season, more specifically, she goes to the rock bottom," Zendaya told Radio Times. When we get midway through, that’s when the rock bottom hits, and that’s where it became extremely painful for all of us to watch. And to portray her going through it hurt me."
Let's move on to the cliffhanger, where we see Cal and Nate Jacobs square up yet again. Well, does Nate have the tape? Yeah, Nate has the tape. We understand if you didn't remember. Considering that Season One dropped pre-pandemic, the details were a little blurry for us, too. Early on, Nate steals the tape of his father and Jules, but uses it to blackmail his classmate. That's how he both protects his father and gets Jules to lie to the police and identify the wrong guy in Maddy's sexual assault case.
So, one of three things could happen:
1. Like he did to Jules, Nate will hang the tape over his dad's head, likely wanting something in return. Maybe he'll just want to deal with the Fez situation alone, without daddy's help.
2. Papa Nate is hanging on to some kind of trump card. Again, we're still waiting for someone in the Jacobs family to reveal what, exactly, happened to Nate's brother, who has only really been teased in old photographs.
3. Nate will do his math homework.
We can safely rule number 3 out. Nate definitely has a C- in math. Since Mr. Jacobs hasn't been one to back down from a fight—or a chili-cooking contest—our money is on number 2. It's entirely possible that Nate did something terrible to his brother, even on accident, that could twist-turn the story a couple episodes down the line. Or maybe the Jacobs family will just wrestle again, winner takes all.
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