“Someone Check on Maddy” and Other Thoughts We Had During Euphoria Tonight

This week’s episode of Euphoria is the come-down from last week’s chaos, and everyone’s feeling it. Especially Rue, who starts out at her dinner table (she’s back home now) shivering and sobbing, unable to open a Jolly Rancher. After Laurie injected her with morphine, Rue was taken to the hospital and her mom was put in touch with a rehab center that should have an open bed for Rue next week. Today at home, though, a tearful Gia gets in bed and comforts Rue as she writhes in pain.

Rue doesn’t remember everything she said to her mom, but she does acknowledge that she’s been violent, abusive, manipulative, and has put the people around her through serious trauma. She especially regrets what she said to Ali, which reduced “his life to an ugly moment.” Later, she calls him to apologize. He forgives her. As she thanks him, she finally opens and eats that Jolly Rancher.

Ali comes by to cook dinner for the family. He tries to bond with Gia, who helps him get the food ready. He tells her it’s okay for her to be angry at Rue for what she’s put her through, but Gia insists she’s fine.

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Now, over to Nate’s mess. He woke up feeling fantastic because a) his dad is now out of the picture and b) he has no idea that Maddy knows about his and Cassie’s secret affair. But when he finally checks his phone, he has 38 missed calls from Cassie and zero from Maddy. He already knows what happened.

Maddy is contemplating what to do with the tape–the recording of Cal, Nate’s dad, having sex with Jules, which Cal recorded without her knowledge. Now that Nate has crossed her, it’s the perfect opportunity to plot some revenge using the footage. At the same time, she’s ready to plan “a grisly murder that shocks the nation” on Cassie. She’s telling Kat about it on the phone.

On the other end of the line, Kat is in the middle of an awkward dinner with Ethan, which soon turns into the perfect example of how not to break up with somebody. She starts with the classic “I’ve been thinking…” line, but then lies and says she has a terminal brain disorder. (Girl, what?) Ethan knows she’s faking, but she uses his skepticism against him and gaslights the poor boy. (Kat, please, why are you being awful?) Fed up with the games, Ethan makes the breakup official.

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At the Howards’ house, Suze has Lexi hide all the knives in the house in the bushes; Cassie is very fragile right now. Meanwhile, Lexi is having second thoughts about her play, which is mostly based on her life and family. She goes to Fez’s house (!!) and asks for his advice. As they chill on the couch, Fez says the premise of her production kind of sounds like Stand by Me, his favorite film. They start watching it together on the DVD his grandma owns. All we can see are heart emojis.

We understand Lexi’s concerns, though. Cassie is hysterical. She doesn’t want people to think she’s a bad guy because technically Maddy and Nate were broken up when she started hooking up with Nate, but her mother, who just wants to watch Millionaire Matchmaker in peace, points out the principle behind the whole situation: You don’t go screwing your best friend’s boyfriend. But they weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend at the time, Cassie insists!

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Back at the Jacobs’ place, Nate and his mother Marsha have a rare bonding moment on-screen. She advises him not to marry anyone he meets in high school. They laugh at Nate’s brother Aaron. She says Nate is an angry guy, which he bristles at, because he believes his anger only targeted his dad. In another leg of the conversation, Marsha says she likes Cassie better than Maddy. Nate confesses Cassie is actually Maddy’s best friend, which makes her laugh. The discussion gets tense when Marsha recalls when Nate choked Maddy, which he still denies, which leads her to reflect on the darkness she sees in her son. She even says he’s more “deeply flawed” than his father. She remembers how sweet Nate used to be as a boy–he used to leave her a drink on her nightstand before she went to bed–but he hardened when he turned eight or nine.

A scream emerges from the Howards’ kitchen–Cassie is trying to cut herself with a cork screw, which her mother, Suze, immediately confiscates. The next time Cassie storms in and out of her living room, Suze says, exhausted, “She needs a fucking exorcism.” We are all Suze.

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Beneath all of her anger, Maddy is depressed and heartbroken over being lied to by Nate and her best friend. When Samantha, the woman she babysits for, gets home, the two of them get wine drunk and go for a swim. Maddy tells her employer about her current situation; Samantha reveals that she was like Cassie in college.

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To break up the tension with a brief moment of sweetness: Lexi and Fez are getting high, watching Stand by Me, and singing “Stand by Me” together. They hold hands! Fez assures Lexi that her play, if it’s anything like the Rob Reiner 1986 classic, will be a success. He’s a theater consultant now, I don’t make the rules.

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Maddy comes home, and Nate is waiting in the shadows of her bedroom with a gun. She doesn’t realize he’s there–we almost don’t either–until she’s done changing. He cocks the weapon and she’s terrified. Not that we can empathize with Nate’s psychopathic ways, but some context: Nate, we learn earlier, cares about his father’s real estate business because it will become his own one day. To help keep it alive, he needs to make sure that footage of Cal and Jules together doesn’t get leaked and jeopardize the company’s reputation. So, Nate needs the tape back from Maddy. When she won’t share where the disc is, things get more terrifying: Nate dumps all the bullets from the gun except one, and points it to Maddy’s head. Then he points it at his own head and pulls the trigger again and again, getting round after round of blanks. Before he shoots an actual loaded round, Maddy, now weeping and emotionally scarred, gives in. The tape is in her purse, she says. Nate takes it and says goodbye.

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Next, Nate goes to Jules’ house to meet with her. (Jules, understandably, hides a boxcutter in her sleeve just in case.) Surprisingly, he apologizes “for everything that I’ve done to you.” He tells her he knows what happened between her and Cal, and that Cal secretly recorded their night together. Nate gives her the disc. Before she leaves, he tells her, “Everything I ever said was true,” presumably referring to the conversations they had on the dating app last season. She replies, “Same here.” Later, Jules watches the tape in her room.

Finally, Nate calls Cassie back–they even exchange “I love you”s on the phone. He offers her to come stay with him and he picks her up. (Her mom sees her leaving.) “I ruined my entire life for you,” Cassie tells Nate at his house.

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Back at Rue’s, the family is enjoying their dinner with Ali. Rue knows she still has some apologizing to do, but she’s intent on going to rehab to get clean. Gia is still skeptical; what’s the use of hoping when there’s only a five percent chance her sister will get better? Later that night, Gia sleeps in her sister’s bed and promises Rue she’ll tell her more about her life after she gets better.

When both girls are asleep, their mother Leslie gets a call from the hospital denying inpatient care for Rue. Leslie begs for her daughter to get the treatment she needs; Rue, who is suicidal, could literally die without it.

Erica Gonzales
Erica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more.

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