Streamed every Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO Max, “Euphoria” delivered a dramatic, heart wrenching and confusing finale to season two on Feb. 27. The TV show has been extremely popular for teenagers right now as the majority of the characters are in high school, although they attend a very different high school than the audience can relate to. Filled with heavy drug and alcohol use, along with out of the ordinary costume and makeup, the high school atmosphere in “Euphoria” brings several different stories and conflicts throughout the series. In the season two finale, these conflicts each hit their breaking points and every character has dramatic scenes all throughout.

The episode started where the last one left off, when Lexi (Maude Apatow) is presenting her controversial play to the school. Her play envelops an insider view to all of her friends’ personal lives, while exposing their darkest secrets and humiliating them at the same time. Her sister is hurt the most, as the entire play is built around her life always being in the shadows of her older sister Cassie (Sydney Sweeney). Cassie ends up disrupting the play halfway through, which starts an aggressive fight between her and her ex-best friend, Maddy (Alexa Demie). 

The play also revolves around Lexi’s rocky friendship with Rue (Zendaya), and how it went downhill after Rue’s father passed away and she started using drugs. Rue is one of the only close friends exposed in the play who enjoyed it, as she later thanks Lexi for showing her a part of her life that she did not hate. 

While the play is going on, there is drama at the local drug dealer, Fezco’s (Angus Cloud) house, when a fellow dealer, Custer, shows up wearing a wire to get information for the police about a murder. A few episodes back, Fez’s little brother Ashtray (Javon Walton) killed one of the top-ranking drug dealers, and Custer is trying to get proof of this confession to get his own name out of the murder. Ash lets his anger get the best of him and impulsively kills Custer in their house, while he is recording for the police. In a matter of minutes, an entire SWAT team shows up at their house and Fez begs Ash to surrender and let him take the blame for Custer’s death. Instead, Ash brings all of their guns into the bathroom, starting a shoot out between the SWAT team and himself, which ends up killing himself and Fez getting shot in the crossfire. Fez is very close with Lexi and is one of the main reasons she had enough courage to put on the play, but he ends up missing the play when this whole scene goes down. 

Lastly, the episode ends with Rue trying to mend her friendships with her love interest, Jules (Hunter Schafer) and her new friend Elliot (Dominic Fike), both of whom recently exposed her drug relapse to her mother. Rue was extremely angry at them when she had just found out because she was so reliant on drugs and did not want to have to go back to rehab. However, now being sober for the last few weeks, Rue has realized the importance of her friendships and she tries to fix them. At the end of the episode, Jules tells Rue that she loves her, but Rue says nothing but kisses her on the forehead, then walks outside and gives a voice-over about a hopeful future for herself.

Although the finale presents a lot of drama between characters, it leaves the audience with an array of unanswered questions. Will Maddy and Cassie ever mend their friendship? Will Fez survive the gunshot wound? Will Lexi and Fez be able to continue their romantic relationship, now that he has been shot and arrested for murder? What will happen with Rue and Jules? Avid “Euphoria” watchers are craving more, but unfortunately will have to wait until 2024 for production to finish season three.