PEL Presents PMP#231: Euphoric Teens

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

The hosts of Pretty Much Pop conduct a comprehensive cultural analysis of teen television and film, using the conclusion of HBO's Euphoria as a springboard to examine

Key takeaways

• Euphoria is praised for its high production value, nuanced performances from Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney, and its unflinching portrayal of modern teen struggles like prescription drug abuse and OnlyFans culture.
• The hosts note a persistent 'affluenza' trope in teen dramas, where characters possess unrealistic wealth and mobility despite narratives claiming to depict working-class or diverse realities.

Main topics

• Euphoria season analysis and filmmaking style
• Evolution of teen drama tropes from John Hughes to HBO prestige TV

Notable quotes

"It's essentially the same plot lines that you get recycled over and over again. So you get like the smart kid who takes drugs in order to keep up with their expectations."

Conclusion

The episode concludes that while teen dramas recycle core coming-of-age conflicts across

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) This episode is sponsored by Clawed, the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. Speaker 2 (0:12) You're listening to Pretty Much Pop, a culture podcast where every participant has become a star in their own right. Today we're discussing teen TV shows in light of the conclusion of the HBO Sam Levinson teen drama Euphoria, which began in 2019, just finished its third and final season. I'm Mark Linton-Meyer, barely able to see for all the glitter sparkled around my eyes. Speaker 4 (0:32) I'm Al Baker, and I could definitely still pass the 17 on TV. Speaker 1 (0:36) I'm Sarah Lynn Bruck, and this Valley girl is living some fast times who will say anything to get a day off to attend breakfast club and perform some weird science at the head of the class that's truly some kind of wonderful. Those are the facts of life. Speaker 3 (0:49) Beautiful. This is Lawrence Ware and Euphoria. More like Euphoria should get some help. Speaker 2 (0:56) So this is the back to school episode. So we were discussing in the abstract before I had returned to Euphoria. To watch the final season. Well, actually, I hadn't even watched most of season two. But anyway, thinking, yeah, let's make this the excuse to talk about whatever we've experienced in the past about teen dramas and things. Then actually getting into this show, it's highly atypical and highly idiosyncratic. But I'm just anticipating that a lot of people listening to this episode won't have necessarily watched that show in particular. So we don't have to be too spoilery about it. But Sarah, you just had your first experience of it. last week, right? And didn't get that far. No, Speaker 1 (1:34) I think I got the gist after watching three episodes, two and three quarters episodes. Speaker 3 (1:40) What the heck? Oh my gosh. I Speaker 1 (1:43) didn't hate it, but it is not for me. And actually that made me think about teen dramas and teen movies in general. the ones that are made now are not made for me. So it's not that I don't think that this isn't necessarily a decent show. We can talk about that, I guess. But it is definitely not for me. I did not like it. It was not to my taste. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be made. Speaker 4 (2:09) I'd also never seen Euphoria before prepping for this. And it was one that I knew that I kind of had to get to because everyone I know who's seen it loved it. And obviously it's... Zendaya's big and Sydney Sweeney's big coming out party and I love both of them as performers and just you know this is probably the time to note that this is the third Zendaya vehicle in a row that we've done on this podcast so so clearly she's doing something right I only got through the first season that wasn't really because I didn't like the first season because I really loved the first season but I knew that the reputation of the show well two main reasons first I knew the reputation of the show was that it went downhill a little bit after those first two Also, like Sarah, I kind of felt like I got what the show was about at that point, and I wasn't really sure whether two more seasons of it would necessarily be a great use of my time in understanding the show as a whole. But the main reason why I gave up on it was because I wound up just getting really into Riverdale, and I've watched three seasons of Riverdale instead of the last two seasons of Utoria. Speaker 1 (3:08) Wow, good job, Al. Extra Speaker 3 (3:09) credit. Oh my goodness. I Speaker 4 (3:11) cast around a little bit for extra supporting. viewing material for the topic of like the high school drama. It's a surprisingly interesting genre because it's not so diffuses to be meaningless like some of the other kind of genres that we talked about. I forget there was one. Oh yeah, hospital dramas we talked about. Eventually we decided that the genre was so diffuses to be meaningless. But there are real strong recurring themes and real strong buckets within the genre. Speaker 1 (3:37) 100%. What Speaker 4 (3:38) mainly I took away from Euphoria is that it felt like an HBO'd up version of a particular type of this show, which the one I know best is Skins. Or Degrassi, something like that, yeah. I went back and watched some of the original Degrassi as well, and that was super interesting. Because it is grittier than I was expecting it to be for something in 1989. But yeah, what I got from Euphoria is like, yeah, this is the HBO standards applied to the kind of quasi-comedic, grittier, we're going to explore. the real hard edge of what kids might be exposed to today, that kind of genre. So it's not really, whereas a lot of other of these shows lean far more in the kind of soapy, coming of age kind of genre. And another really hard edge, which is why the one that Riverdale belongs to, is for some reason, it's a high school, but there's absurd levels of corruption and sometimes, you know, supernatural elements happening in the local vicinity. And for some reason, a group of usually girls at this high school are the only people who can get themselves in gear to sort it out, which is, I'm realizing now, probably my favorite genre of teen drama, although it's certainly the most trashy. Speaker 3 (4:47) Okay, so for the record, I didn't think that I would like the show, but I ended up loving it. And I started watching it many years ago. And the reason why I started watching it was because me and my students were like, you've got to watch this show because they know I'm a film critic and they know that I'm deep into television shows. And so... They tried to get me to watch many things. Gossip Girls, I tried to watch it, didn't like it. Pretty Little Liars, I tried to watch it, didn't like it. But they really were like, yo, you got to watch Euphoria. And it really spoke to them. Like, it really spoke to that group of individuals. And so I watched it, and I didn't think that I was going to like it, but I ended up really enjoying it. And it's fantastical, and it's over the top, and it's really silly in places. But thinking back on teenage dramas, all of them are kind of like that. Like, Heather's is like that to a degree. I hear what Sarah is saying because oftentimes it is made for your sensibilities when you're a teen. But when you become an adult, you oftentimes don't really want to mess with it that much. Especially newer ones. That's the reason why all the different ones that they tried to introduce me to didn't work for me. But the reason why this one did work for me was because... This one was unusually high quality. And Zendaya was doing something special. And Sidney Sweeney was doing something special. And Jacob Elordi was doing something special. And then there's Maude Apatow who was doing something special. And then there's like Minka Kelly randomly in the show. And Coleman Domingo's in the show. And so like all the performances kind of elevated the material that was otherwise kind of based. Because oftentimes these teen shows are not. populated with like genuinely good actors and this one just is and it's just something about it and there were chances that were being made in the cinematography and the direction and the storytelling style that really kind of spoke to me i don't know and so it's not necessarily the content of the show that was really working for me but rather the performances was what was working for me and the filmmaking style is what really kind of drew me in And for some reason, I watched all three seasons right when they came out. And then I looked around and I noticed that all my students were watching it and they were discussing it. And it was like a hot topic about, did we like what they did with this character? Or is this a realistic portrayal of life in high schools today? And me and them are like, yeah, it is, but it's a little over the top, but it is an accurate portrayal. It's just very interesting. And it showed me that things have changed so much because when I was in teenager, man, Only fans and all that kind of stuff, which is we didn't have that. Like you would maybe sneak and get like a weird magazine at the store and look at it or something like that. Or you'd watch porn or something like that. If you can find you get your hands on like a videotape, but having it as readily accessible and their hormones being over the top, it kind of makes sense what the show is doing. in a weird kind of lurid way. So yeah, I don't know. I really enjoyed the show. One thing that I need to do that people have been telling me for years to watch, and I never did it. I always resisted it, was watching Riverdale. It was just something about that show. It's so many episodes. I'm just not into a show that has that many episodes per season because it doesn't have like 20 or something like that. It's a lot of episodes. But man, everyone who watches it seems to love it. So maybe I need to watch that show. But anyway, Al, you can convince me easily. I think you have convinced me. I'm watching Speaker 4 (8:07) that damn show probably starting tonight. The best thing to say about Riverdale is that it's a really great sociological experiment to see what happens if you give all of the control of a show entirely to the writers and don't let anybody else have a say. Because the writers just do whatever they like. And the actors, you can see in their performances how... incredibly annoyed they are to be having to like do and say the absolute batshit stuff that these writers are putting in front of them I mean but the thing is I read the comic Speaker 3 (8:38) books I read the comic books that Riverdale is based on like I loved those comics those comics were weird but I kind of enjoyed them so I'm interested to see what they do with That show. I have to watch it. I have to watch it. Anyway, bottom line, Euphoria, I really enjoyed it. I think it's definitely worth watching. It's not for everyone, but if you can get on its wavelength and you can appreciate the filmmaking and the performances, it's really, really good. And I see why all the stars on that show broke out the way that they did, because they're giving very interesting, good, nuanced performances to a person. All right, I'm done. Speaker 2 (9:12) Let me tell you a couple of general things about the premise. And we could talk about that in terms of teen shows. And Euphoria has a really interesting, you know, let's be as gritty as we can be. And how are teens' lives different today, given all the stuff they have to deal with, with the social media pressures and that online bullying and... And the prescription drugs and the pornography. Yes, exactly. The way that that show goes, because that's a one-writer show. That is Sam Levinson. It is based on this Israeli thing, which I was not able to watch any of. HBO got the rights to that thing and then just put it in this guy's hands. And so maybe I imagine that the beginning with the ensemble of characters owes something. Certainly the main character's addiction comes from that original show. But then Sam just took it wherever he wanted to go. And so after the first season, like, okay, we did that. We sort of stayed that. Now I really want to focus on addiction because that's the thing that he's really passionate about that he had in his own background. And then particularly after Angus Cloud died from drug-related things after season two. Oh Speaker 1 (10:20) my God, that guy died? So Speaker 2 (10:22) the entire season three, and this is from the like looking back special that I watched, you know, right after finishing the season. So really the arc of season three is even more about addiction and it becomes a whole crime drama thing. Like it's not just the addiction in the ordinary setting, but becomes sort of a low rent. Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul. Like we want to introduce these gangster characters that are kind of jokey. And to my mind, way too much of it was focused on that. Like it became a different show and one that I didn't like as much and was kind of ridiculous despite the, you know, very heartfelt inclusion of all the addiction stuff. But like there's this episode right near the end of season two. which is a chase scene through the entire thing because Rue is back on the sauce and she's being taken to rehab and she jumps out of the car and just is... So a series of her going to different houses and trying to get drugs or get money to get drugs and running from the cops. And it's just like, that is the highlight of the show as far as I can recall. It has been a number of years since I saw season one, so... I don't remember exactly how cool that gets. Speaker 3 (11:34) Season one is better. Okay. But that is a really striking episode. And I really do like the chances that the directors and the writer takes in that episode. It's really striking. The cinematography is great on that. But no, season one is better. A lot of the stuff that they depict, like they go over the top, but that is real stuff. Like that is real things that kids are dealing with. Like I can say this from... personal experience working with kids on a day-to-day basis. Not just teaching them, but like I'm more of the Africana center. So I'm dealing with a lot of my black students on like a personal basis, trying to get them help. And I'm already dealing with kids who are dealing with addiction and someone had an overdose. And we're just in the second week of classes. Like this is a real thing that they're dealing with. And so the show is over the top and it is kind of silly, but it is dealing with real stuff that kids are dealing with right now. And so it's just interesting. And I think that the inclusion of a trans character. I was a trans actor is really smart because that is something that is going on right now. She's Speaker 1 (12:33) great too. It Speaker 3 (12:34) genuinely reflects what the kids are going through in 2026, even though it is over the top and silly. And I do completely agree with you, Mark, that third season, although. I'm kind of a sucker for Westerns. And it kind of goes into Westerns territory with the way that some of the things happens in season three and the way people walk in and do shootouts. It's silly, but I'm a sucker for it. But there is something at the core that's kind of real and kind of genuine that I think is really interesting, even though it kind of goes in silly places. I Speaker 1 (13:05) do agree that the