Review: Euphoria, "Kitty Likes to Dance" | Season 3, Episode 4

Since I started the new season of Euphoria, I've been watching each episode right before The Comeback. Though the two HBO originals are incredibly different from one another tonally and thematically, both shows have returned after several years since their previous season aired, and seeing them back-to-back each week has demonstrated the staggering gulf in quality around how they fill in the gaps of their stories. The Comeback has been mostly successful because it actually has something insightful to say about its subject matter and Valerie Cherish's amusingly compulsive pursuit of cultural relevancy, disarming empathy, and old-fashioned nature act as perfect conduits to explore the depressing artlessness and creative regression of the current entertainment landscape. The series also actually cares about its characters and their arcs, finding organic ways to develop them while neatly threading them into the narrative's updated-for-the-times satire.

Conversely, the third season of Euphoria has seemingly done away with character continuity and emotional complexity altogether, stranding its ensemble in its creator's ugly, gaudy, bleak world and making them endure Sam Levinson's empty provocations and his fetishistic fantasies. In contrast to the longtime collaboration between Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King, Levinson's vision has been a predominantly single-minded endeavor since Euphoria's beginning, so of course, a lack of creative oversight will lead towards very cumbersome and chaotic results. And as evidenced by this week's episode, "Kitty Likes to Dance," it's clearer than ever that Levinson doesn't really have a coherent or engaging handle on how to deal with his characters, as he continues to give them fuzzy motivations and subplots that are cruel, dumb, and above all, tedious.