Euphoria has never been solely the story of Zendaya’s Rue. It’s about Rue as well as Maddy, Nate, and Cassie, among others. However, the most recent episode of Euphoria is taken over by just one person, Ms Lexi Howard. Euphoria Season 2, Episode 7 is The Lexi Show. Lexi has rarely been in command of her narrative in the entire Euphoria history, but she made up for everything in one single episode. All of the anticipations for Lexi’s high school play was well worth the wait. “Lexi, you are *****ng G” and we agree with Maddy on this one.
The episode, The Theater and its Double is a reference to a collection of essays of the same name by French playwright Antonin Artaud. The penultimate episode features Lexi, brilliantly played by Maude Apatow, and her high school play Our Life, which she has been working on for quite some time. We can’t decide whether to praise Lexi or Sam Levinson after Episode 7. As the camera transitions between the past, present, and even dreams, it effortlessly bridges reality and Lexi’s stage, with real characters and stand-ins blending seamlessly together. The play was harmless except for Nate and Cassie.
An emotional Rue also watches her friendship with Lexi fall apart as the play unwinds the early years of their lives. We had been robbed of Lexi and Rue’s friendship, and it was finally heartwarming to watch Rue and Lexi from the days that they were close. That friendship was an important aspect of both her play and her life. Lexi’s life had fallen apart after her father left, the teenage Cassie had become a complete stranger, and she was clinging to the one meaningful connection she had left, her friendship with Rue. However, that too crumbled when Rue began doing drugs.
When puberty hit, Cassie became the person who Lexi could never relate or look up to. Lexi is the kind of person you might find reading books in the corner with insecurities under her skin the size of volcanoes. “I feel like I’ve lived most of my imagination, taking the smallest moments and dreaming them up into something bigger. A little exchange and I’m in love, a moment to myself and I am on stage, but reality would always find a way of pulling me back,” Lexi says. She watches her sister or Maddy in romantic relationships and she desires the same, but she’ll never fit into their world. Lexi has never looked more confident than she does in this episode; she appears to have realized what she truly wants.
Lexi’s play opened a new door to Maddy’s character. While exploring Maddy and Cassie’s friendship, what viewers got to see was the person Maddy really is. She is kind of the sister Lexi always wanted. Maddy is a young girl who is confident in her own skin and never appears to doubt herself, and Lexi wanted that type of affirmation from her sister. Cassie ignored her, but Maddy showed up.
Later in the present, we get to see what really happened that night after Rue put out the fire in everyone’s lives. Maddy pounds on the door, saying, “Was it really worth it?” as Cassie locks herself in a room upstairs. We saw a disappointed and heartbroken Maddy after discovering her best friend’s betrayal. She didn’t give a damn about Nate, but she didn’t expect that from Cassie, her ‘soulmate’. As viewers, we anticipated Maddy to turn violent and aggressive, but the confrontation scene portrayed a vulnerable and emotional Maddy.
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Meanwhile, our sweet Fez is getting ready for Lexi’s play, despite the danger hanging over his head. We don’t want to go into detail about the moments with Fez in the last episode since they are stressful to talk about! All we want in the upcoming finale is not even a scratch on Fez and Ashtray.
Nate and Cassie are still together, and Cassie completely surrenders herself to him, and he has always desired a lady like her in his life to complete his ideal family portrait. They have a submissive and dominant relationship that Maddy would never accept if he were to be with her. However, Nate dresses Cassie up in Maddy’s outfits and applies something similar to Jules’ makeup to her, and the real Cassie disappears. Meanwhile, he is having nightmares about Cal, which is really disturbing to watch. As viewers, we have a lot of questions concerning the nightmare. Did Cal sexually abuse Nate as a child? What was it again?
Finally, at the end of the episode, Nate got what he deserved. We had no idea Lexi was the one who was destined to put an end to Nate’s atrocities. We just never saw that coming. Nate was always repulsed by homosexuality because his father was not heterosexual as he wanted to be. The play’s biggest turning point is the homoerotic dance number. Ethan is playing Nate’s stand-in, Jake. The dance begins with a flashback to Nate’s iconic scene in season one, in which he was visibly uncomfortable inside the gym while the football team strolled naked around him. The play was loaded with phallic motifs and homosexual imagery. Nate stormed out of the hall at the end of the dance, breaking up with Cassie, who followed him down the corridor. Cassie is furious as she looks out the window into the hall at the end of the episode, and she is on the verge of unleashing mayhem. Let’s wait and see what happens in the explosive finale that will air next week.