This week brought the conclusion to the provocative hit HBO show, “Euphoria.” As I mentioned in an earlier article, while this show garnered more headlines for its risqué, envelope-pushing content, this final season took a surprising turn with its main character and narrator, Rue, reaping the consequences of her addiction.
While postmodern storytelling seeks to avoid satisfying conclusions and good triumphing over evil, “Euphoria,” a generational-defining show, has done just the opposite. Bows are tied, the “baddest guys” get their just desserts, and the “good guys,” even if their ends are tragic, reflect a beauty that only comes through goodness.
In God We Trust
Rue ultimately, though accidentally, succumbs to her addiction. The last thing she hears before drifting to her final rest, however, is her audio Bible – recounting the Creation story – to which she was faithfully listening throughout the season. Perhaps this was unintentional, but tying Rue’s death to the Creation implies the Christian understanding of the Resurrection as a New Creation that Jesus institutes.
The audio overlay during Rue’s demise is, fittingly, Ave Maria. Rendered from the Latin version of the “Hail Mary” prayer, this song asks that Jesus’ mother be with us as we die. Rue imagines her own estranged mother with whom she recently reconciled as she passes away.
Rue’s death breaks Ali, her sponsor and surrogate father. We find him giving a monologue that could have come directly from a Sunday sermon. In it he bemoans “the real disease,” which is “that people no longer know the difference between right and wrong.” Reality, the deeper reality into which the spiritual world provides insight, does not allow for relativism. “Only thing I know for certain is that there is a right and wrong in this world,” Ali says. “You’re either making the world a better place or you’re making it worse.”
While Christianity is certainly much more than this statement, it also encapsulates some essential fundamental groundings upon which any serious spirituality must rest. Not only must there be clear rights and wrongs, but we, as moral agents, cannot be neutral toward them. A Christian is to see every action as moving one toward participation in Goodness or rejection of that Goodness – there is no lukewarm.
Providential Justice
Virtually every villain in “Euphoria” received some comeuppance in this finale, each symbolically related to their character’s misdeeds. This reflects good writing because it uses the physical to reveal something deeper, more spiritual.
One villain, for instance, who imprisoned Rue to addiction and smuggling, commits suicide when confronted by DEA agents rather than face prison herself. Another, whose deceit and violence built his empire, is betrayed precisely because of the tyranny he inflicted on others.
A third character, who nailed his own coffin through previous bad decisions, dies by snakebite. This fate, with all the biblical symbolism used so far this season (especially through the use of Genesis and Exodus), could not have been accidental.
“I think I have to read it again.”
Finally, Lexi, who initially mocked Rue for her interest in Christianity, speaks of feeling “haunted” by a Bible Rue left behind at Lexi’s apartment. Unable to throw it away, Lexi tries hiding it on her bookshelf, but eventually begins reading it.
She describes it as “incredible” and “kind of beautiful,” noting that it gets her “thinking about a lot of stuff.” These descriptions could be taken from nearly every testimony and conversion story in Christian history. What strikes her most profoundly is the Israelites in the Old Testament, describing them by saying: “They just keep going. And that’s the heart of it, I think.” God’s people are characterized by hope, either the promise of the Messiah or the promise their Messiah, Jesus Christ, makes. God’s people hope because they are people of hope.
She ends with advice pastors have given their flocks for centuries: “I think I have to read [the Bible] again.”
May God Bless Us All
The final moments of the show are dedicated to the stereotypical Catholic-but-also-fundamentalist-generic-Christian family from episode one. Rue’s sponsor, who refers to her as his daughter, meets this family and tells them how she called their home “the most peaceful place she’d ever been.” This is unsurprising to viewers as it underscores how much the family loves each other. This family now welcomes Rue’s “father,” who interestingly goes by his “Christian” birth name, Martin McQueen, the same way they welcomed Rue. McQueen prays with the family, and the scene closes with each one saying, “Amen,” while Rue’s voiceover closes with, “May God bless us all.”
For all the talk that this show generated over the last seven years, there is no way anyone was expecting it to end this way. We can demonize or justify “Euphoria” for its controversial content, but in doing so, I believe we miss the point. The themes of sin, addiction, and slavery, contrasted with justice, deliverance, and true freedom, were all expertly woven into this third season and the overt biblical allusions present serve to reiterate these points even further. The fact that creator Sam Levinson wanted to connect these explicit biblical references, when he could have easily left them out, makes their inclusion intentional and important.
Is “Euphoria” a Christian show? I mean, I guess not, but this third season gave some of the most powerful Christian themes one can find – on a TV-MA-rated, premium cable network, of all places. Perhaps we’re well on our way toward the mission C. S. Lewis had in mind when he suggested, “’First let us make the younger generation good pagans and afterwards let us make them Christians.’”
Mike Schramm is a husband and father of seven children. He teaches theology and philosophy at Aquinas High School and Viterbo University. You can find his writing at Busted Halo, Mere Orthodoxy, and the Voyage Comics Blog. He is also the managing editor of the Voyage Compass, an imprint of Voyage Comics and Publishing.
This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. To comment on this article, please email [email protected].
