It’s been over four years since Euphoria last aired on HBO, and now, despite Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi and the rest of the Euphoria cast being a bit older, we can officially say that Euphoria Season 3 has arrived. Critics had the opportunity to screen the first three of the final eight episodes (or are they?), and so far the response is a lot rougher than I expected. Maybe there’s more to that viral Euphoria tweet than fans would like to admit, with critics calling the show “lazy,” “creepy,” and a “stark disappointment.”
With so many of the Euphoria actors exploding in Hollywood over the past four years, it’s impressive that creator Sam Levinson even managed to rally the troops; I don’t even know how Zendaya fit it into her schedule. Even so, the story still needs to satisfy, and according to Lauren Sarner of the New York Post, it’s an “unhinged disaster.” The Euphoria Season 3 review reads:
In the first two seasons, the show’s strength was how it dug into these characters’ lives. The plot got wild, but it was anchored by human drama. Now, as we find them as adults, it would be more compelling to see them struggle because of their flaws. Instead, many of them struggle because random criminal henchmen are after them. That’s lazy writing. It sacrifices depth for absurdity. For Zendaya, Elordi and Sweeney, Euphoria launched them into stardom, and now it brought them back for material that doesn’t meet their talents.
The above critic says that to Sam Levinson, being an adult apparently means “nearly all of them are involved in sex work, crime” or both. Eleanor Halls of The Telegraph co-signs this statement, saying the writer has “gone full pervert” by trapping all of the female leads in exploitative sex work, leering at them through his camera. Not even Zendaya can save Euphoria Season 3 from descending into “one man’s creepy, sex-obsessed fantasy.” Halls continues:
Article continues belowBy the third episode of eight, even Rue can’t quite make you care about this sorry group of amoral ghouls, who seem to loathe themselves as much as each other. Whereas the constraints of high school lent them a degree of relatability, out in the real world – in their flamboyant clothes and dazzling make-up – they appear hollow and silly. Once beloved by Gen Z, Levinson’s ultra-stylised aesthetic now feels tired and dated, while an attempt at Breaking Bad-lite violence borders on parody.
Alyssa Mora of IGN rates the first three episodes a “Bad” 4 out of 10, saying the characters have been reduced to their most defining traits without the depth that made them interesting in previous seasons. Worse yet, Mora says even with everything this “wannabe crime drama” throws at us, it’s still “kind of boring.” The review reads:
The first three episodes of Euphoria Season 3 are a stark disappointment after a years-long wait for the show’s return. While the cast does its best with the material, the show has become an off-the-rails crime drama with little resemblance to the series fans have come to enjoy. Rue and our other core characters are the best part of an overwrought mess. If these episodes are any indication of what to expect from the rest of the season, we’re in for a pretty dull ride.
Ben Travers of IndieWire gives it a C-, asking, “How could Euphoria become boring?” One issue, Travers says, is that taking the characters out of the classroom strips them of the relatability that made the drama so frightening. The critic continues:
Even if the first three episodes are just table-setting — which they very well may be, given how Episode 3 ends — a good story shouldn’t take so long to get going. When Euphoria Season 3 isn’t playing up its Wild West theme with whip-cracking sound effects, old-timey title cards, and super-wide aspect ratios, … it’s wallowing in misery. Sequences aren’t edited within an inch of their life and instead get room to breathe — maybe too much room. The pace is less frenetic, which emphasizes the tedium and makes the nauseating moments (shit and piss, from animals and humans, are recurring motifs) feel even more contrived than in past seasons. (But hey, at least the desert looks pretty.)
Alison Herman of Variety is a tad more lenient in her Euphoria review, disagreeing with other critics to say this show could never be boring. It’s still “bombastic, stylish” and full of cutting humor. Unlike the first two, however, Season 3 feels untethered in its first three episodes. Herman writes:
Euphoria is never not entertaining. Over the years, Levinson has proven capable of crafting an engaging spectacle in his sleep. … There’s just a disjointedness to the various elements of Season 3 that this new incarnation of Euphoria has yet to overcome. The Western landscapes that form Levinson’s latest visual obsession are a feast for the eyes, but the new genre doesn’t feel any more connected to a suburban coming-of-age story than the characters’ new pursuits.
The first third of Euphoria Season 3 has garnered the series just 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics noting strange Breaking Bad vibes, characters not acting like themselves and an off-the-rails feeling that it never had in its high school setting.
Will the season find its footing in later episodes? There’s only one way to find out. Tune in when the premiere hits the 2026 TV schedule at 9 p.m. ET Sunday, April 12, on HBO and streaming with an HBO Max subscription.
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