Warning: Spoilers ahead.
Episode 4 of Euphoria Season 3 has been released, and the saying “Malayo na, pero malayo pa rin” comes to mind as we mark the halfway point of a nasty, chaotic season that I hope is the show’s last. In this latest episode, the newlywed Jacobs couple’s fate appears to be split: Nate (Jacob Elordi) makes a Hail Mary to pay off a million dollars in debt, while Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) continues to hustle for followers and subscribers.
Nate has had his toe surgically reattached after Naz’s henchman cut it off in the last episode. He says the reattachment is a metaphor for getting back what one has lost, but we’ve yet to see how that applies to Cassie, who has left him to pursue her dreams as an OnlyFans model. So what the hell was the wedding for?
He finally gets that meeting with the state zoning board, and he delivers an impassioned presentation proposing to make the endangered white fritillaries a feature of the retirement home and building around them instead of removing them from the construction site. The zoning board, however, rejects the proposal. It sends Nate on his hands and knees, literally begging for approval. The misery makes for Elordi’s most impressive performance this season. However, it still pales in comparison to his work in Frankenstein and even — I hate to admit this — Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights.
Meanwhile, Lexi (Maude Apatow) has hired Jules (Hunter Schafer) to create an original painting for the TV show L.A. Nights. The brief is “Sunday in the park, picnic kind of feel,” but Lexi also tells Jules to do whatever she wants. The result is George Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” but with a lot of nudity (Sharon Stone’s Patty Lance, the showrunner, counted 14 penises). Jules is asked to rework the painting as it’s not safe for TV, and Patty reschedules the shoot for another week. Lexi very nearly loses her job after being reprimanded by Patty, who tells her that she put upwards of $100,000 in production costs to waste by being unclear with Jules.
Rue Wears Another Hat
At the Silver Slipper, Angel has been replaced by Kitty (Anna Van Patten). Speculating about the former’s whereabouts, the other dancers say she probably ran away from rehab, but audiences already know that club owner Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) probably got rid of her for good.
Unbeknownst to Alamo, Rue (Zendaya) has been caught by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In the span of four episodes, our protagonist has gone from drug dealer to pimp, to arms dealer, to DEA informant. Alamo senses that something is amiss with her, but wrongly suspects that she’s using again, and warns her against spiraling back into addiction. But Magick (Rosalía), one of the dancers at the club, keeps a watchful eye on Rue and begins to suspect her of being a snitch.
When Rue catches Kitty getting assaulted by patrons on CCTV, she asks Kitty in the bathroom if she’s been forced to work at the Silver Slipper, her phone recording the conversation. Kitty insists she wants to work at the club, and Magick emerges from one of the bathroom stalls, whistling what sounds like Rosalía’s “La Rumba Del Perdón.”
Later on, Magick goes to the club manager, Big Eddy (Kadeem Hardison), and tells him she thinks Rue might be a snitch. This leads to a confrontation among the three, with Rue attempting to cover her tracks by saying she was only looking after the girls. But before more could be revealed about her working for the DEA, a couple of white men in Barack Obama masks stormed the office, pointed a gun at Rue and Magick, and shot Eddy, before stealing all the cash from the vault.
With the masks and no plate on their car, Magick is only able to see a part of the getaway driver’s face. “It’s a woman,” Magick says. “She has gigantic lips.” Of course, the driver is Rue’s friend, Faye Valentine (Chloe Cherry), and Rue tells Alamo that she works for Laurie (Martha Kelly).
Rare Cassie Win
While things go awry at the strip club, Cassie’s looking for a come-up as a pinup model. She and Maddy (Alexa Demie) attend the party of Brandon Fontaine (Jeff Wahlberg), an influencer. His cameraman follows him around with a phone camera rig, livestreaming his raunchy party for millions of his followers to see.
After she’s advised that it’s good to be seen on his livestream, Cassie manages to get into his bedroom with Maddy’s first client, Katelyn (Bella Podaras), the Cassie lookalike we met on Episode 1. The two blondes compete for Brandon’s attention, but Cassie wins when a single snort of coke sends Katelyn to the bathroom vomiting. Brandon’s cameraman barges in just as he and Cassie are about to have sex. She looks up at the camera, gives her Instagram handle, and goes home to a barrage of new followers on Instagram — a huge step up from the humble 3,000 she was doing nude shoots for at the beginning of the season.
Euphoria Season 3 is currently streaming on HBO Max.
