It seems that the holidays were not happy for anyone in Euphoria-Earth.
The second episode of pre-season 2 of the HBO series, a companion to a Christmas episode released in December, aired on Sunday. The first special took us to Rue’s Christmas Eve, which she spent at a diner with her 12-step sponsor, and revealed how close to rock bottom the drug addict really was. (Read a recap here.) Sunday’s hour focused on Hunter Schafer’s Jules, who sat down with a therapist after returning home after running away at the end of season 1.
Like the Rue episode, Jules’ special was beautifully written and acted and therefore very difficult to watch. (Schafer wrote the episode with Euphoria (creator Sam Levinson, and she co-produced the special as well). After admitting that his hop-on-a-train plan was “stupid and not very well thought out”, Jules lets out that he wants to stop taking his hormones. When the therapist (played by Lauren Weedman, Looking) encourages her to elaborate, Jules says she built all of her femininity, “my body, my personality and my soul, around what I think men want … I feel like a fraud”.
Just as therapy conversations rarely follow a linear path, Jules’s discussion covers a number of topics. She begins by saying that she has always feared puberty, but now she knows how it will make it bigger and wider; after all, the ocean is “wide, deep and thick” and “I want to be as beautiful as the ocean”. Then a discussion of how girls tend to rate each other flows for an explanation of how Rue was the only girl who didn’t. Jules compares the way Rue sees her with the way mothers see their children: with unconditional love.
Later, the parallels between Rue and Jules ‘mother become stronger – mainly because Jules’ mother has her own addiction problems, and the feelings they generate in the teenager are similar to those that Rue awakens. When talking about her best friend, Jules notes: “I feel that her sobriety depends completely on how available I am to her” and that the weight of her actions (or omissions) will trigger a relapse is unbearable. In flashbacks, we also found out that Jules’ mother was fine and maintained her sobriety for several months, but she relapsed and ended up in the hospital on Halloween. Jules found out just before she went to the party.
When the discussion turns to intimacy, Jules reveals that she is still in love with Tyler (aka “ShyGuy118”, aka Nate), although – or perhaps because – of the fact that he doesn’t exist and everything that happened between they weren’t real. We are taken into a Jules costume in the New York apartment that we saw her share with Rue in Rue from the fantasy version, but in Jules’ version, “Tyler” is there, and they have very nimble sex throughout the apartment ( and, at one point, outside the window).
But Rue is also somehow in Jules’ fantasy, which turns into a nightmare when Tyler (who is played by someone other than Jacob Elordi in most of the interlude) turns into Nate and demands that she not look at him while they are doing the action. And then, things get even worse when we see the continuation of the fantasy that started on Rue’s special: Jules comes home from class and quickly realizes that Rue doesn’t respond in the bathroom, which is locked inside. Jules knocks on the door, screams and cries, to no avail. Eventually, we see a quick but distressing look of Rue dead beside a pool of vomit, just the way Gia found her when she overdosed before Season 1.
Back in the real world, Jules wishes his therapist a happy holiday and goes home. She has been grounded since her unauthorized trip to the city, and her father is very angry. But he allows Rue to come and see her when she comes by bicycle, and this is the first time the girls have seen each other from the train station. It looks like it’s Christmas Eve; it’s raining, and Rue says he’s going to meet Ali. Both Jules and Rue are on the verge of tears as they talk about how they missed each other, so Jules apologizes for taking off so dramatically. Rue lets out a tight and tormented “Merry Christmas, Jules”, then leaves as fast as his soaked sneakers allow.
Jules lies on the bed and cries, and that’s where we leave her.
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