HBO’s teen drama, Euphoria, has caused all kinds of reactions across audiences. For some, it could be difficult to watch, for others it might feel like euphoria. Living through the exasperating experiences of a bunch of teenagers will make you feel something deeply.

It’s been more than a year since Sam Levinson’s dark teen drama was released on HBO, and it still is a common topic in people’s TV series’ conversations. Especially when the question “when is season 2 coming?” pops up.

Euphoria has an eerie, hard, and personal story at its core. Zendaya does a great interpretation of 17 years old Rue Bennet and her simple yet extremely complicated life. We see Rue returning from a whole summer spent in rehab and then constantly placing herself in dangerous situations, just to feel nothingness.

She repeatedly tries to get herself absent from her dreary life, from her own understandable anxieties and mental roadblocks. You feel for her but at the same time, her decisions may be revealing. She struggles with her own thoughts and feelings when she meets Jules, a transgender girl.

But it’s not just Rue’s story one that makes you feel overwhelmed. It’s the combination of the whole group of teenagers’ painful stories, that altogether make you go from concerned to disturbed in every episode. Yet you will be wanting for more.

Each of them is trying to find out who they are while dealing with social pressure, romantic relationships, school, dark secrets, friends, sexual encounters, deep desires, parents and every ordinary situation that we all live at that stage of our lives.

The beginning of each episode talks about their past, their childhood and the experiences that made them the way they are today. What prompts them to make the decisions they make. Each character’s deep narrative and phycological construction definitely causes you to feel something for them.

It is a drama that strives to be faithful to a real troubled high school teenage life. You may think they probably are some of the worst teen experiences that could happen, but let’s be honest, they are far from impossible ones. 

And we can’t talk about Levinson’s amazing storytelling aesthetic. His extremely sharp transitions, skillful touches, rich authenticity in every scene, visual symbolism, one-shot takes, propulsive pacing and dynamic visual styling makes each episode be undoubtedly enjoyable. 

Adding up the thrilling soundtrack that gives you the chills, Euphoria will make you reflect on experiences that surely are someone’s truth. A full dose of stark reality. A cathartic experience to watch and to feel.