“Euphoria” Can’t Escape the Male Gaze

Michel GhanemMon, April 20, 2026 at 2:30 AM UTC

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Euphoria Can’t Escape the Male GazePhotograph: Eddy Chen/HBO

If the memes and online discourse are any indication, Euphoria has truly returned at full throttle. After a fine enough premiere, this week’s second episode reminds us of Sam Levinson’s propensity for gratuitous nudity for the sake of shock and spectacle. And, um, it’s a lot. I don’t know what part of this story needed coke snorted off nipples. But I guess we can’t be totally surprised. Let’s get into it.

We pick back up with the story of how Maddy began working as a talent agent: a suitcase full of clothes and a plan. She corners her now-boss Ms. Penzler (Rebecca Pidgeon) while she’s just trying to eat her salad in peace and pitches herself as the next best thing. (“I believe in capitalism”). Somehow, this ambush gets her a job as her assistant. Let me take some notes! I have to say, Alexa Demie might be the one to watch this season. While some of the other characters feel remarkably static to their high school sensibility, Maddy is being written with a more realistic arc (at least so far). She feels grown-up, but still vulnerable to the challenges of trying to make it in a new field as a twenty-something.

Before Maddy’s career has a chance to thrive: That pesky pandemic! In a strange and uncomfortable pandemic montage we meet Katelyn (Bella Podaras), who takes advantage of the lockdown by moving to L.A. and getting her TikTok career off the ground. Cue the “Say So” TikTok dance. After noticing her online, Maddy takes Katelyn under her wing as her “career architect” and starts photographing her, bringing her to parties, and building her social following (all the way to a million followers). Maddy’s idea is to get her to the next level: OnlyFans, of course. A very voyeuristic photoshoot later, she’s gaining some notoriety when Maddy sets her up on a date with her up-and-coming client, Dylan Reid. After some paparazzi catch them out together and label Katelyn as a “porn star,” Penzler gets wind of it. Maddy has to walk it back—this isn’t good for Dylan’s image, which forces Maddy to cut her losses and let Katelyn go as an off-the-books client. Maddy is grinding away at her low-paying assistant job (while Katelyn inevitably gets very rich on OnlyFans) when she gets an Instagram message from Cassie, who wants to reconnect. I think we can see where this is all heading.

Photograph: Eddy Chen/HBO

But anyway, back to Rue’s life. She’s feeding pigs for Alamo and scrubbing away any evidence of poor Tish, the stripper who overdosed last week. I guess anything is better than gulping down drug bulbs. Alamo gives Laurie a call to clear things up around Tish’s overdose and gets some very racist responses on the other end of the line…um! Were Laurie and her goons this racist last season? We get a little background into what actually happened, too: Wayne forgot to tell Faye to clean the scale of fentanyl residue, which led to the cross-contamination in the drug prepping basement. Alamo is able to negotiate Rue out of the mishap, effectively freeing her from her debts with Laurie. As Rue says, potentially a deal with the devil. At least it confirms her newfound faith in God! And that suitcase from high school is finally in the past.

At the Silver Slipper strip club, Rue (“basically a dude”) gets the lay of the land and makes eyes with one of the strippers, Angel (Priscilla Delgado). Her new gig? “Keeping the customers in line and the bitches happy.” When needed, she sneaks the dancers some drugs for their clients. She also plunges toilets. We get some more gratuitous nudity, including a client sniffing drugs off of Angel’s nipple (really…). Rue even gets paid from this gig! Not bad. Maybe now she can actually afford the clothes she wears, as Twitter has pointed out. At the end of their shift, Angel offers her some drugs and they have passionate sex in Rue’s van, which makes her think about Jules.

At this point we finally get a bit more context into Jules’s life. Rue used to visit her in L.A. at her chaotic-looking art school loft after high school. Rue says it never felt like it did in high school, though—especially after she relapsed. It was a bad one, too, with Rue finding herself in a decrepit house with others using and making pleading calls with her mom for help (oh Zendaya is really coming for that third Emmy win, huh). We also get the reveal that Rue hasn’t really been sober since. Does Ali know about this?! Eventually, Rue gets a handle on her job and builds up her confidence again, not being shy about herding strippers from the green room to the stage. And we get Rosalía’s much-anticipated acting debut as Magick! She’s wearing a…glam neck brace? Which is getting her in trouble. She mostly speaks Spanish. It’s not the most memorable scene, but hopefully we get more. I wouldn’t mind if she breaks out into a “Berghain” performance on the stripper stage.

Alamo is also at the club tonight. He’s still pissed from that atrocious phone call, but specifically about the way Laurie used the word “pig” to describe him. We also find out they actually have a personal connection; he put Laurie on the map by giving her an opportunity when she was still a “junkie.” Hmm, this could have implications.

Later on, Rue is hanging out at Maddy’s messy basement apartment (she has so many clothes). Rue tells her she’s enjoying her new gig, it’s keeping her busy and on her feet. Uber driving left too much space to think, anyway. Maddy is getting ready for her meeting with Cassie (the way she tells Rue it’s Cassie by motioning to her boobs and doing a crying motion sent me). Chronicling Cassie’s OnlyFans journey, we get a montage of her photoshoots, including one that sees her licking dripping ice cream which has coated her nipples…this episode is really packing on the nudity, huh? That shot of Cassie with a baby pacifier?! But her willingness to “humiliate herself” is exactly what might make her an ideal client for Maddy.

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Cassie and Maddy finally reunite at a hotel poolside. Maddy is wearing a glamorous fur coat but everyone else is in swimwear. She’s trying to impress Cassie, obviously. Cassie makes amends for stealing Maddy’s boyfriend and things seem much more amicable than they did during that high school play fight on-stage. By the third Aperol spritz, Maddy is critiquing her sense of taste. Doggy videos? Not sexy or timeless! They agree to collaborate.

Photograph: Eddy Chen/HBO

Over at Nate’s residence, we get a visit by Cal Jacobs! No way. I wasn’t sure to what extent Eric Dane would appear this season after he tragically passed away earlier this year. We learn Cal narrowly avoided prison and he’s now in Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. I guess the father-son duo now have a fairly non-contentious relationship, they even talk over the OnlyFans thing. Cal denies he’s gay (the concept that he doesn’t see himself as queer because he’s a top…).

Nate is also trying to hatch a deal with Naz (Jack Topalian), the owner of a business that sells coffins and urns. Apparently, Nate owes him $550,000. Oh no, not another debt plot. At a house party, Nate shmoozes with some attendees to try and get the funds to pay Naz back under the guise of funding his nursing facility. Meanwhile, Cassie tries to convince her friend Heather (Jessica Blair Herman) that people want to see adult babies on OnlyFans, which Heather is not into. Nate finds out about this and, shamelessly in front of their friends, pleads with Cassie to delete her OnlyFans account. After all that work Juana (Minerva García) put in as the photographer! Nate caves on the $50,000 worth of flowers for their wedding after all as his bargaining chip. Later, when they are in bed together, Cassie tells Nate about meeting up with Maddy. Maddy even got a wedding invite! They really worked it out over the remix.

Over at Laurie’s house, a graphic basement sex scene with Faye and Wayne gets interrupted when they stop to investigate some loud crashing noises from upstairs. Turns out it’s a pig—clearly a little gift from Alamo. Is there an Alamo-Laurie war brewing on the horizon?

Back at the strip club, Angel and Rue have a scuffle. Turns out, the earlier voicemail Rue overheard her leaving was to her best friend who’s missing. That best friend? Tish, the girl who overdosed in the premiere. Rue loops her into what actually happened and Angel has a hard time with the news. She over-indulges with drugs and struggles to keep it together at work, at one point even passing out mid-lap dance. Rue finds her throwing up in the bathroom, too. It gets so bad that Alamo offers to send her to rehab. Angel is not keen on the idea but Rue eventually convinces her (“It’s like a three-week paid vacation!”). At Hope Springs rehab, Angel gets checked in as Rue reassures her it’ll be okay. No paperwork is a bit bizarre and this facility looks anything but joyful. On the way out, the camera pans to someone smoking a cigarette in a car across the street…clearly, someone is watching and/or following Rue. Someone from Laurie’s camp or a brewing sub-plot?

Photograph: Eddy Chen/HBO

Afterwards, Rue stops by Jules’s apartment building. She lives in her boyfriend’s swanky penthouse. Maybe I need a sugar daddy? Jules is looking quite glam and pours herself a cocktail. Rue says she’s “California sober,” which apparently includes alcohol and weed. They reminisce on the good times, wondering if they were ever good together. Her sugar daddy has a wife and family, we learn. And finally, right when Rue wonders if she’s getting kicked out, Jules invites her to take a bath together. Maybe there’s hope for this ill-fated match after all. You know I ship it.

I love that we concluded on a high note with a Rue-Jules reunion, even if this episode didn’t have much in the way of plot momentum (or Lexi). We are still table-setting for what’s to come, still catching up with where these characters have been in the interim between seasons, rather than really moving the story forward. Levinson thinks he can distract us with all of that gratuitous nudity, but he can’t fool me! We’ll have to see where the Alamo-Laurie conflict takes us next week, and how Nate finds a way to pay Naz back before that gets nasty too. I can’t stop thinking about how this is occurring during Brat summer? Maybe we’ll get some Charli XCX out of this somehow…

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”