The US teen drama about addiction and depression is an unlikely candidate for festive episodes, but this conversational two-hander was captivating and affecting
The US teen drama Euphoria (Sky Atlantic) is rarely a barrel of laughs, so the idea that it would put out two festive specials this year was a little incongruous. With its nihilistic teenage attitudes and themes of addiction, depression and loss, it is hardly primed for seasonal cheer. Still, there was always a chance that it would surprise us. There is tinsel in the late-night diner, after all … “To tell you the truth, drugs are probably the only reason I haven’t killed myself,” announces the 17-year-old addict Rue. And a partridge in a pear tree?
These two instalments – one about Rue, one about her transgender friend Jules – are more like lengthy DVD extras than episodes that would fit into a standard Euphoria season, but, on the basis of this first one, it is far mightier than its neat, theatrical format initially suggests. It begins with a heartbreaking fantasy of Rue and Jules, slightly older, living together, happily in love, in a sun-soaked loft space. But this is not the Euphoria we know. It clicks into its familiar bleakness, picking up in the immediate aftermath of the season one finale, in which Jules ran away and Rue did not go with her. In this non-fantasy world, Rue emerges from the toilets of a diner, on Christmas Eve, to half-heartedly tell her sponsor, Ali, that she is not high, when she is clearly very high indeed.