By [ad_1]
Euphoria gives the perfect representation of young love through Rue and Jules — but not because their relationship is pure and wholesome.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Euphoria Season 2, available on HBO and HBO Max.
Euphoria‘s Season 2 premiere finally revealed the aftermath of the first season’s cliffhanger, when Jules left Rue at the train station. The couple addressed some of the issues, like Rue’s relapse, and her desire to be in a romantic relationship with Jules. The episode ends with Rue and Jules kissing and presumably making up. However, previous Euphoria episodes indicate a romantic relationship between Rue and Jules will not end well.
Considering that Euphoria tells the story of Rue’s drug addiction, it’s safe to assume that situations shown from her point of view may not be as they seem. In the series premiere, Rue admits to being an unreliable narrator, which can be seen more clearly in the two special episodes that aired in December 2020 and January 2021. In “Trouble Don’t Always Last,” Rue reveals the scene in which she gets a matching lip tattoo with Jules didn’t actually happen, even though it was framed as a real event in Season 1.
The special episode that focuses on Jules after she leaves Rue, “F… Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” shows the story from a different perspective. The audience learns that Jules’ mother is also a drug addict, and that Jules is forced to relive tht childhood trauma through her relationship with Rue.
Rue’s abandonment issues also don’t help in the situation. Her fear of abandonment manifested after her father’s death; the audience can witness Rue struggling with that when she notices Jules is texting another girl while they’re at prom, and when Jules leaves her at the train station. As a result , Jules is painted as the villain, and viewers share Rue’s contempt, because they are missing information from Jules’ side of the story. In “F… Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” Jules reveals she left to escape the pressures of her family life, which the audience couldn’t possibly know before that episode aired, because Jules never told Rue.
That lack of communication highlights an issue prevalent in a lot of romantic relationships involving teenagers or young adults. Because Rue and Jules didn’t tell each other about their family issues, they inadvertently triggered each other by feeding into their biggest insecurities. Euphoria is primarily a show about high school and real-life issues that teenagers face, and it portrays relationship problems perfectly through this narrative. By showing the miscommunication between Rue and Jules, Euphoria allows the audience to see how their relationship can still fail, even though they are clearly in love.
Rue and Jules’ lack of communication is addressed in the Season 2 premiere, but it is likely that their relationship will nevertheless end in tears. Rue still doesn’t know that Jules hooked up with another girl in Season 1, and Jules still must grapple with Rue’s drug addiction and her friendship with Fezco, a drug dealer. By continuing to date Rue, Jules will constantly be reminded of how her mother behaved due to her drug addiction. As long as Rue and Jules fail to communicate with each other, their relationship will continue to be toxic. As Rue and Jules are young and don’t fully understand this, they will most likely have to learn this lesson through more issues in their relationship.
To see Rue and Jules’ relationship, Euphoria airs Sundays on HBO at 9 p.m. EST and streams on HBO Max the same day.
About The Author
[ad_2]
