In ‘Euphoria’ Season 3, Episode 2, Maddy’s on a Mission

Jen ChaneyMon, April 20, 2026 at 2:00 AM UTC

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Euphoria Season 3, Episode 2 RecapHBO

In the 1989 movie Say Anything…, Lloyd Dobler made an extremely important speech that became a rallying cry for Generation X.

“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career,” Lloyd (John Cusack) says when asked about his future plans. “I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. As a career, I don’t want to do that.”

Essentially, Lloyd was saying he didn’t want to be a sellout—which was, more or less, the credo of the generation born in the 1960s and ’70s and dragged reluctantly into adulthood in the 1980s and ’90s. I mention this because those Cameron Crowe-scripted words stand in such stark opposition to the speech that Maddy (Alexa Demie) gives early in the second episode of Euphoria season 3, when she persuades a talent manager (Rebecca Pidgeon) to hire her.

“I know my generation is entitled, but I don’t believe anybody owes me anything,” she says bluntly. “I’m not a victim, I won’t be an HR nightmare, and I believe in capitalism.”

If Euphoria creator Sam Levinson is attempting to say something about Gen Z with this series—and it certainly seems like he is, though what exactly he’s saying is open to debate—part of his message is certainly that Gen Z does not care at all about selling out. They’ll say whatever they have to say and do whatever they have to do to get a leg up and an extra buck. For what it’s worth, Xers and Boomers, even the ones who worshipped Lloyd Dobler back when he was holding up boomboxes, already sold out a long time ago. It’s unclear exactly how old Maddy’s new boss is, but she’s definitely in the late Boomer/early Xer zone and seems perfectly happy to sell, buy, or process anything or anyone on which she can get her manicured hands.

Yes, friends, Euphoria season 3 is saying what no other work of pop culture has ever dared to acknowledge: that Americans love money. I know, this is the first I am hearing of this also! And in case you didn’t pick up on this in last week’s episode (or this one), Levinson wants you to know that modern-day Los Angeles is basically the equivalent of the Wild West. You may have missed that point since the show is being so low-key about it.

Alexa Demie as Maddy in Euphoria season 3, episode 2.HBO

For example, I wasn’t sure if that’s what Levinson was alluding to when he included a voiceover narration for Rue (Zendaya) in which she notes that, in 2020, “All across America, young, free people who didn’t give a flying fuck about a global pandemic packed their bags and went out west.” And who can say whether the speech that Alamo makes—“Over 200 years ago, motherfuckers were leaving the safety of their log cabins to ride out west,” he begins—is trying to underline a similar point in an extremely obvious manner? Actually, I can, and that is precisely the issue.

In the middle of this episode, I wondered if the third season of Euphoria is Levinson’s attempt to make a Quentin Tarantino movie. All the business with Alamo’s pigs—and his infuriated reaction to being called one by Laurie—reminded me of Pulp Fiction, to the point where I was just waiting for Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) to say “I just don’t dig on swine.” Grimy Westerns are something of a Tarantino specialty (Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), and this season of Euphoria is certainly aiming to be a grimy Western. A major theme in this episode is revenge—see Alamo’s pigs and whatever Maddy is doing to mess with Cassie’s head—which is also, of course, a major theme in both volumes of Kill Bill. Alamo’s last name is Brown, much like Jackie from the movie Jackie Brown, a flight attendant who gets involved in smuggling cash between the U.S. and Mexico.

Anyway: Let’s get back to money. This episode once again makes it clear that everyone in Euphoria Land is willing to do whatever it takes in the name of amassing cash. Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) remains so eager to make it big on OnlyFans—she poses in a wet American flag in one scene, and as a sexy baby in another (which has already prompted outcry from both inside and outside the OF community)—that she reaches out to her former bestie Maddy, the influencer whisperer, for advice about how to boost her profile.

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As implied by last week’s episode, Jules (Hunter Schaefer) is indeed a sugar baby. She’s dropped out of art school, and is now living in a sick Manhattan loft that’s fully paid off by her lover and provides her with the perfect place to paint all day. Why pay an educational institution to give you permission to make art when you can get paid to do it independently?

Meanwhile, Cassie’s soon-to-be-husband Nate (Jacob Elordi) is trying to con all of his friends and neighbors, even the ones who wear three popped collars simultaneously, into investing in his elder care community Sun Settlers (Settlers, you say? Out West, you say?), because he’s in so much deep, dangerous debt. Maybe people would be more excited about investing in Nate’s project if he didn’t keep saying things like, “Death is not a niche market.” Just a thought!

Sydney Sweeney as Cassie and Jacob Elordi as Nate in Euphoria season 3, episode 2.HBO

Maddy is in one of the more relatable situations of the bunch, or at least the one that bears the closest resemblance to something that might realistically happen to one of these characters. After getting in trouble at work for cross-pollinating one of her influencer clients with one of her boss’s high-profile ones, it’s clear that side gigs are frowned upon—particularly ones that involve OnlyFans—which means she has to hustle her ass off for not a lot of money. The fact that her client, Katelyn (Anna Van Patten), becomes huge after Maddy is forced to drop her is an additional punch in the face. Maddy is also the only semi-recent high school graduate on this show who’s actively trying to help someone: her mother. Maddy sends her money on the regular because her mom’s salon business has struggled post-COVID. I don’t doubt that Maddy believes in capitalism, just like she told her boss. But I also believe she is fully aware of how rigged the system is against her.

Then there’s poor Rue. After being used as a pawn in the ongoing feud between Alamo and Laurie (Martha Kelly), she negotiates her way into a promotion: working as a dancer wrangler at Alamo’s strip club, The Silver Slipper, which advertises itself as “always lewd” and “always nude” and lives up to both promises.

Rue thrives in this environment and starts to get properly paid. But if anyone is excited about Rue’s burgeoning prospects in the stripper industry, the flashbacks in this episode tell another story. Those scenes confirm that Rue relapsed and is using again, that she has nowhere to live, and that her mother and sister have basically cut her out of their lives until she gets her shit together. She’s a complete, deluded mess, but Zendaya plays her with such depth and verve that we continue to root for her—even though she has done next to nothing to redeem herself, other than haphazardly believing in God. Honestly, Zendaya is so compelling that I would watch her clean a nasty toilet. Which is convenient, because in this episode I actually had to watch her clean a nasty toilet.

Zendaya as Rue in Euphoria season 3, episode 2.HBO

The best thing about this episode is the committed work being done by all the actors, including those who show up for the first time in this installment. Kadeem Hardison is perfectly cast as Big Eddy, the manager of the Silver Slipper and Rue’s pseudo-mentor, a pairing that functions as a K.C. Undercover reunion. (Hardison played Zendaya’s dad on that Disney Channel sitcom.) Rosalía makes the absolute, fiery most out of her cameo as a stripper named Magick who insists on performing in a bedazzled neck brace. The late Eric Dane makes his first appearance as Cal, who shows up unannounced at Nate’s house completely drunk. Described by his own son as “a broke sexual deviant who barely avoided prison,” Cal is clearly a shell of a person. Knowing that Dane was conveying all that in his final days adds an extra layer of heartbreak to the performance.

After she gets her new gig with Alamo, Rue says “I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had made a deal with the devil. But at least I was free.” But she isn’t. None of the young women on this show are, despite the “freedom” that the West supposedly promises. Maddy’s beholden to her workload and her boss’s whims. Cassie is selling herself on the internet because she wants to be rich—and she’s going to need that money, thanks to her fiancé’s bad decisions. Jules is selling herself, too, and so is Rue, by allowing herself to be caught between Alamo and Laurie. “Rue belongs to us,” says Harley (James Landry Hebért), Laurie’s right-hand racist man. That’s a pretty chilling thing for a white person to say about a Black person.

“You killed one of my bitches,” Alamo responds, referring to the woman, Tish, who overdosed on the fentanyl-laced drugs last episode. “I’m taking one of yours.”

But Rue is a person, and she’s supposed to have her own agency. But she doesn’t, and neither do any of her girlfriends. Rue’s sort-of girlfriend Angel (Priscilla Delgado), a stripper at the Silver Slipper, tells Rue that more people go missing in California than any other state in the U.S. While Rue, Jules, Maddy, and Cassie are technically not missing, all of them seem lost.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”