'Euphoria' Season 3 Finale: In God We Trust

22:05Joanna Robinson:That Dahlia's calf is Rue. I was legitimately waiting for the little girl to say, and we named her Ruby. We named her Ruby. And it just never came. That's restraint. We did it. Episode one. When Rue wakes up in the homestead and the little girl goes, you want a cup of milk? Sure. Thank you. That's the best fucking milk I've ever had. It's Dahlia's. Thank you, Dahlia. Land of milk and honey. Yeah. I think Rue's the cow. It's a miracle cow. It's a few months old. It's been a few months since Rue died. I think Rue is the cow. We spent an hour on Nazis and Rue is the cow. Euphoria colon. An hour on Nazis and Rue is the cow.

22:47Joanna Robinson:that's where we wound up here I don't know how did the Homestead finale work for you how did Ali showing up there work for you I like the structure of it I like the emotion of it I like Coleman Domingo's performance as always do we need Zendaya superimposed back in as a vision at the end not exactly but I like enough of like you know the shot of for example like the table being set with Ali outside out the window in the background I heard you make a like John Ford noise as you were typing on your computer. I don't even want to know what that noise is, but I'm probably guilty of it. And so as usual, like cinematically, I like a lot of what Euphoria is doing.

23:24Emotionally, I like some of what it's doing. And in terms of the larger structure of the story it's trying to tell, I am dumbfounded.

23:32Joanna Robinson:Speaking of classic Westerns, when we're on the trip to Mexico, we see a number of movies throughout this episode. a lot. Everyone likes to watch old movies in the world of euphoria. Everyone's watching old movies on Vizio TVs and pouring big old glasses of Coca-Cola. It's true. Well, we'll talk about the Coca-Cola for sure. That's not how you pour Coca-Cola at all. Anyway, down Mexico way, they're watching the film Shane, one of the most famous gunslinger movies of all time. You may know it through the movie Logan, which liberally cites Shane, if that's your point of reference. But the scene we get is where the young boy, Jody, I think, is asking Shane to teach him how to shoot.

24:18Joanna Robinson:Right. And right after like pretty soon after that, Shane has his most famous monologue about what a gun is. He says a gun is a tool, no better or worse than any other tool, an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remembered that we'd all be better off if there wasn't a single gun in this valley, including yours. You're thinking about Logan right now. No more guns in the valley. What am I not thinking about Logan? Peace in the valley. And then at the end of Shane, it's very similar to Frodo and Moses. Shane brings peace to the valley. This is a more Hobbit forward podcast than I was expecting, but that's on me.

24:55Have you met me? That's what I'm saying. That's my fault.

24:58Joanna Robinson:But Shane rides off sort of slumped in his saddle and you can decide for yourself whether or not he made it out alive. But basically he saves the valley, but not for himself. Right. So this idea of Ali being there, I really like your interpretation of like, it's not about getting the sex workers out of the club. It's about maybe rescuing Ali from. That's what it feels like to me. This sort of hamster wheel he was on of like, you know, trying to prostrate himself in front of, throw his body in front of all of these young people who are using and it failing again and again and again and again. So is there something better he can do?

25:41Joanna Robinson:I don't know if better he can do is shooting up a strip club, but is better he can do find some peace for himself at the end of the day? Yeah. What do you think? that feels in in many cases like the healthiest and most hopeful outcome for any character on the show the idea that they could have a sense of closure of moving on and it's one thing you and i have been talking about throughout the season as far as like will rue get that sort of opportunity clearly that wasn't in the cards for her but it could be for ali someone who has already come to terms with so much more of who he is and what he has done and what he's capable of like the deepest darkest parts of himself and tried to reconcile that out of other people unsuccessfully time and time again.

26:19Joanna Robinson:Levinson and his team have said that they were hoping this would be an uplifting finale. Does it feel uplifting to you that there is hope alongside an hour of Nazis and a BBL? Well, let's talk about who there would be hope for because Rue is dead. Nate is dead. But has Rue found peace when Ali finds her on the couch and he's like, Like, may God give her peace, you know, and the way that her death is depicted. There is the gasping sounds of her dying that is so horrifying and hard for us to watch. But in those moments inside of her own interior life, she is united with her mother. Yeah. That there is peace there for her.

27:05Joanna Robinson:Does that work for you or you're like, no, thank you. I found that moment to be very affecting and really striking. Yeah, like reaching into the dark for her mother, for salvation, for hope, like on Ali's couch of all places. Like that part did work. But if the symbol of hope is in fentanyl overdose, that doesn't feel consistent with what the rest of the episode is saying. I don't think the symbol of hope is fentanyl overdose. But the symbol of hope is finding peace for some people in their own way. Look, the show is clearly concerned with that. it's clearly concerned with the idea of like how do you move on from tragic things like what lexi says about reading the bible i'm sure you could superimpose about a lot of the people who are working on the show and have now suffered this kind of tragic loss both within the show and just elsewhere in their lives and like how do you pick up the pieces how do you keep putting one foot in front of the other it's part of the text of the show i'm just like i feel the whiplash of everything euphoria has been to get to this point oh it's a completely different show it's a completely Oh, reminding us.

28:11It's like, here's a flashback from season one. Even Jules' painting is very much like a root on the bed kind of strewn about in one of these hazy moments. And it's like, if you just keep bringing us back to that place in the way that finales often do, you're begging a comparison that does not do this season any favors. And I think only serves to contrast how much this show does not pay off that show.

28:34Joanna Robinson:Our listener, Sydney, emailed us to maddiesnumberoneboy at gmail.com. the title of the email is distracted by the allure of parkour and Sydney wrote just finished the finale and can't believe I didn't notice Rue's red overdose sweatshirt and the obvious hallucination because I was too distracted by the possibility of Fesco parkouring out of jail I was really glad is not the word but to have the hoodie back inside of this episode felt important the visions that we see of her father and I thought you know Cassie bringing up her father Like those connective tissue moments back to the first season, I thought were, I don't know, they worked on me.

29:14That was maybe the most human moment we've had from Cassie in a long time. Yeah, yeah.

29:19Joanna Robinson:Our listener, Trish, wrote in to say, looks like Bishop is Maddie's number one boy, actually. I guess. So here's my question. Well, snowflake. Here's my question for you. Does Bishop's turn here make sense? was it tipped for us in any way before this episode um you know earlier in the episode a few minutes before he decides to turn on alamo who he has been nothing but a loyal foot soldier to i think all season yes maddie says you know what i would find surprising a little grace in this world and i was wondering if in that moment he was like i can provide that for you somehow I think it was like pretty clear for people who know the visual language of cinema that like he handed him an empty gun like all of that sort of stuff.

30:06I did like the splashing of the bullets into the blood soaked carpet. I didn't. I liked it as a I mean he's not he's not doing it for us. He's doing it for Ali. Like please don't shoot me. I took the bullets out of the gun.

30:19Joanna Robinson:Yeah. But I just like the visual of it. And specifically, again, like that sinking sensation of the bullets into this, like, I can only imagine what fluids are in that carpet other than the blood of this moment. But I did enjoy it. But, you know, some some viewers pointed out that when he's in the car with Maddie and Snowflake, that that's the first time we see Bishop smile all season. So this is a classic crime story trope. Henchman turns on crime boss because of a girl or, you know, a soft spot for something. She's not just a girl. The girl. Thank you. The girl of girls. But... You four may not know, but we know it.

31:00Joanna Robinson:That wasn't seeded at all. And so it makes his turn confusing. I mean, they had, I believe, one, maybe two previous conversations. Right. And it was like the start of a kind of a mutual respect, right? You could see kind of developing between them. But there's no connective tissue. This is flashed a couple months in the future, so I guess you can kind of fill in the gaps. Absolutely. But instead of following Kitty's BBL through the club, could we have gotten a montage of like Maddie getting the envelope going to the club again and again and again? And like her relationship with Bishop developing over those three months to the point where when he turns in his incredible coat, we should not neglect the coat.

31:38Joanna Robinson:it makes a bit more sense you know even if we're just getting those scenes and you're seeing like Bishop observe right it's like he could be a third party kind of like clocking and understanding as he's been all season calculating what's happening in front of him he doesn't even have to have a deep emotional relationship with Maddie but some backgrounding as far as why this would happen is there anything in other than the way he poured coke anything that Alamo does in this episode his monologue about the American dream or any of that did any of that impact you at all I mean, define impact. Okay.

32:12You just want to pull it up. No, like the idea of like, oh, I had an epiphany. Sure. When Kitty spread her legs and I stared into, I apologize this in advance, the void.

32:21Joanna Robinson:Uh-huh. No, this did not work for me. This felt like, as unfortunately has happened many times with this character and throughout this season, like a shaky monologue ripped from a much lesser show. So the coke of it all. Why do we get so much coke in this episode? I genuinely don't know. Is it an American dream? That's what I was thinking. Is Americana American dream? It is, you know, it is a helpful signal inside of the switched ambulance moment. That Coke bottle earlier in the episode. So the American dream is what unites drug dealers, strip club owners and Nazis. What a lead into this email I'm about to read from our listener.

32:58Joanna Robinson:Amanda is quite long. Buckle up. I'm going to read the whole thing because it's very good. OK, Amanda sent this in before the finale. She said, Euphoria Season 3, and it's built off the email we read last week about sort of the crumbling American dream and what Euphoria has to say about that. Euphoria Season 3 positions itself as a grotesque elegy for the American dream and the death of Americana, portraying a nation spiritually and structurally collapsing beneath the weight of excess, exploitation, and illusion. Through imagery of drug epidemics, performative wealth, hyper-sexualized influencer culture, and nostalgic Americana aesthetics, the season reframes contemporary America as a parody of itself, a country obsessed with freedom, prosperity, reinvention, and image while simultaneously consumed by fraud, addiction, violence, and moral exhaustion.

33:47Joanna Robinson:The series suggests that the American youth are not simply lost, but instead inherit a culture already hollowed out where identity is commodified, intimacy is transactional, and survival depends more on performance than authenticity. and then she goes on to talk about sort of like the symbols of uh christianity and america you know we see we see not only the tattered sort of american flag that we get uh at the homestead at the end of the episode but there's an american flag hanging from the mirror of the ambulance you know that that um eddie and the other nazi nazi number four i think uh are mitch uh are driving um what do you i mean again i think when our listeners write in with these kinds of emails they're talking about a better show than Euphoria actually is.

34:30Joanna Robinson:But what do you think? Having just read this email from her, from Amanda. I think it's very astute. When the Coke bottles show up, I'm like, sure the Coke bottles are here. That makes sense to me. I mean, once we start by white picket fences, we are tying all the threads together. And frankly, I think Ali's speech in the middle of this episode about empathy and how really the problem is we've just lost track of what is right. Yeah. I mean, just like intellectually, I would argue maybe we never had it and we've just convinced ourselves that every time 50 years ago we did that's neither here nor there i think euphoria is clearly obsessed with this idea in this season i don't know that seasons one or two really cared about it at all other than the like it's 9 p.m do you know what your teenagers are doing kind of way this season is about we've talked you know we've discussed like the young people aging into a sense of hopelessness and a generation that has no opportunity for them and what is that if not the complete desolation of the american dream the idea that like you finally get to the top of your little hill and rather be rather than be able to like put your flag on it and build your little house there's just nothing for you there other than maybe it's a dollhouse that now traps you or maybe you're just part of another bigger machine that is what the show is trying to tap into i just don't know here's the thing i always how far down this road have i gone no no it's very good i was just wondering if you're making a far away far and away reference earlier when you're talking about the flag on top of the hill If I make a far and away reference, I'm going to put up the dukes.

35:56You're going to know what's happening. I think Euphoria is at its best when it has a lot to show us. And clearly, some people making this show are under the impression that it's at its best when it has a lot to shout at us. And I feel shouted at a lot in this finale in a way that I don't appreciate.

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37:44Joanna Robinson:From Roo, like, astounding. I do want to circle back and talk about the title. This is usually something I do at the top of the episode, but I thought we should like talk about our thoughts and feelings before I got in the weeds here. But the episode is called In God We Trust, which is on our money. Yeah. And do you know the history of In God We Trust? I looked this up before the finale aired. Joanna Robinson, ladies and gentlemen. So this is the commodification of faith, right? Like that's what In God We Trust is. Yes. Dates back to the Civil War when the Union, worried that the Confederacy looked like the more God-fearing side of the war, started putting In God We Trust on the money to say, no, we believe in God.

38:29Joanna Robinson:That was on the coins when it wound up on the paper money and as our national, I don't know, what do you call it? Motto. That's the word I want. I was going to say catchphrase. That's not what I'm talking about. It kind of is our catchphrase, though. Which used to be E Pluribus Unum from many one, which is great. Um, in the, it's the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration is what put in God we trust on our paper money. Because guess what? They lost track of what was right and they needed to be set straight. It was during the cold war when the atheism of the Soviet union needed a sort of like counter in America.

39:03Joanna Robinson:So we put in God we trust on the money. Here's a quote from the New York times from 1865. You can only be yourself. I can only be myself. Let us try to carry our religion such as it is in our hearts and not in our pockets, end quote. Bars for the New York Times in 1865. I think it's tough for me as an atheist. I'm interested in the questions of faith. I'm interested in the imagery of the Old Testament that was used in this season. I'm interested in the concept of something bigger than yourself and that providing you meaning. it's hard for me how like overtly Christian the ending of this episode felt that being said I think in God we trust as an episode title yeah is incredibly good because it circles back to Amanda's email about sort of this idea of like what is America if not taking this universal question of like our place in the universe and and who is helping us and who is guiding us and slapping it on our fucking money, you know, at the end of the day.

40:09I just, I am having a hard time understanding what, how clarified that message is from the show. Oh, I don't think it is. What is tongue in cheek? What is not tongue in cheek? What is an earnest appeal in this very emotional way? I'm curious if you had any of these moments, Joe, where I had one other episode in mind of a very different show during this finale. And it was the finale of Fargo season five. Did you think about the finale of Fargo season five at all?

40:32Joanna Robinson:I'll tell you what I was thinking about after you tell me. If you don't want to hear about the finale of Fargo season five, cover your ears, hit mute, jump forward 30 seconds, whatever. That's a finale that's like built up and built up and built up only to stop us like dead in our tracks with the confrontation about like people over a dinner table talking about like what we owe to each other as human beings. Debt. Literal. Yes. Financial, emotional. Emotional, psychological, societal debt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in that show, it felt like a subversion, right? This idea like we're going to grind to a halt.

41:03we're going to have this talk in a show where you expect somebody to get shot. This felt like a detour in the emotionality of the finale, where it's like it's trying to have this very earnest conversation about the Bible, about carrying on, about the role of faith in society and where we have lost our way and how empathetic should we be and to whom. And it just, again, it felt like we just segued into a back alley of a totally different show and just emerged out of a manhole cover and were like, hey, I guess we're here now.

41:32Joanna Robinson:I guess we're watching Nazis shoot people, I suppose. I guess. I just can't with this. What do you think is going to happen for your girl Maddie at the end of the day here? Nothing good. I mean, I guess she gets to live not under Alamo's thumb. Here's a question I have for you. Cassie is talking about how she is in debt. So much debt that she doesn't want to sell the house because it basically wouldn't matter if she owes more than that. Who does she owe money to? Alamo. Does she? Yeah, he's taking 20 % of, I mean, Alamo. And then also, is the house like over mortgaged? And you know what I mean?

42:10Joanna Robinson:Like, I don't, you know, I don't know. I mean, it's the only answer is Alamo. I guess I was just a little fuzzy after last week as far as who owed what to whom between Cassie and Maddie. Have like pooled their business. So now that it's Cassie and Maddie Enterprises. And Co., LLC. Yeah. In which they are now running their own influencer house. That's also a brothel-ish? It seems like it. Yeah. With the caramel carpets and wallpapers. Right. Which makes you think of sex. Naturally. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess they are wed in their own way and therefore one's dead becomes the other and they both owe Alamo.

42:45Right. I guess in that way, Maddie is scot-free. You know, she doesn't owe money to anybody anymore. Right. Other than Bishop.

42:50Joanna Robinson:So do you think they still run their business out of the house or do they do something else? They got to get the fuck out of there. Yeah. But this episode doesn't tell you anything to suggest that Cassie is like ready to get out of the dollhouse she has created. Like the dream house and the dream she has created and inhabiting is just haunting her every second. I don't think she's getting out of there anytime soon. Any other positives that you want to linger on in this episode? Give me a moment. Yeah, please. I'll stall for you. Genuinely, not that they aren't there, but sometimes you got to dig.

43:24Joanna Robinson:Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Anna Van Patten as Kitty yeah genuinely quite funny in this episode very funny like BBL aside all of her like sort of timid with the almond champagne and all of that and her in the ambulance as well got some genuine laughs from us definitely Marshawn Lynch also got a lot of laughs from us in this episode maybe the MVP of the season every time no okay how about this rejected who had a more consistent hit rate bang for buck sure Marshawn Lynch 100 % approval rating ever seen he's in And just like one of the funniest and best parts of the show. Is he doing what Zendaya's doing?

43:58No. But I enjoyed him quite a bit.

44:01Joanna Robinson:Do you feel like, you know, we got this email from our listener, Carly, wondering if the Ali shootout in the strip club, you know, this circles back to something we've already talked about, but is that a sort of very, through the lens of Tarantino-esque way, for Sam Levinson to process his grief about Angus Cloud? Yeah. Oh, without a doubt. And is that emotionally effective to you at all or not so much? Not particularly, unfortunately. What about seeing Angus Cloud inside of this episode? This, I think, is one of the positives. I think the footage that they found of Zendaya and Angus Cloud kind of like arm in arm in the field, I did find quite affecting.

44:42And look, I think there's a combination of like once the parkour prison break appears to be happening, there's like a that's a that's a very funny idea. And also, I really hope this isn't real. I really hope we're not turning Fez into like an actual plot point. Right, right, right. And so the relief of kind of slowly discovering, and I'd be curious to hear from you, Jill, like when that moment was for you where you were realizing, oh, we're tipping from reality into something maybe in Rue's head, but that we spend that moment to kind of say goodbye to Rue and to Fez arm in arm, that did do something for me.

45:12Joanna Robinson:So it came out of late for me, actually. It was as soon as we saw her mom, like just sitting at the table like that. And then I was like, oh, this isn't real. but it hooked me for a minute because this show is so weird that I was like maybe we are on a wacky, antic, like, jailbreak moment. I thought that footage was really emotional to watch. Again, in that Esquire interview, Sam talks about the fact that it was like filmed, I believe, at the end of season one and it was just them testing that Kodak film that they wound up using for later on. It was just sort of like test footage in a field it wasn't even like a lost scene that they cut or something like that it was just like so zendaya and angus were just being like themselves and goofy in a field so that is very like emotional to think about um i was the finale that i was thinking about a lot was uh six feet under a far superior finale of course yeah but rue in the car sort of you know thinking about lauren ambrose in the car at the end of yes of six feet under the window But looking out the window and instead of like, you know, looking into the future because in Six Feet Under, you can't take a photo of it's already gone.

46:24Joanna Robinson:Rue's looking into the past and seeing her younger self, seeing Gia, who we have not seen at all this season. Jules and her 0.5 scene on the bike, like seeing Jules on the bike. Like I got emotional seeing that. I got emotional seeing the derelict like convenience store. Absolutely. Like that, all of that really worked on me personally. It did for me too. I think the combination of like, you can't go home again with things like the convenience store, but you have to try. You have to keep running. You have to keep going every alley under the police tape, like run as hard and as fast as you can to try to get to the one place you feel safe.

46:58That works. And yeah, I think like most of this stuff with Rue, and here's the thing, if you're going to get one thing right, make it Rue's story in the season three finale. Like, try to nail that stuff down as well as you can. I think they did that stuff pretty well. I just wish it was twice as much screen time. I wish... Or if you want to kill Rue off in the penultimate episode and have the whole episode in the finale be the characters dealing with grief and that we kind of gesture to here. I would appreciate a fuller kind of digression

47:29Joanna Robinson:into that. I would like to know how Maddie feels about Rue's death. We don't get to know. Don't get a second of it. Our listener Laura wrote in to say the diner scene with Maddie and Cassie is so reminiscent of Mulholland Drive. Blonde and Burnett, two sides of the same coin, Roy Orbison's in dreams playing in the background. This isn't the only time that Mulholland Drive has been like references have been picked up by our listeners as a sort of like tale. I think it was the Gilda reference earlier in the season that our listeners picked up on. So like as a tale of a cautionary tale of the Hollywood dream.

48:02Joanna Robinson:Oh, yeah. Like how much does referencing Mulholland Drive interest you inside of a season of euphoria? It interests me in the way that the larger kind of like tapestry of film references do. And Euphoria has always been the kind of show that is drawing from here and there, that is parroting some things overtly, that's commenting on something subtly. Right. It's one of the things I enjoy most about the show is that it does come with like a heavy round of footnotes if you care to dive into them. Yeah. But it's not selling a finale like this. Like just because you have interesting references doesn't necessarily mean you're telling an interesting story.

48:33Joanna Robinson:Yeah. anything else you want to say before we get to some of our YouTube questions let's hear what people have been chiming in with okay Luxray1420 wrote first time long time in a post the idol probably post euphoria world what interest level do you have for Sam Levinson's next project this is where I expose I guess my own kinks I would do it again even after all this I would show Would you rather drink the finger water or get? No, I'm just kidding. Would you rather? I think history has shown you on the wrong side of the finger water versus foot stuff. I don't know. That's not what I'm hearing from the streets.

49:16Well, you can enjoy your flesh eating bacteria in your brain.

49:20Joanna Robinson:Clearly Maddie, like Maddie letting Alamo play with her feet. And then all the like when Maddie said, don't wait up, I'll be homely. Yeah. Devastating. So that's what comes from letting Alamo play with your feet, Rob. So I think I'm on the right side of history there. Did you find it narratively interesting at all for like, like my, my stance is well articulated on Maddie. Well, I can't believe you hit me with a deep. Did you find this there? My move. Turnabout is fair play. Did you find it narratively interesting at all to find a character as like willful and proud as Maddie reduced to this in the finale?

49:53Being like the one thing. Damseled. Like basically being a prostitute in the way she said she would never be. No.

50:00Joanna Robinson:I would have liked her to do something. something in that final shootout to help? You know, Bishop hands him the light gun, you know, the empty gun. Can she like trip him at something? You know what I mean? Like, is there something she can do to help? You know? Apparently not. What do you think about the one trickle of blood sort of like vampire-like sort of dropping from her mouth in that final scene? Very stylish. Ultimately meaningless. Yep. Okay. Okay. So this idea of a post-Euphoria, post-Idol. Okay. Would you rather? season four of Euphoria or a completely different new Sam Levinson project.

50:36I think what I'm finding is I would have rathered instead of season three of Euphoria, just make the show that has this messaging that you clearly are invested in telling. A story that makes sense in a different world in a different package that I just don't think really fit this one. So I'm here for new projects. I'm here for new ideas rather than kind of like shoehorning your new theme of the week into this old one.

50:56Joanna Robinson:What if Sam gives us a Maddie Hesse Jewel season, a Lexi season that actually uses them and doesn't get distracted by Alamo versus the Nazis or whatever else? I don't know if I dare to dream for that anymore. Okay. But Roy Emerson says in dreams, you should think about it. Our listener, Mike, I think, or Michael, says, I was expecting some narration from Rue at the very end. The final scene was ellipses. Weird. Yeah. How do you feel about the absence of Rue narration other than the like sort of God bless us everyone moment that we get? But there wasn't, you know, the standard Zendaya Rue narration inside of this episode.

51:37I quite love the usual Zendaya narration in Euphoria. So I do kind of miss it. Yeah. I wouldn't say I noticed it. And to be fair, I think if it had been after her death, it's like a little weird and a little ghoulish and a little like lovely bones for me. so I'm just gonna say like after she dies we don't need any more narration

51:56Joanna Robinson:that's not gonna be the only lovely bones reference we make on a podcast this week or not that's so funny I don't know it's very Our Town that's positive for me I wouldn't have minded it because then it kind of would have felt like Rue was narrating the whole series in her omniscient way from like the other side so you wanted like a How I Met Your Mother framing for Euphoria how dare you I said Our Town I referenced the theater Okay. Not a CBS sitcom that everyone hates the ending of. The absolute relish you put on the theater. Theater. One question I have for the Homestead finale is, I wrote her name down as eldest daughter, but the actress's name is Jessica Treska, who plays the eldest daughter on the Homestead.

52:41Joanna Robinson:And she gets a lot of lingering close-ups inside of this finale. She's one of the few characters who gets an amen. Some of the, one of my major notes from the first episode was that her face just like definitely looks like she's seen an iPhone. Like she just did not look like she had Homestead face. She had lip filler. There was, you know, she's a beautiful, beautiful girl. Who would you say has Homestead face? Oh, wow. What a great question. I don't feel like there's a way for me to answer that without insulting the person. I think you should try. What about like Alison Pill? Like a young Alison Pill.

53:15Joanna Robinson:I could see that. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. A beautiful woman. If you put Alison Pill on a homestead and said like she grew up a Quaker. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, I believe that. So I'm just saying if we're like lingering on the face of what is she supposed to represent? Innocent America? Sheltered America? What is this? What is eldest daughter on the homestead? What if what if euphoria in its defense is kind of splitting the difference and saying like the lines between this sort of idealistic, like heaven like homestead. Sure. and falling into the sort of hell that Cassie now inhabits is like so porously thin.

53:50And that the idea of like, this is a modern looking woman who is living here, but who easily could get pulled into a much more like weird, nefarious, manipulative, like hedonistic lifestyle.

53:59Joanna Robinson:Her eyebrows already on fleek, ready to be an influencer. Right. Should she choose. You give her a ring light, anything could happen. A ring light halo for us? Are you going to miss Euphoria? This is the thing, I will. Okay, are you going to miss it because you're gonna miss the show or you're gonna miss hanging out weirdly in a studio with us on a Sunday night it's hard to differentiate the two I genuinely will miss that like we have become subject to this like Stockholm syndrome of taping the show and doing it together and it's been so much fun yeah but also like I love talking about this show because it is always doing weird interesting things even in this finale you can't call it boring it is absolutely not and we've seen enough finales that are that are just kind of like a wet fart of emotion at the end where it's like not giving you anything at all.

54:44This gave you a lot of Nazis, but it did give you something.

54:47Joanna Robinson:That's on the quote card. This is the wholly inopportune time to say this, but the Hacks finale, which also aired this week, perfection. I wept through the last two episodes of the season. I love to hear this as someone who has not yet caught up to it. It was so good. And people are like, why are you covering Euphoria, not Hacks? And I apologize. But Hacks, wrapped everything up like textbook perfectly. But Sam Levinson is not looking for text. This is what I'll say about Sam Levinson. I think he wants to provoke. I think he wants people agitated and talking about whatever he's making. I think he thinks he's both Ali and Jules making provocative art or whatever the case may be.

55:35Joanna Robinson:Sarawak with dicks. And people are talking about it. And so he's gotten exactly what he wanted, which is people all sort of like stirred up whether it's positively or negatively. The kind folks who are helping us out today have run a couple polls on the YouTube for us. Satisfied with finale? No 69%. Yes, 31%. Okay. Do we want a season four? No 85%. Yes, 15%. That's harsh. I hope HBO is not listening. Yeah, I think I would rather a Euphoria season four than a brand new thing only because you have not experienced the idol. I haven't. You know, I have not. Yeah. That's more about the people involved on screen who I'm just like, I just that's a lot.

56:17That's a lot of weak ending for me.

56:19Joanna Robinson:Yeah. Give me the idol. I'll throw you the whip. Like it's a very it's a very, very bad show. And so I think Chris Ryan says otherwise by better by truth. I don't know. But absolute bit. But Chris is as much bit as man. Yeah, he's more bit than man now, I think sometimes. But listen, I think a Euphoria season four with the dream and hope of finding out how Jules is doing and what Maddie's up to is far more intriguing to me. Do you think we're going to get one? Season three was highly rated and talked about. Do you think HBO will give us a season four if Jacob Elordi and Zendaya cannot show up for it?

56:58I'm less optimistic than I was a week ago. Okay. I thought we were kind of leaning in that direction in the run up to the finale but seeing where all these characters ended up yeah there's a lot of story you could tell with Cassie and Maddie and Lexi in particular I don't think Jules is going to be a part of it I'm not sure to what extent Hunter Schaefer was ever a part of this season whatsoever I just don't know how they would pick up the pieces and try to move on if the pieces didn't seem that interesting to them in this finale and were just kind of cast aside

57:28Joanna Robinson:here's what I'm going to remember from our time with Euphoria. Yeah. Most of all. The moment when I was watching this finale and I said out loud, is Rue the cow? And that just sums up my entire Euphoria season three experience. Is Rue the cow? It makes you ask questions you never thought you would ask. And I don't want to ask. I don't want Rue to be reincarnated as Dahlia's calf on the homestead. I really don't. And here we are. Great work from Zendaya on this episode. Yes. Great work from you on this podcast. Anything else you want to say about Euphoria? I just want to say, you know, we kind of grazed by this when we were talking about Jules.

58:06Joanna Robinson:Is that a cow pun? Because Rue is a cow now. Unfortunately so. We're all cows now. I just thought everything with Sam Trammell this season was so weird. Jules is barely a featured character in the show. We get this whole introduction to him in her kind of like backstory catch up prologue. And then here he just like breezes by through the finale, like pour a cup of coffee. Remember how Sharon Stone was in this season of television? Natasha Lyonne? Did we ever, where was Eli Roth? Did we figure it out? I think he might, correct us if we're wrong, if we ever talk about Euphoria again, but he might have been in the earlier Cassie, like her media blitz that she did, sort of like earlier in the season.

58:46Joanna Robinson:Oh, like as a podcaster? Yeah, I don't know. How do you feel about that? They're trying to figure out what a podcaster is. Eli Roth representing me, yeah. And it's Trish Paytas and Eli Roth. But I don't recall Eli Roth appearing in a memorable way this season. Despite the promise of Eli Roth. Nor do I. I have one remaining question for you. Please. What if we had ended this finale instead of on the homestead? Or maybe it's in the homestead, but laid over the top. With a clarinet concert? See, I was thinking more, we finally do get Dominic Fyke walking back in for an encore performance of Little Star to close it out.

59:18Joanna Robinson:You were waiting the whole time for Little Star. I was kind of hoping for it, but never came. What if you just pan over to him on the homestead and him banjo version of Little Star? Yeah. Rockabilly Little Star. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sam Lemon said it's not too late to call Dominic Mike and get to the finale. I wouldn't mind him. I was thinking a lot about, you know, we did get a question from one of our listeners in the YouTube comments about the Hans Zimmer score. Where are we on that at the end of the day? And I was distracted watching this finale thinking about what the Labyrinth score could do for moments like Maddie walking towards that room with Alamo or Rue back home.

59:56Joanna Robinson:You know, I was thinking a lot about the labyrinth music and i just think the hans zimmer felt like a like in that sort of dreamy strings sort of way i understand it but like it didn't it was an additive and certainly not worth getting someone the caliber of hans zimmer and or the people who work for hans zimmer to do it so i almost overwhelmingly agree with you and look we've taken our shots at the score of this season over the course of it in particular i'm remembering one of the scenes in which the henchman was chasing Nate around and it was like the most creative commons comedy music you could possibly imagine.

1:00:31It hasn't been good. But during this episode, when we're getting that very emotional Ru reaching into the darkness, I pulled out my phone. I'm like, I'm not familiar with this like choral suite that's playing. Like it feels evocative of like an Ave Maria, but like, I'm not quite familiar with this piece of music. What is it? it is an original composition by Hans Zimmer for the show. And so it's like, there were these moments where it's like, oh, this is a great scene setting, emotionally tying piece of music that is working here. Did it feel over the course of the entire season like Euphoria? Not exactly.

1:01:02I'm fine with reinvention. I'm fine with finding a new tone. I just don't know that the music ever quite got there on balance.

1:01:07Joanna Robinson:A final musical note. And this is in honor of our producer, Dev, who is not with us here, but did text us to comment on the use of ebony and ivory when Eddie and Mitch are at the border. And if that's not Euphoria season three, I don't know what is. I'm fine with the show being cute. That honestly, one of the higher watermarks for this episode. Give me Roy Oberson every time. All right. Thank you to everyone here who made this live stream happen. Like most of our team is on their way to Sweden right now. So thanks to everyone who stayed behind to make the Euphoria finale happen. Thanks to Jacob Cornett, to Jamie Yukich, to everyone here at Sycamore.

1:01:50Joanna Robinson:Anyone else you want to thank? Rob Mahoney. Thanks, Sam Levinson. The Bible. The Bible. Snowflake. Moses. Of course. Dahlia. Come on. The Cow Named Rue. Or Ruby. Clarinet players everywhere. And thank you, Joe. And not you, the materialist. All right. See you soon. Bye.

1:02:14Music