High school might be over in Euphoria, but a wedding between two former classmates provides the ideal opportunity to reunite with friends, exes, and even those you blackmailed. Given that Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) was only just discussing the flower budget, I didn’t expect the nuptials to be here so quickly. Still, Sam Levinson’s HBO drama keeps its propulsive forward momentum by running headlong into a lavish bash that ends in bloody violence. It would have been enough to focus on Nate (Jacob Elordi) and Cassie’s big day and the history it dredges up. For one, Jules (Hunter Schafer) provides an intriguing counterpoint to Nate and Cassie’s fake suburban dream. Adding Laurie (Martha Kelly) and Alamo’s (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) feud into the mix certainly builds tension on top of the wedding pressure cooker, but “The Ballad of Paladin” is as stretched as Nate’s bank account.
The wedding spectacle begins with Maddy’s (Alexa Demie) arrival in an attention-grabbing frock. Cast your mind back to what Maddy wore to the carnival in the first season when she called Nate’s mom a cunt to her face and you can draw a straight line. Marsha (Paula Marshall) is understandably surprised that Maddy dares to show her face, but there are zero fireworks between Nate and Maddy on this occasion. Rather than make a scene, Maddy disappears into the night after watching Nate commit to a cheesy couples dance. If Maddy had looked closer, she would have seen the so-called happy couple already falling apart. She skips out before Cassie tearfully screams at Nate for lying and misses the hollow victory.
The shared look between former best friends Maddy and Cassie during Nate’s mom’s speech (where she makes an overt dig at Maddy) is fleeting, and Demie has to sell her heartache with very little. A sign of character maturity during that five-year gap is that Maddy’s early departure comes without so much as raising her voice or engaging in provocative dance floor moves. Maddy has outgrown her impulsive behavior and traveling to a more rundown part of town suggests that family is on Maddy’s mind after the revelations last week that she is paying her mom’s rent. Given Maddy’s volatile past, it might be a little disappointing that she doesn’t engage in a public confrontation. However, the surprise is Euphoria choosing restraint, and it is welcome amid the sea of chaos. In this case, Maddy is choosing a potential future business venture to manage Cassie over the empty act of revenge.
Given Rue’s (Zendaya) history with the happy couple—she was the one who dropped the bombshell that Cassie was secretly sleeping with Nate—it is surprising that she made the guest list and got a plus one. Yes, she is best friends with Lexi (Maude Apatow), but it feels tenuous. When Jules brings up that she doesn’t think Nate and Cassie will want her there, Rue’s hand waving away this comment comes across as speaking for Levinson. Pretty quickly, Rue has to leave due to a work matter, and it doesn’t really matter that she was there in the first place: Rue is just a device to ensure Jules can cross paths with Nate and Cal (Eric Dane).
Those interactions with two of Jules’ abusers don’t lead to any earth-shattering revelations. Cal bemoans people thinking he is a pedophile (he claims the two underage people he slept with lied about their age) and then calls high school the “best years of our lives.” Dane captures Cal’s regret about what he did to Jules, which is just as palpable as the self-pity and longing for his own youthful past during a powerful, low-key exchange. With Nate, Jules explains that Maddy left because she “got a little more emotional than she anticipated.” What these moments reveal is that Jules doesn’t long for the past. Instead, it reaffirms her choices to engage in a financially motivated relationship with sugar daddy and plastic surgeon Ellis (Sam Trammell).
Men projecting their desires onto Jules is a pattern that continues this season under the guise of her having control. The entry into the sugar-baby world comes via Jules’ roommate, and this foray into providing gratification for various kinks (one man wants Jules to wear nylons while he masturbates) is old territory for Euphoria. The dates Jules goes on are a play on how Kat makes extra cash in season one. Of the genre grab bag this week, psychosexual thrillers are thrown into the mix with how the scenes with Ellis are shot. But when he brings out the Saran Wrap, all I can think is this feels like Dexter meets Pushing Daisies.
On their first date, Ellis mentions that his wife is aware of his extramarital activities. “You marry the best parts of a person. Hopefully, you can tolerate the worst,” he says. It is a shame Cassie didn’t have all the information about Nate before saying “I do.” Euphoria continues the current trend that paints this commitment as a potential horror to flee, joining The Drama, Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen, and Beef.
Cassie should’ve turned to run after the long walk down the aisle with her mother, Suze (Alanna Ubach), who offers a haunting description of what her life is about to become. Her evocative description of her wedding day-turned-nightmare tries to be a motivational speech, not a cautionary tale. With each sentence and slow step the pair takes, the vision of Cassie’s future becomes clear. “As I marched down the aisle, like we’re doing now, it never occurred to me the brutality of the man that I never knew before. It’s like, ‘How could I be so naive? Misjudging?’ I mean, it’s not like a mistake you can fix,” Suze offers as a tear falls down Cassie’s cheek. Of course, this mistake can be fixed, but that is the gag, and Cassie is the butt of the joke.
Given that Nate was in the bathroom having various explosive bodily reactions to the mounting financial stress (the metaphor is not subtle) at the start of the episode, the trajectory of this day quickly enters wedding-from-hell territory. Who knew that this would be the second show I have seen in under a month where a person ends up having their little toe cut off on the same day as their nuptials?
During the (mercifully short) speeches, Marsha turns the proverbial knife on Maddy by referencing a former girlfriend. Nate’s mom has seemingly forgotten the advice she gave her son last season not to marry someone he met in high school. But it is Nate that Cassie should not have hitched her wagon to. Nate has proven he has the gift of the gab and can con nearly everyone in his orbit with stories of rare flowers that put construction on pause. When Cal tells Jules that high school was the best time of his life, he is also talking about Nate. For some reason, Nate thought he could blow off paying back Naz (Jack Topalian) the $600,000 he owes. That Cassie learns about this moments before their choreographed dance adds absurdity to the situation. Doing a goofy routine to “She Wears My Ring” while Cassie questions Nate and he continues to pretend everything is fine makes this memorable. However, Elvis Presley is one of several artists who recorded this song, and I struggle not to think of Elordi playing him in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla here.
Nate thinking Naz wouldn’t make good on the threats he makes also speaks volumes about his oversized confidence. What follows when the newlyweds arrive home made me gasp at several junctures, like Nate’s head connecting to the metal banister. Of course, the pinky toe amputation is the most horrifying part, but there is something cartoonish about this beating taking place with Cassie in the foreground, wailing about how her day has been ruined. When Fez (Angus Cloud) kicked the crap out of Nate in the season-two premiere, it was just as bloody but without the comedic undertones. Several lines of dialogue feel tailor-made for memes, like Cassie shrieking “What is happening right now?!” The same goes for when Lexi asks if Cassie is okay after Naz makes his threats at the venue. Her smiling-through-the-tears response feels like a callback to Cassie’s second-season bathroom breakdown. But this time, Cassie’s response isn’t a fantasy, and Levinson is keen to sprinkle as many of these moments into an episode as possible.
Take the showdown at Laurie’s place that injects more Western references into this season and plays with this stylized framing. Bishop (Darrell Britt-Gibson) immediately clocks that Laurie’s beloved parrot, Paladin, is named after Richard Boone’s character from the CBS series Have Gun – Will Travel that premiered in 1957. Everyone needs a comfort show. Bishop’s knowledge of this genre surprises Laurie, and Levinson’s script continues to stumble when discussing race, with this playing like a punchline and for shock value. What works more effectively is the use of the Have Gun – Will Travel opening theme music when Bishop tosses the cash for a drug purchase. It is a layer of silliness that doesn’t entirely kill the tension, as there are plenty of firearms and Paladin soon will be dead.
Little does Rue know that Laurie was going to kidnap her, but her day still ends badly when she is pulled over by DEA agents on the way home. The fact that they know her name indicates that Rue is about to be more in the middle than she anticipated, and there are definitely no happily ever afters in an episode that is sagging under the weight of doing too much.
Stray observations
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- • Rue is proving to be pretty good at her job, which also includes selling illegal firearms. It is another example of a scene that used to be over-the-top and imagined. It reads as out-there, but instead of being part of Rue’s fantasy, she really is selling AR-15s.
- • Rosalía plays Magick, an exotic dancer who last week insisted she must wear a bedazzled neck brace while working because she is currently in the middle of a lawsuit. Turns out, Magick won that particular argument as she is wearing this medical item while working the pole at the Silver Slipper.
- • Levinson takes a page out of the Have Gun – Will Travel playbook by using Johnny Western’s “The Ballad Of Paladin” over the closing credits. The track also has a link to Stand By Me as the kids sing it while walking along the train tracks. I bring this up because this is Fez’s favorite movie and feels like a direct nod to him, especially as Rue chats to Fez on the phone this week.
Emma Fraser is a contributor to The A.V. Club.
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