‘Euphoria’ Episode 3 Explains Why Cal Jacobs Is So F****d Up

Warning: the following contains spoilers for Euphoria season 2 episode 3.

Euphoria’s third episode puts the narrational spotlight on Cal Jacobs with an almost 15-minute opening sequence showing his tumultuous senior year in high school. Cal is the weekly focus following episode 2, during which he discovered Nate’s knowledge of his sex tape with Jules—and that the tape may not be in Nate’s possession. Episode 3 confirms this last detail, as Cal takes up the sex tape grail quest. (Maddy has the tape, by the way, but Cal doesn’t know this yet.)

Episode 3 also (finally!) gives us more Lexi, whose school play will add another dash of metafiction to an already-confusing world of narrators and fantasies.

Meanwhile, Jules and Rue begin to drift apart as the siren song of drugs calls Rue to its euphoric shores. While Rue’s relapse remains hidden from her friends and family, she now has a suitcase. And in that suitcase lies enough drama to fill the rest of this season.

Before we get into the episode, we have a quick note about the drug usage so far this season (which, alongside the sex, is not representative of the generational cohort the series depicts)—namely, it seems to be getting cooler?

We’re best to remember that the series takes us through abuse cycles. So far this season, we’re riding the high with Rue—a high, so far, without any clear consequences. But consequences loom. The episode’s final image belies Rue’s opening dance montage. While Rue’s usage temporarily counteracts her depression, it also isolates her, and the episode ends with her alone in the dark. She’s pushed away her sister, Jules, and Ali, all of whom represent her support system.

As bright and technicolored and musically-hyped as the drug-accompanying cinematography can be—and there may be an argument that these features tend to glorify drug usage—the series is ultimately a cautionary tale.

Episode 3 laid the foundations for what will be yet another downfall arc for Rue.

Here’s how it went down.

The episode opens on Cal Jacobs, high schooler. Rue narrates the extended sequence, saying Cal spent every day with his best friend, Derick. The two drive around listening to INXS, they attend wrestling practice together, they meet girls, they date girls, and then they graduate. All the while, the two share intimate, increasingly-tense moments, which culminate in a gay bar kiss on a rainy summer night before college.

And then the summer of love is shattered by a phone call. Cal learns that his girlfriend is pregnant, presumably, with Nate. He cries.

Rue Is High, Like ... So High

Rue dances around her house to a song playing in her head. She’s spotted by her sister who asks if she is high. Rue then pauses to explain to the audience in an extended fourth-wall-breaking sequence that she is in fact high; however, she has a cover. Realizing that there’s no way to fully hide her drug usage, she has decided to plant the idea of her using weed in the minds of her friends and family. Both Jules and her sister buy Rue’s ruse, and they chalk her fluctuating emotions up to weed usage.

With this knowledge, Jules forgives Rue for hiding her relationship with Elliot. Still, Jules believes Elliot just wants to sleep with Rue, and she interrogates Elliot to find out. The two exchange accusations of sexual promiscuousness but seem to get along. Jules discovers that Elliot doesn’t rigidly classify his sexuality, having relations with both genders. The three appear to become friends and begin hanging out.

Sexuality comes up often in their conversations. When Rue is away, Jules and Elliot discuss sex drive. Elliot discovers that Rue and Jules are not sexually active. He tells Jules that he first assumed Rue might be asexual and asks how Rue’s sex drive has impacted their relationship, given Jules previously admitted she is a more sexual person than Rue. Elliot then says he’s attracted to Jules and proceeds to validate her. (It’s insinuated that Rue has not said these things to Jules.) The camera lingers, suggesting that the two are Having a Moment. We’ll see how this plays out in future episodes.

Lexi has been writing a play ever since the tense convenience store confrontation between Fez and Cal. Lexi realized her lack of intervention stems from her being mostly an observer. She begins writing about her observations—particularly her relationship with her sister Cassie and their dysfunctional family. The play will be put on by the school, leading to a mock behind the scenes sequence of Lexi explaining to the audience (us) her idea of casting the side character as the main character. The sequence features mock BTS interviews with Rue, who is playing a side character. It’s all very meta and seems to echo a previous point made by Rue in her own fourth wall break when she said people seek comfort in entertainment/television (referencing the very show that she is in, Euphoria, and HBO.)

If ever there was a scene screaming for film students to analyze it, this would be that scene.

Meanwhile, Cassie has been waking up at 4AM to spend more time on herself. Her self-care routine, however, is also designed for Nate to notice her in the halls. He does not. Cassie convinces herself Nate is actual a sartorially attentive man, and the sequence ends with Cassie and Maddy walking side by side wearing the same outfit. Cassie then runs off when she realizes Maddy realizes.

Later in the episode, Cassie begins to silently break down and comes close to telling Maddy that she’s in love with Nate. She later tells Maddy that she (Maddy) deserves someone who actually cares about her (Maddy), even though it is she (Cassie) who believes she (Cassie) deserves someone who actually cares about her (Cassie). We then cut to scenes of Nate definitely not actually caring about her (Cassie). Fantasies of compassionate sex are interrupted by Nate being a fucking creep and hooking up with Cassie while his parents listen downstairs.

What the hell is this show?

At the end of the episode, Nate shows up at Maddy’s babysitting house with a bouquet of flowers.

Realizing she cannot financially sustain her drug habit, Rue propositions Fez (who refuses) and then later Fez’s plug (the laconic woman from that scary apartment) to use her to sell drugs. (Instead of just, you know, getting a legal job to make money.) She says she can avoid harsher sentencing because she’s underage and suggests that because her friends are worried about college admission, they won’t narc.

The woman—who knows Rue is an addict—inexplicably gives her a shot, providing her with $10,000 worth of drugs in a totally inconspicuous black suitcase. On her way out, the woman tells Rue that if Rue loses her any money, she will kidnap Rue and sell her to “some real sick people.”

Rue later takes the totally inconspicuous suitcase to NA where Ali confronts her outside. Rue (after learning about Alli’s past during that diner episode) calls Ali a bad father, causing him to give Rue an ultimatum: if she disrespects him again, he’s done with her. Rue disrespects him again, mentioning his previous domestic violence. Ali leaves. Rue sits alone in her room and begins to get high on her own supply. Here we go again.

After learning Nate does not have the tape, Cal goes to see Fez. Ashtray repeatedly pistol whips Cal with a shotgun as Fez interrogates him. Cal, assuming Fez has the tape and has been blackmailing Nate (an accusation, we’re made to believe, which came from Nate), asks Fez to return it. Fez, only just now learning that Cal had sex with an underage Jules, and realizing that Nate has sicked his father on him, drops the bomb: Nate is in love with Jules.

Cal is utterly perplexed. Fez is utterly perplexed. Fez allows an utterly perplexed Cal to leave.

The tables have turned on Nate.

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