I thought that the ending to the second season of “Euphoria” was almost tame in comparison to the rest of the season. Don’t get me wrong, it was emotional and made me feel like my heart was slowly being ripped to pieces, but the dramatic impact wasn’t there. I feel like, in this last episode, there was no spark of drama, but instead it was almost like a dull piece of the usual dramatic flare had fizzled out. It confused me at first, until the end of the episode.

I admit, I didn’t realize that episode nine was the last episode until I couldn’t find the button leading me to the next. When that dawned on me, I realized I wanted more. 

The last episode packed as much of a punch, if not more, than the rest of the episodes together.

The final episode focuses on aspects of Maude Apatow’s character, Lexi, and her play. The way the play is used to describe the past of characters like Zendaya (Rue) was breathtaking. One minute the play is depicting a scene of a funeral on a stage, and the next we see Zendaya (Rue) struggling to speak at her father’s memorial. It was emotionally deep and I felt like if the directors did anything different in this episode, it wouldn’t have the emotional effect that it did. 

I feel like the last episode was remotely satisfying and heart-breaking at the same time. The result of Zendaya’s character’s drug habit made me happy. Throughout the entire series, viewers followed the character Rue as she relapsed. Knowing that she was clean for the rest of the year made me feel a sense of accomplishment. I didn’t realize how attached to the characters I was until the last episode. 

This episode also kills off a character and I hated it, but that’s what made the scene so well written. We are given the back story to Javon Walton’s character, Ashtray, earlier in the show. It made me look at him as a scared kid. When he lunged at another person and killed him, I was yelling at the screen. I then watched as the police entered the house and the shootout began. I cried as the camera focused on Walton’s character. He was just a kid. The shaky breath he let out when he saw the red dot center at his forehead along with Angus Cloud’s character’s (Fezco) screams of his name made the impact so much worse. In his voice he felt destroyed, and it just made this scene so much harder to watch.

The episode had so much tragedy and lots of memories from characters that made me see them in new lights. I watched as Maude Apatow’s character, Lexi, let the trauma of her past play out onstage, and I watched as Zendaya’s character, Rue, walked down the street before the opening credits. It felt real. I felt like I was in this situation.

The last episode was bittersweet yet so powerful.