![]() ![]() ![]() For much of the first season, Jules is defined through the eyes of Rue, the omniscient narrator, who ends up falling madly in love with her. She starts the show as the mysterious new girl, slashing her arm at a party in an effort to intimate the bullying Nate (Jacob Elordi), who then ends up catfishing and blackmailing her. In part thanks to Schafer's magnetic screen work, the presence of Jules in Euphoria is one of the elements that elevated it beyond being just Riverdale with more nudity and fewer goofy names. The anger Rue had for Jules' betrayal is not there, only sadness and a gap between them that previously didn't exist. ![]() ![]() Jules is back home after running away, she's grounded and in therapy, while Rue is continuing her path to recovery, seeing Ali regularly over the holiday break. Whereas the meditation on addiction and race between Rue and Ali in "Trouble Don't Last Always" felt like an isolated exercise in writing for Levinson and acting for Zendaya and Domingo, Jules' narrative also neatly sets up what's to come in the second season, which has yet to start shooting because of pandemic delays. It also ends on a note of quasi reconciliation, wherein Rue shows up at Jules' house and Jules offers an apology, which Rue doesn't quite reject, but doesn't accept either. It's somehow both more intimate and broader than what came before it, offering backstory for the character that wasn't provided in the first season of the series. "Fuck Anyone Who's Not a Sea Blob" is a showcase for Hunter Schafer, who both stars in and co-wrote the episode with Euphoria creator Sam Levinson. Rather, they were Jules', who imagines a blissful life in New York with Rue that is upended when she finds Rue, locked in the bathroom, having overdosed. But, in the second of these two stand-alone specials, it's revealed that those were not Rue's nightmares at all. After all, the hour was focused on the series' protagonist having a deep conversation with her sponsor Ali (Colman Domingo). If the first special focused on the narcissism of addiction, the second spotlights the self-effacement of the enabler.The first special episode of HBO's Euphoria, which dropped before the new year, opened with a dream sequence, one that was easy to assume it belonged to Zendaya's Rue. The show is very empathetic toward Rue’s challenges, but it doesn’t spend as much time showing how her behavior impacts her support system. In this way, the show self-corrects an issue that hadn’t yet become obvious in the rush of praise. But it also fills in the parts of Jules’ story fans never saw, shedding new light on the character’s choices, making her less of someone who happened to Rue and more of a person in her own right. Paired with part one, it brings along much of the plot the Zendaya-focused hour was missing. But the cast is also more expansive, bringing in Jules’ father, the fantasy online boyfriend who turned out to be a classmate catfishing her and other first season storylines. Here, Schafer’s scene partner is Lauren Weedman, playing the therapist Jules is sent to after returning from running away. Like Rue’s special, “Part Two: Jules” is also framed as a one-on-one. ![]()
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