‘Euphoria’ Season 2 Episode 1 Recap: Fez Takes Control

The ending of Euphoria Season 1 left all fans — myself included — wanting more from Angus Cloud‘s sweet-yet-terrifying drugdealer, Fezco. Fez played a huge part in the first season, especially in protecting Rue (Zendaya), and his final scenes of Season 1 didn’t leave us optimistic for his character. Luckily, the return of Euphoria focuses on Fez, finally giving the character the cold open he’s deserved all along. Congrats, Euphoria nation: you finally got the Fez episode you’ve been waiting for since Season 1 debuted. You just had to wait three years to get it.

If you can’t recall where the first season left Fez and his “little brother” Ashtray (Javon Walton), a little refresher. In short: He’s in deep shit. That’s all thanks to Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi), who anonymously reported him and his overflowing drug stash to the police. Angered by Fez after he’s threatened for treating Rue and Jules (Hunter Schafer) poorly, Nate makes matters worse — as he is wont to do — by completely upending Fez’s entire life. With little in the way of an alternate option, Fez heads to Mouse’s (his dealer) supplier, robbing him in order to pay back the drug kingpin and clear his name.

Now, time for Season 2, which picks up in the past. Remember those cute child actors for each character? Fez finally gets one! His younger self is played by Mason Shea Joyce, a spitting image of Angus Cloud. But he’s not really the center of attention in his cold open. Instead, that goes to his grandmother (Kathrine Narducci), who raises the pipsqueak after murdering his abusive father, who runs a strip club. Only one minute into Euphoria Season 2 and we’ve already seen both female and male genitalia; one memorable shot of full-frontal male nudity comes as Grammy shoots Fez’s father while he receives oral sex. If it wasn’t clear before, Euphoria is back in full throttle.

Fez’s kick-ass grandma takes him in, since his mother is out of commission and his father is, well, dead. But instead of serving her role as a normal grandma, she teaches him how to hustle drugs. Naturally, he becomes a math expert. That doesn’t stop him from dropping out later down the line. Through all of this intro, as unparentlike his Nana is, she still treats Fez less like a servant and more like her partner. From the start, Fez has been a real professional.

A baby shows up in the house one day; Fez is unfazed. “Sup?” he asks his new babbling buddy. Enter Ashtray, a kiddo who got his name by chomping on cigarettes from the ashtray sitting next to his sink bath, like a little gremlin. Everything is going alright for Fez, even if his life doesn’t seem like the perfect portrait of a child’s normal sunny days.

Until: one day, Fez’s grandma whacks him in the head with a crowbar on accident while she’s beating up a handful of creeps. He blacks out for a few weeks. Matters become even worse when his grandmother collapses one day, leaving Fez with a terrible choice — either he call 911 and inherently reveal their drug stash, or he doesn’t, risking her life. He decides to drive to the hospital, a decision that costs gammie her life. Fez and Ashtray are on their own now.  Still, they have each other. This comes in handy amid the ongoing Mouse situation; Ash decides to intervene and just kill the kingpin & co. with a hammer.

Which drops us off in present day. Today is New Year’s Eve. Rue, clearly high out of her mind, can’t help but cause a ruckus in the backseat of Fez’s car. While he’s mature enough to ignore her antics, Ash grows tired of her pretty quickly, snapping at her to focus on more serious affairs than drugs: drug dealing. They roll up to their new supplier’s place, which is aptly placed in a darkened alley, and meet some guy with his arm candy. Neither Rue or this other chick, Faye (Chloe Cherry) are supposed to be at the drug deal, so they’re tossed in the backseat of Fez’s car together to keep everything on the DL.

They do not, in fact, keep everything on the DL. Faye does heroin while a nervous Rue observes, but the pair are found later by the supplier’s posse. Worried they might be wearing wires, the guards demand that everyone (except Ashtray, for obvious reasons) strip down and prove they’re not wearing anything. Rue can’t do it. She pleads with the screaming man, saying that she’s still in high school, but he slams her into the shower and forces her to disrobe.

Now, time for business. The supplier, an uncharacteristically kind woman named Laurie (Martha Kelly), apologizes to Fez for all the hubbub. She asks where Mouse is — no comment from Fez — but doesn’t push for further information after she realizes she’s not going to get any. And, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Fez gets a new stash of drugs. We can all take a deep breath…

…until we can’t anymore, because now it’s time for a big party. What comes with a big party? Big drama. The glitzed-up Maddie (Alexa Demie), Kat (Barbie Ferreira), and Jules (Hunter Schafer) arrive, and Maddie makes a beeline for the bathroom. On her way, she’s approached by Lexi (Maude Apatow), who can’t find her sister Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) after a big fight resulted in Cassie breaking out and running away. Maddie’s too pressed to deal with this. She needs to pee. She clomps her little heels on over to the bathroom and starts banging her wonderfully-manicured hands against the door. Who’s inside?

More on that later, because we cut to Cassie’s storyline. She’s meandering through a convenience store on the side of the highway, eventually selecting a roll of powdered donuts before making her way to the parking lot to drunkenly eat them. Her night is going terribly, but thankfully, a knight in shining armor appears. It’s none other than Nate Jacobs, the devilishly handsome devil himself. Rolling up to buy beer, he passes a bottle to Cassie before offering her a ride to the party where she left her sister. Cassie: you absolutely should not get in that car. Don’t do it, girl.

Nevertheless, she persisted. Cassie hops in Nate’s passenger seat. This isn’t going to end well, is it?

An intoxicated Nate then risks Cassie’s life, driving at around 100 MPH as he chugs a beer with her, all before railing her in the bathroom at the party. The pair are in the heat of the moment, until — BANG BANG BANG. Someone needs to go to the bathroom. Remember who? Maddie’s shrill voice breaks the tension between the two, and Cassie, who’s supposed to be Maddie’s best friend, panics. Is there not another bathroom anywhere in this house? Maddie, perhaps you should seek another wash closet if it’s that bad.

In the room next door, or somewhere else in the party, we get an ominous look at Rue, who has somehow acquired Faye’s heroin-loaded Altoids case. Watching this party play out is going to take five years off my life.

Okay, back to the Maddie/Cassie/Nate dilemma. A sobbing Cassie is shoved into the bathtub by Nate, who flees the scene as Maddie accuses him of taking a dump (without washing his hands!) at the party. She barges into the bathroom while Cassie hyperventilates in the tub next to her, pees, and everything seems fine. But there’s no toilet paper. Why not look under the sink? Maddie resorts to a nasty alternative, grabbing a bath towel to wipe. She tosses the dirty rag into the tub — right onto Cassie’s face.

Back at the party, Rue brushes shoulders with a new guy, Elliot (Dominic Fike). He snorts a line of some drug off the dryer in a back room when Rue busts in, pleading him to share his goodies. While Rue engages with the new dude, Jules tries to hunt her down, worried that her ex may be off getting high somewhere in the depths of the festivities. But Jules can’t locate Rue in time, and Rue starts to feel her heart slowing down. Could it be cardiac arrest? She panics, unable to function, asking her confused new friend to prep her a line of safety Adderall. He obliges. Rue’s heartbeat returns. All is well. Sort of.

Oh, you thought the bathroom drama was over? Guess again. We return to the scene of the crime, where Maddie has lingered to chat with the overly-flirtatious Travis (Demetrius Flemory Jr.) in the bathroom. People are waiting for the bathroom, girl. You were once one of those in line. Have some courtesy! Things still aren’t looking great for Cassie, whose phone slipped out amidst her frantic hiding. We know Lexi is about to call her, when, suddenly: BZZT. BZZT. The sound of her phone’s vibration against the tub pulsates through the entire bathroom, alerting Travis and Maddie of her presence.

Right when we think Cassie is BUSTED, Maddie’s flippant personality saves the day. Travis (unfamiliar with Maddie’s friend group) peeks into the tub and exclaims that there’s “some girl” passed out in the tub. Maddie doesn’t care. She wants to dance, and the pair split towards the heart of the party. After all, if Maddie did end up finding her pal hiding in the bathroom, couldn’t Cassie just fib about passing out in the tub? Or perhaps make up some story about having to hole up away from McKay (Algee Smith)?

Speaking of McKay — he finds a finally-freed Cassie meandering around the party, pulling her aside to DTR in another room. God, Cassie has really been swept into an emotional hurricane in this episode. Ultimately, the couple decide to officially call it quits. Cassie’s on the market, if Nate’s looking to make things more serious. (I sure hope he isn’t.) Because after McKay exits the room with Cassie, he’s confronted by the brooding hulk, who prods him for info about his sex life with her. Weird.

Another tense conversation pops up between Rue and Jules when they finally collide somewhere within the thumping walls of this NYE party. Even though Rue hasn’t confessed anything, Jules can sense something’s up with her companion, and she asks Rue when she relapsed. Rue informs Jules that it was the night she was left solo at the train station, which probably makes Jules feel super cruddy about the whole affair.

Taken by Lexi, Fez is in another world of frank conversation. The pair chat about God, religion, drugs, you name it — it’s a bizarre combo that’s pretty cute. But Fez has more on his agenda than just flirting with Lexi. He tells Ash to start the car. Something’s coming. And that something is New Year’s! The party erupts in celebration. In all the fireworks of festivities, a dreamlike sequence occurs: Rue confesses her lingering feelings for Jules. They kiss, but it might be made up in Rue’s head.

In between his sweet chatting with Lexi, Fez has been making fiery eye contact with Nate all night long. The pair finally cut the tension right after the clock strikes midnight, having a seemingly friendly discussion over some drinks in the kitchen. They acknowledge their long-standing feud, clink their red solo cups, and settle their differences.

But then Fez is bashing Nate’s head in, hitting him in the jaw over and over again until Jacob Elordi’s chiseled face is an unrecognizable heap of blood. The episode ends as Fez is pulled off of Nate, leaving Maddie and Cassie to pick up the pieces. We’ll have to wait a week to find out if Euphoria just pulled a And Just Like That by killing off a main character in Episode 1. Seems to be a trend these days.

Hot Gossip From East Highland High

Some stray strands of tittle-tattle we’re expecting to hear more about in the episodes to come.

• Lexi and Fez: It’s a bizarre combo that just works. Not much more to say here. We’re definitely going to get more scenes with these two.
• Kat and Jules: In the middle of the episode, Jules apologizes to Kat for not being a better friend. She confesses to being a little narrow-minded, vaguely referencing her closed-off relationship with Rue as the cause. These two gems do need to be closer!
• Nate and Cassie: The trailer teased this, so we can probably expect more from this match made in hell as the new episodes begin to drop. Why was Nate so curious about McKay and Cassie’s sex life? Seems like he’s obsessed with her. Gross.
• Elliot the new kid: Dominic Fike made his grand debut in betwixt a flurry of other drama Episode 1 introduced, kicking his relationship off with Rue. He doesn’t seem like a good influence, per se, but neither was Jules, really. Will he get in between the two of them? Who will we root for? Rules or Relliot?
• Travis: If I could only wish for one thing, it would be for Travis to stick around for future episodes of Euphoria Season 2. This kid is ballsy! I want more of him. Maddie deserves an energetic weirdo like Travis, not Nate.