Their wildly racing emotions and thoughts make them ideal protagonists for stories, because they will often embark on completely destructive courses of action with the certitude that they are doing exactly what they need to be doing.īut too much of the Euphoria pilot feels like leftover “What the kids are getting up to today - it might shock you! More at 11!” paranoia from the ’90s, reheated for today’s viewers. Teens are always caught between a growing emotional and physical maturity and the fact that their brains are racing to catch up. The episode has gotten a lot of attention for depicting “how the teens live today,” but its greatest strength isn’t what’s timely about it but what’s eternal about it. I almost had to stop watching it after the first five minutes, which summarize the protagonist’s life up until now she’s 17 years old, but Euphoria begins with the assertion that the last time she was happy was in the womb, a sentiment that feels like it must have been ripped off from a Hot Topic T-shirt. The show’s pilot swerves wildly between careful observation and trying too hard.

No, the true audience for Euphoria is parents of kids who are about 5 to 10 years old, who still have relatively good relationships with those kids but can see the storm clouds on the horizon. The true audience of HBO’s new teen drama Euphoria isn’t really teens.

The episode of the week for June 16 through 22 is the pilot of HBO’s Euphoria. Every week, we pick a new episode of the week.

Jules and rue