There’s been so much conversation surrounding this season of Euphoria and honestly, I think most people are focusing on the wrong things. Everyone keeps talking about the color grading, the lighting, the missing glitter makeup, the soundtrack changes, or how the show “doesn’t feel the same anymore,” but I do not think that shift happened accidentally. I think people are uncomfortable because the show is no longer trying to immerse viewers inside fantasy. It is forcing us to sit outside of it and watch what happens when fantasy starts collapsing in real time.
Earlier seasons of Euphoria felt emotional, dreamy, impulsive, and almost hypnotic. The cinematography, editing, narration, and music placed viewers directly inside the characters’ emotional states. Everything felt overstimulating in the same way adolescence itself feels overstimulating. The glitter makeup, surreal transitions, fantasy sequences, chaotic camera movement, and emotional soundtrack all worked together to create this heightened reality where emotions felt bigger than life itself. It was never really meant to feel grounded. It felt experimental, almost avant-garde at times, because the show was less interested in realism and more interested in emotional perception. We were not simply watching these characters spiral. We were spiraling with them.
Now everything feels colder. More distant. More observational.
And I think that is exactly the point.
This season no longer feels first-person. It feels third-person. Earlier seasons trapped us inside the fantasy of adolescence, while this season forces us to watch the consequences of it from the outside. That is why the emotional connection feels different. The show removed the visual and emotional cushioning that once made self-destruction feel cinematic and intoxicating. We are no longer inside the fantasy. We are watching the fantasy rot.
Honestly, I think Euphoria is trying to grow with its audience. When the show first came out, both the characters and much of the audience were teenagers. Everything felt dramatic, reckless, emotional, and immediate because that is exactly what adolescence feels like. But now there has been a time jump, and suddenly the stakes feel heavier. Adulthood is not as visually exciting. It is slower, more isolating, and filled with consequences that actually last. The mistakes are no longer happening inside classrooms, parties, and bedrooms. They are bleeding into identity, relationships, careers, addiction, money, and survival. The show feels uncomfortable now because adulthood itself is uncomfortable.
I also think people underestimate how much the filmmaking itself contributes to that feeling. Earlier seasons relied heavily on emotion-driven filmmaking. Even the soundtrack played a massive role in making the show feel dreamy and immersive. Labrinth’s music almost acted like the emotional bloodstream of the series. It made scenes feel spiritual, reckless, tragic, and euphoric all at once. Now the sound feels more restrained and cinematic, especially with the tonal shift toward Hans Zimmer’s style. A lot of people hate that change, but honestly, I understand why it happened. The show is moving away from emotional fantasy and toward something more grounded and detached. Whether people enjoy it or not, the shift feels intentional.
Outside of the technical side, I think the most interesting thing about this season is the way it reflects internet culture back at the audience. So many people keep calling parts of the show “too dramatic” or “unrealistic,” especially the conversations surrounding sex work, OnlyFans culture, hypersexuality, and online performance. But if I am being honest, I actually thought those moments were some of the most realistic parts of the season. People love acting shocked when a show places these things on screen, while simultaneously participating in the exact culture the show is criticizing. Social media has turned sexuality into branding. Into visibility. Into validation. Into profit. We live in a culture where desirability is constantly rewarded and performance is constantly encouraged.
And once attention becomes currency, escalation becomes inevitable.
That is what I think the show understands better than a lot of viewers do. The internet constantly pushes people to become more visible, more shocking, more desirable, more consumable. What starts as attention slowly becomes identity. Likes, views, money, followers, comments, and validation all begin blending together until people no longer know where the performance ends and the real person begins. That is why so many of the characters feel emotionally hollow this season. Everyone is performing something. Power. Beauty. Confidence. Masculinity. Femininity. Desire. And eventually the performance starts consuming them.
That is also why I think the conversations surrounding infantilization aesthetics online are important, even though people dismiss them as “just trends.” We keep seeing the rise of coquette aesthetics, baby-core imagery, hyper-feminine innocence, childlike silhouettes, bows, doll-like makeup, and exaggerated youthfulness online, and people rarely stop to ask why these aesthetics continue being rewarded so heavily. At what point does nostalgia blur into infantilization? At what point does femininity become performance instead of identity? Social media has created an environment where women are constantly rewarded for appearing softer, smaller, younger, and more consumable, and I think Euphoria intentionally reflects that discomfort back onto viewers.
That is why I disagreed with people saying the show exaggerated certain internet behaviors. Honestly, I think people are uncomfortable because they recognize pieces of reality inside the exaggeration. The internet has normalized turning identity into content. Sexuality into marketing. Intimacy into aesthetics. And once people become emotionally attached to these performances online, they start defending them instead of critically questioning them. The disturbing part is not necessarily the show itself. The disturbing part is realizing how much of it already exists around us.
Even the emotional dynamics in the show reflect that same idea. So many of the relationships no longer feel rooted in actual connection. They feel rooted in image, validation, fantasy, ego, power, and projection. People are no longer loving each other as individuals. They are loving the version of themselves they become through someone else’s attention. That is why so many characters feel emotionally lost this season. They built themselves around performance for so long that they no longer know who they are outside of being desired, needed, feared, admired, or consumed.
And honestly, I think that is the real theme of this season.
Not drugs. Not sex. Not shock value.
Identity collapse.
This season feels darker because the characters are no longer being protected by fantasy. Earlier seasons romanticized emotional chaos through dreamy visuals and emotional immersion. Now the show strips all of that away and forces viewers to confront the emptiness underneath it. The characters are aging out of adolescence, but emotionally many of them are still trapped inside the same cycles of validation, escapism, insecurity, and self-destruction. The fantasy that once made everything feel beautiful is fading, and all that is left underneath it are people who no longer know who they are without the performance.
Screen Siren 