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Review: Euphoria S2E6 “A Thousand Little Trees of Blood”

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A Thousand Little Trees of Blood

Although Sam Levinson wisely bookends “A Thousand Little Trees of Blood” with sequences of Rue (Zendaya) dealing with her withdrawals with the help of her mom Leslie (Nia King), little sister Gia (Storm Reid), and sponsor Ali (Colman Domingo), Euphoria is back to its multiple storyline juggling ways in “A Thousand Little Trees of Blood.” And they range from sick and twisted, yet compelling (Anything Nate Jacobs touches) to too damn sweet (Fezco and Lexi talking about her playing and crying and Stand By Me) and utterly forgettable (Kat and Ethan break up after barely interacting this season). There’s also that crime plot line baked in, and Laurie doesn’t make an appearance, but it definitely seems like Fezco (Angus Cloud) and Ashtray (Javon Walton) could be in trouble from the police or a rival drug operation. This episode feels like a deep breath before a tragedy, and its ending is especially bleak after the slight hope at the end of the whirlwind of “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”.

Levinson spends most of the opening of “A Thousand Little Trees of Blood” showing Rue struggle with drug withdrawal as there’s bit of time between her returning to rehab. She has less screen time than the previous episode, but Zendaya still gives a strong physical and verbal performance as Rue calls Ali and apologizes for reducing him to his addiction to crack and struggles with his ex-wife and children. It’s interesting to see the difference between the eloquence of Zendaya’s narrator and the sheer emotion of her speech patterns as Rue with her realization that Ali is under no obligation to forgive her. This idea continues in his interactions with Gia, who helps him make dinner, and he gives her attention and advice in contrast with Leslie, who’s trying to keep the family together, and Rue, who is consumed by her addiction. They aren’t chatting away like buddies, but Ali can get through the defenses Gia has built for herself after the trauma of her dad dying and Rue overdosing. Domingo is one of the true “good” people in Euphoria, and the fact that he helps and believes in Rue even after she treated him like shit gives an air of hope to every scene he’s in. That’s why the dark coda to this episode hits so hard because he’s not there when Leslie gets a fateful call from a healthcare provider.

Before diving into the utter drama of the Nate/Cassie/Maddy situation, I want to touch on this episode’s main misfire, and a character arc/relationship that has been scattershot all season. I kid you not, but Kat (Barbie Ferreira) got her boyfriend Ethan (Austin Abrams) to break up with her because she faked having a brain disorder and then jumped down his throat when he feigned skepticism about it after she pivoted from talking about possibly breaking up. It’s dysfunction at its finest, and I feel bad for the waiter, who lost out on the table at the restaurant that they’re meeting at. Honestly, the conversation is a metaphor for how Kat and Ethan have been characterized all season, which is vague and written in broad strokes like the scene about self-love that ended up having nothing to do with the conversations they actually have. Also, I hate to say this, but Kat and Ethan could have been written out of this season, and it would have had no effect on the story although he is involved in Lexi’s (Maude Apatow) play down the road.

Sam Levinson crafts scenes where Nate (Jacob Elordi), Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), and Maddy (Alexa Demie) are apart to really vent their feelings about the situation of Nate and Cassie sleeping together even though Maddy loves Nate and is Cassie’s best friend until going full darkness with a bit of an erotic thriller when he finally decides to act. For the most part, Sweeney is in freak out mode and playing Cassie totally unhinged leading up to a scene where she reunites with Nate and says that she ruined her life to be with him. Her mom Suze (Alanna Ubach) plays off her with pure disdain as she just wants to drink her wine and watch day time TV instead of having her daughter try to justify betraying a friend. There is a look towards of the end of the episode where Suze maybe realizes that she should have been more listening and empathetic towards her daughter and figured out why she was so obsessed with Nate.

A Thousand Little Trees of Blood

Yes, she could have been more like Samantha (Minka Kelly), who Maddy babysits for and opens up to after sharing a couple glasses of wine at her pool. Before they chat, there’s another scene of Maddy trying on Samantha’s clothes and presumably fantasizing about a stable life with nice things as Levinson cuts to a camera on the digital clock in the closet. However, Maddy isn’t punished, but finds a listening ear in Samantha, who slept with one of her friend’s boyfriends in college and never heard from her again. This definitely sets Maddy off, but they end up finding common ground when Samantha shares that people back then thought she was too “messy” to be a mom or married. Characters have said the same thing about Maddy this season, and Nate’s mom Marsha (Paula Marshall) even refers to how she behaved at the carnival last season when Nate choked her. Marsha also mentions that she was glad Nate didn’t get her pregnant because she would have kept the baby out of spite. The chat between Samantha and Maddy shows that she can break the cycle of break up/get back together with Nate and get a fresh start.

However, this is all undercut when “A Thousand Little Trees of Blood” goes full horror, including a creepy static shot of Nate sitting in Maddy’s bedroom with a gun while she changes after her babysitting job. It gets even worse as Sam Levinson goes for intense close-ups, and Nate doesn’t address their relationship or the cheating at all. He just wants the CD of his dad having sex with Jules (Hunter Schafer) so it won’t get out that he’s the son of a pedophile when he takes over his dad’s real estate company. This sequence and another one where Nate gives the disk to Jules shows how free he feels without his dad in the picture, but he’s still “flawed” like his wine-drunk mom Marsha said earlier in the episode. These two scenes show that Nate is beyond redemption even though Jules darkly jokes about him being a good person, and he continues to be manipulative inviting Cassie over to stay with him as she is in the throes of emotion. Jacob Elordi channels real darkness in his portrayal of Nate from his half-bored line delivery to his overpowering physicality as every woman he interacts with this episode from his mom to Jules is afraid he’s going to get violent. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the CD he gave Jules, especially after an earlier scene in the episode implied that he wanted to wipe all traces of his dad’s pedophilia to not ruin the family business.

A Thousand Little Trees of Blood

A dark cloud of toxic masculinity in the form of Nate Jacobs was over Euphoria this episode, but there was room for sweetness in Lexi and Fezco’s interactions. Cinematographer Marcell Rev even lights up their scenes making it feel like a relaxed mid-afternoon hang instead of an emotional roller coaster with rain and darkness. Fez continues to be interested in Lexi and asks about the premise of her play that he basically deduces is Stand By Me with women so they end up watching the movie, crying, and singing at the end. This time is a nice escape from the conflict between Maddy and Cassie as well as Fezco getting reprisals for Ashtray killing a rival drug dealer in the season premiere either from other drug dealers or the police. It also fits in with Lexi’s character as she uses fiction and fitting her life into narrative to make sense of things, hence, the play.

While continuing to focus on his strong suit as writer/director/creator, namely Rue’s addiction and letting Zendaya’s explore those painful emotions, Sam Levinson also resolves (for now) the Nate/Cassie/Maddy situation while giving each character some time on their own to chat with either their own mothers or mother-type figure about relationships and who they are as people. The support or lack of support they get ends up dictating their actions this episode, and we also see this is in Rue’s story with Leslie fighting to get her in rehab and not just detox as the hour concludes. “A Thousand Little Trees of Blood” didn’t have the momentum of the previous episode, but it felt less bloated than many of the episodes this season that juggle multiple plotlines even if Kat and Ethan’s stories this season have been non-starters.

Overall Verdict: 8.7

Review: Euphoria S2E5 “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”

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Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

“Stand Still Like the Hummingbird” is a beyond stressful episode of Euphoria as Rue Bennett leaves physical and emotional damage in her wake when an intervention featuring her mom Leslie (Nika King), sister Gia (Storm Reid), Jules, and Elliot goes terribly wrong. Zendaya is an Emmy-worthy wrecking ball in this episode and burns bridges with literally everyone except Laurie, who wants to get her hooked on morphine and sexually traffick her. Writer/director Sam Levinson creates tension in this episode from a variety of pressure points from Rue withdrawing to how she says terrible things to Leslie, Gia, and Jules and finally her fear of Laurie after Jules tells her that she and Leslie flushed the drugs down the toilet. Plus she makes a little pit stop at the Howards’ house and reveals that Cassie has been sleeping with Nate, which predictably makes Maddy go psycho, and more pragmatically for Rue, it allows her to avoid an intervention while evading police, causing a car accident, and committing robbery along the way.

Unlike the bloat of the previous three episodes, Levinson’s script is lean, mean, and emotionally compelling spending almost 20 minutes on Leslie, Gia, and later, Jules confronting for relapsing in her drug use. He really pulls at the heart strings by opening with Leslie and Rue off-screen arguing while Gia is in her bed putting headphones in and just feeling terrible. Reid does a good job playing basically a kicked dog and has a great moment later in the episode when she’s just messing around on her phone trying to keep her mind off the fact that her sister is back on hard drugs and is on the run. However, once the camera focuses on Leslie and Rue, it’s a heated, close quarters battle filled with anger, sadness, tears, and the dashed off sarcasm that Zendaya delivers deadpan and is worse than yelling “Fuck you” at her mom and friends. She tells Gia that she has to be a lawyer or neurosurgeon so that Leslie doesn’t look like a bad mom after her dad passed away, and the low blows are fully on display later in her conversation with Jules when she says that Jules doesn’t actually love her, but wants to be loved. Rue also brings up how she left her behind while taking the train at the end of Season One and ultimately salts the ground of her friendship.

Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

Sam Levinson and editor Julio Perez do an excellent job of opening up the cramped frame to show that Jules and Elliot have been listening to Rue’s outburst the whole time, and they and Marcell Rev play with foreground and background a lot in “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”. For example, there’s a lingering shot focusing on morphine and a chipmunk knick knack while Laurie feigning motherliness to Rue in the bath tub is blurred out in the background. Unlike Leslie, Laurie just cares about her money and will do everything to get it back. Martha Kelly brings an even keel, Midwestern faux warmth to the role of Laurie, and her kind demeanor is the exact opposite of her high security dwelling with locks from the inside on all the doors and all but one window locked as well plus parrots acting as a kind of analog security system to go with her muscle that made teenagers strip down in the Euphoria Season 2 premiere. It’s a frightening environment, and Levinson directs a mini-thriller with the threat of Rue being sex trafficked looming in the background every time a floorboard creaks or the scary men that Laurie keeps around almost wake. Oh, and while this is going on, Rue is about to dry heave from her withdrawals even though it’s not as bad as earlier in the episode.

The scenes between Leslie driving Rue back to rehab and her harrowing night at Leslie’s are basically one big chase sequence broken up by the aforementioned interlude at the Howards’ house and a shorter one where Fezco gives her some tough love and physically lifts a withdrawing Rue from his house after she tries to take some of his grandma’s pills. After the raid last season, Fezco has completely separated his work as a drug dealer with his home life so his inability to help Rue makes sense. The scene at the Howards, which features Maddy, Cassie, Lexi, and the always underutilized Kat is full of drama thanks to the big reveal with Alexa Demie doing some impressive acting with her hands and obliterating Cassie with cutting remarks. However, it comes across as petty high school drama in the middle of an intervention with a suicidal drug addict, who could lose her freedom. And Leslie understands as she tries to talk over the bullshit and get back to helping Rue, who gets away.

What follows is a physical manifestation for all the emotional hurt that Rue has shown the people she loves as she steals from a random rich and angry couple’s house and then goes on the run from the police ruining people’s get togethers, yards, and of course, the aforementioned car accident. The first bit of the episode was mostly score-less, but Labrinth’s bass and vocals kick in as Rue hops fences, hides in trash bins, and eludes cops, flames on a grill, and prickly pear cacti to just name a few. Sam Levinson films this chase sequence to show how self-centered Rue is in her quest to get some pills to stave off the withdrawal sickness that has her clutching her stomach and vomiting between parkour, real life Frogger, and Grand Theft Auto sans the cars. After the fiery, yet emotionally grounded conversation/argument/intervention with her family and friends, this part of the episode is very heightened and honestly transitions very well into the world of drug kingpin Laurie. It also show that Rue has hit rock bottom and alienated all of her family and friends except for her mom, who searched for her all night and welcomes her in the episode’s closing minutes.

Along with addiction, primal fear, and anxiety, Levinson and Zendaya tap into Rue’s grief about the loss of her father. It flares up early on when she throws it in Leslie’s face and returns when she’s submerged in the tub at Leslie’s house in almost a recreation of Euphoria’s pilot’s opening scene that began with Rue’s birth. There’s a flashback of her dad holding her, her heartfelt speech at his funeral, and even her looking at Gia in the infant ward showing the bond they had from the beginning. This sequences creates sympathy for Rue that even though she’s slagged off the people she cares about most in her life that she’s still a human being who’s going through utter hell that happens to be an addict.

Heart-rending performances from Zendaya, Nika King, Hunter Schafer, and Storm Reid plus a gonzo foot chase and a tense mini-thriller that sets up Laurie as an even more sinister figure than Cal Jacobs makes “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird” easily the best episode of Euphoria Season 2. Sam Levinson doesn’t shy away from showing rock bottom for an addict with he and Zendaya putting the lies, sneaking, and manipulation on the play to go with the pain and anger that Rue feels as she struggles with withdrawal symptoms, estranging her family and friends, and having to payback a chilling drug lord. Zeroing in on Rue’s addiction and how it affects everyone around her was effective and honest storytelling from Levinson, but it does make the show’s other subplots (Cassie sleeping with Nate, Lexi’s play, Kat’s relationship issues, whatever the fuck Cal Jacobs is going through) pale in comparison.

Overall Verdict: 9.3

The Suicide Squad Gets a New Trailer “Rebellion”

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A brand new trailer for James Gunn‘s The Suicide Squad is here.

Welcome to hell—a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin, and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave…and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them—all of them.

The film stars Margot Robbie (“Birds of Prey,” “Bombshell”), Idris Elba (“Avengers: Infinity War”), John Cena (upcoming HBO Max series “Peacemaker,” “Bumblebee”), Joel Kinnaman (“Suicide Squad”), Jai Courtney (the “Divergent” franchise), Peter Capaldi (“World War Z,” BBC’s “Doctor Who” ), David Dastmalchian (upcoming “Dune,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp”), Daniela Melchior (“Parque Mayer”), Michael Rooker (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films), Alice Braga (“Elysium”), Pete Davidson (“The King of Staten Island,” TV’s “Saturday Night Live”), Joaquín Cosio (“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” TV’s “Narcos: Mexico”), Juan Diego Botto (“The Europeans”), Storm Reid (“The Invisible Man,” “A Wrinkle in Time”, “Euphoria”), Nathan Fillion (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” TV’s “The Rookie”), Steve Agee (“Brightburn,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”), Sean Gunn (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, the “Avengers” films), Mayling Ng (“Wonder Woman”), Flula Borg (“Ralph Breaks the Internet”), Jennifer Holland (“Brightburn,” upcoming HBO Max series “Peacemaker”) and Tinashe Kajese (TV’s “Valor,” “The Inspectors”), with Sylvester Stallone (the “Rocky,” “Rambo” and “Expendables” franchises), and Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Suicide Squad”).

It is set for release nationwide in theaters and IMAX on August 6, 2021 and will be available on HBO Max for 31 days from theatrical release.

The Suicide Squad Trailer is Here

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The Red Band trailer for James Gunn‘s The Suicide Squad is here.

Welcome to hell—a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin, and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave…and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them—all of them.

The film stars Margot Robbie (“Birds of Prey,” “Bombshell”), Idris Elba (“Avengers: Infinity War”), John Cena (upcoming HBO Max series “Peacemaker,” “Bumblebee”), Joel Kinnaman (“Suicide Squad”), Jai Courtney (the “Divergent” franchise), Peter Capaldi (“World War Z,” BBC’s “Doctor Who” ), David Dastmalchian (upcoming “Dune,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp”), Daniela Melchior (“Parque Mayer”), Michael Rooker (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films), Alice Braga (“Elysium”), Pete Davidson (“The King of Staten Island,” TV’s “Saturday Night Live”), Joaquín Cosio (“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” TV’s “Narcos: Mexico”), Juan Diego Botto (“The Europeans”), Storm Reid (“The Invisible Man,” “A Wrinkle in Time”, “Euphoria”), Nathan Fillion (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” TV’s “The Rookie”), Steve Agee (“Brightburn,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”), Sean Gunn (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, the “Avengers” films), Mayling Ng (“Wonder Woman”), Flula Borg (“Ralph Breaks the Internet”), Jennifer Holland (“Brightburn,” upcoming HBO Max series “Peacemaker”) and Tinashe Kajese (TV’s “Valor,” “The Inspectors”), with Sylvester Stallone (the “Rocky,” “Rambo” and “Expendables” franchises), and Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Suicide Squad”).

It is set for release nationwide in theaters and IMAX on August 6, 2021 and will be available on HBO Max for 31 days from theatrical release.

James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is Revealed

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Warning “don’t get attached,” director and writer James Gunn has revealed the cast to his upcoming The Suicide Squad, a quasi-sequel to Suicide Squad based on the DC Comics property.

While roles aren’t announced returning from the first film are Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Margot Robbie will be Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag.

Guesses as to who will be playing who? Sound off in the comments!