Euphoria (American TV series)

• 1. The Assignment

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  Euphoria, the HBO drama created by Sam Levinson, began with an instruction in June 2017. Levinson had been invited to meet Francesca Orsi, HBO's head of drama, about adapting an Israeli series. The two ended up talking about life and the struggles each had been through. Then Orsi told him to go and write "Everything we just talked about". Levinson's reply was a single word: "What?"

  The show that grew from that meeting follows drug-addicted teenagers in a fictional California town. It would split critics, draw protests from parent groups and collect Emmy Awards. A pandemic and a writers strike would interrupt it, and two of its actors would die before it ended in 2026.

  How did one writer's private history turn into a show watched by millions? What did its camera, its costumes and its score do to the way a teen drama looks and sounds? And why did so much of the original cast scatter before the final season?

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• 2. From Israel to HBO

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  In 2006, Levinson started drafting early versions of what would become Euphoria. They drew on his own teenage years, including anxiety, depression and drug addiction. The project that reached HBO came with a precedent. A 2012 Israeli series, also titled Euphoria, had been created by Ron Leshem, Daphna Levin and Tamira Yardeni.

  Orsi liked how raw and honest that Israeli series was about drug use and other teenage problems. In a press release she described the American version as "Kids meets Trainspotting", with no parental supervision. HBO ordered a pilot on the 13th of March 2018. A full series order followed that July.

  Levinson has been showrunner from the first episode and has written every one. He directed all but three episodes. Those went to Augustine Frizzell, Jennifer Morrison and Pippa Bianco. Asked about his influences, he pointed to teenage anxiety: "There is this consistent anxiety that I think exists in this generation that I think informed the whole filmmaking process."

  The Reasonable Bunch, A24, Little Lamb, DreamCrew and HBO Entertainment co-produce the series. It lists sixteen executive producers. Leshem, Levin and Yardeni appear among them, alongside Zendaya and the Canadian rapper Drake.

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• 3. The Ensemble

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  Rue Bennett, played by Zendaya, sits at the center of East Highland. She has just come home from rehab and is struggling to stay sober. Rue also narrates the story, and she is an unreliable narrator. Even so, she knows intimate details about nearly everyone around her.

  Her on-and-off relationship with Jules, played by Hunter Schafer, drives much of the drama. Jules is a transgender girl who moves to town with her father. Rue often lies to her while fighting to stay clean. Rue's childhood friend Lexi, played by Maude Apatow, tries to help with limited success. Lexi's older sister Cassie, played by Sydney Sweeney, carries a sexual reputation that haunts her.

  Other threads run through the town's football field and its dealers. Jacob Elordi plays Nate Jacobs, a football star whose anger masks his insecurities. Eric Dane plays Nate's father Cal, who leads a dangerous double life. Angus Cloud plays Fezco, a dealer close to Rue. Colman Domingo plays Ali, a man in recovery who speaks at Narcotics Anonymous meetings and becomes Rue's sponsor.

  The lineup was unsettled from the start. Algee Smith replaced an actor known as Stro, who reportedly quit after shooting the pilot. Stro was uncomfortable with the sexual material involving his character. Barbie Ferreira announced on Instagram on the 24th of August 2022 that she was leaving. In April 2023 she said, "I just felt like, maybe it's like I overstayed my welcome a little bit."

  Cloud died on the 31st of July 2023, before production of the third season began. In July 2024, Domingo confirmed that he would return. Storm Reid announced in November that she would not. In February 2025 came reports that Smith, Nika King, Austin Abrams and Javon "Wanna" Walton were also out. Martha Kelly and Chloe Cherry were promoted to series regulars, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Toby Wallace joined the main cast.

  Zendaya had wanted to explore characters beyond the high school, so the third season jumps five years ahead. On the 19th of February 2026, Dane died after finishing his work on it. HBO confirmed on the day of the finale that the series had ended after three seasons.

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• 4. Look and Style

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  Petra Collins, a photographer, was once told by Levinson that he had written a show inspired by her work. He asked her to come and direct. After five months of working on the series with him, she heard from HBO that she was "too young" to direct. When the show aired, viewers compared its visual style to hers.

  The first season was shot digitally on the Arri Alexa 65 camera. The two specials and the second season moved to 35 mm film, mainly Kodak's Ektachrome. That stock distorted how the set lighting appeared on camera. Cinematographer Marcell Rév said he wanted it to evoke "some sort of memory of high school". The third season stayed with Kodak, added 65 mm film and used a new stock called Verita, made specially for the show.

  Color carries emotion throughout. Green and yellow regularly signal distress, while purple and blue suggest an elated, feverish mood. For exteriors by day and night, Rév leaned on an exaggerated orange and blue scheme. He built it with backlights and tungsten lights so the images feel "almost dreamlike". Interiors used LED lamps and SkyPanels to push tones further.

  Heidi Bivens designed the costumes, which Vogue's Jamila Stewart credited with a palpable impact on fashion trends. The outfits work as "plot devices and psychological profiles". In season 1, Jules wore bright pastels and tennis skirts, drawn from her love of anime and fantasy. They expressed the optimism of a fresh start. By season 2, as she grew disillusioned, her wardrobe turned muted, darker and more androgynous.

  The makeup drew its own attention. A writer at Into the Gloss admitted it was too polished to be realistic. Yet it reminded her of the very real makeup she wore in high school.

  Rév called the camera movement "the glue in the show". Whip pans and tracking shots are used to portray intimacy, growth and the links between characters.

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• 5. Music and Its Break

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  Labrinth, a British record producer, composed the score for the first two seasons. The first score album came out on the 4th of October 2019. That month he told Rolling Stone how he approached it: "When you look back to your teenage days, it feels semi-magical but semi-crazy and semi-psychotic." He wanted the music to feel like all of those things. Variety reviewed the score favorably and described it as blending gospel, orchestral and electronic sounds.

  Licensed songs fill the gaps. The series draws on hip-hop, trap, rhythm and blues, experimental music, indie rock, standards and doo-wop. Some episodes feature more than twenty songs.

  In July 2025, it was announced that Hans Zimmer had joined to compose the third season. Then in March 2026, Labrinth posted a strongly worded personal statement. He criticized both his record label and the series. The following month he explained his departure and confirmed that his music had been removed from the third season.

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• 6. Money and Delays

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  Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, is where most of Euphoria is shot. Grant High School in Los Angeles stands in for East Highland High. According to the California Film Commission, the first season received $8,378,000 in incentive tax credits and was filmed over 104 days. The second season cost $96,685,000 across 176 filming days. It earned a $19,406,000 tax credit for employing over 15,000 people in California.

  Zendaya was paid $500,000 per episode for the first two seasons and $1,000,000 per episode for the third. Nudity was filmed on a closed set. For sex scenes, an intimacy coordinator was used.

  The first season premiered on the 16th of June 2019 and ended on the 4th of August. HBO renewed the show on the 11th of July 2019 and ordered two special episodes. They aired on the 6th of December 2020 and the 24th of January 2021. A first table read for season 2 had been scheduled for the 11th of March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the work back. Production resumed in March 2021, and filming ran from April to November.

  During that shoot, allegations of a toxic work environment surfaced. HBO responded that the production complied with safety guidelines and guild protocols. It said no formal inquiries had been raised. In 2023, Domingo called the accusations of lengthy shoots, alleged mistreatment and onset chaos overblown. Season 2 premiered on the 9th of January 2022 and ended on the 27th of February.

  On the 4th of February 2022, HBO renewed the series for a third season. In September, HBO's CEO Casey Bloys said the show would not end there. Filming was meant to start in February 2023, aiming for a late 2023 release. The 2023 Writers Guild of America strike disrupted that plan. That May, Euphoria was confirmed to share a universe with Levinson's series The Idol. Alexa Demie makes an uncredited cameo in the first episode of The Idol.

  Pre-production on season 3 had begun by December 2023. Principal photography began in January 2025, starting quietly with every scene set inside the strip club. It wrapped in November. Zendaya completed her scenes in June, with a compressed schedule. She said, "I did what I do in eight months in like four months."

  The third season premiered on the 12th of April 2026, and the premiere also screened at Coachella 2026.

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• 7. Lines of Controversy

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  The Parents Television and Media Council called Euphoria "dark, depraved, degenerate and nihilistic". The group asked HBO and AT&T to end the series. Critics objected to its depictions of self-harm, heavy drug use and sexual material involving teenage characters. Common Sense Media noted the strong adult themes and advised against viewing by teenagers.

  Drug Abuse Resistance Education said the show misguidedly glorified high school drug use. In 2022, Minka Kelly said she was uncomfortable with the number of nude scenes. Writing in Vogue, Samuel Getachew argued that the show's treatment of trauma makes it appealing in a way his generation is especially vulnerable to. The Guardian said writers and producers should find new and different ways to shock audiences.

  Levinson acknowledged that some parents would be "totally freaked out". He said he hoped the show would open a dialogue about the disconnect between parents and teenagers. Director Frizzell made a similar point: the explicit material could help start conversations between parents and teens. Zendaya issued a warning before the series and again before season 2, citing its deeply emotional subject matter.

  HBO itself objected to some sexually graphic scenes. It said it would not interfere with the creative process. The series carries viewer discretion warnings and a website with mental health and support resources. It has reportedly been censored in Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.

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• 8. Reception and Awards

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  The first season earned a Metacritic score of 67 out of 100 from 27 critics. Ben Travers of IndieWire praised its authenticity, and Zendaya's performance and narration. Pilot Viruet of Observer found it visually stunning but described the writing as shaky and full of clunky lines. The premiere averaged 577,000 viewers in its time slot, rising to one million with the same-night replay and early streaming. The hashtag #EuphoriaHBO trended number one in the United States and number three worldwide on Twitter.

  The specials were warmly received. On Rotten Tomatoes they scored 97% and 96%. Metacritic gave them 84 and 78 out of 100, each from 10 reviews.

  Season 2 scored 78% on Rotten Tomatoes from 113 reviews and 74 out of 100 on Metacritic. Travers wrote that after seven of eight episodes it was "skippable". Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian gave it two out of five. Viewers, though, kept coming. The premiere drew 2.4 million viewers across HBO platforms, a series high. At the end of the season, episodes averaged 16.3 million viewers, which made it the second-most-watched HBO series since 2004, behind Game of Thrones. House of the Dragon later overtook it. Variety reported more than 30 million tweets about season 2, 51% more than for season 1.

  The third season scored 39% on Rotten Tomatoes from 54 reviews and 56 out of 100 on Metacritic. Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter wondered whether the show had aged out of relevance. Catharine Hughes of New Statesman likened the return to a humiliation ritual rather than a victory lap. Variety called it entertaining but disjointed fan fiction. The series now ranks as the fourth most-watched HBO series since 2004.

  The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has nominated Euphoria twenty five times and awarded nine statues. Zendaya won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2020 for "Made You Look", and again in 2022. Labrinth won for the song "All for Us". Domingo won as guest actor, and Rév took the cinematography award for "The Theater and Its Double". In 2020, the series was also nominated for a GLAAD Media Award.

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