Euphoria reaches jaw-dropping crescendo with heartbreaking Rue twist and long-awaited reveal

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We’ve just passed the halfway point of Euphoria season two and, at last, this slow burn has exploded into a blazing inferno. Warning – suicide, drug addiction.

This week’s Euphoria episode, “Stand Still Like A Hummingbird”, begins with Rue ferociously attacking her younger sister Gia, suspecting that she’s told their mother she has been smoking weed.

In between Rue’s barks, her mother manages to inform her that smoking weed is the least of her worries – the jig is up, she knows Rue’s relapsed onto opiates, and that suitcase holding $10,000 worth of drugs with the intent to sell beneath her bed? Yeah, that’s gone now.

Echoing her blistering words to Jules in the car last week (“I can’t fucking stand you”), Rue spits venom at both her mother and sister as she quite literally tears their home apart in search of the suitcase, at one point going into full hulk-mode as she uses her entire body to kick down the door of her sister’s bedroom. Sadly, it’s probably the most alive we’ve seen Rue all season, driven by the desperation of her withdrawal symptoms and the terror that lies in her upon realising that without the suitcase, she’s in 10 grand of debt to Laurie, the chilling and monotonous drug lord, with no means to pay her back.

She’s eventually stopped in her tracks by the sound of Jules‘ voice coming from the kitchen, telling her they flushed the contents of the suitcase down the toilet. It has now all become painfully clear to Rue what’s happened – Elliot told Jules that Rue has been using, Jules told Rue’s mom, and together they decided the best course of action was to dispose of the drugs. It’s a shrewd move on Jules’ part but, of course, neither she nor Rue’s mum understand the severity of the potential consequences she may now face. Not be cruel, but we do have to question the judgement of an adult who discovers that large a quantity of Class A narcotics in their daughter’s bedroom and doesn’t pause to think about the potential safety implications binning them might impose on themselves, and the rest of the household…

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“i love you and i want to help you” #Euphoria pic.twitter.com/YYrePciMIX

— hunter schafer pics  (@huntersjpg) February 7, 2022

Unsurprisingly, Rue immediately turns on her friends, labelling Elliot as a drug addict himself and accusing Jules of being a vampire who sucks the life from everyone in her orbit. It’s an utterly, spine-tinglingly sensational performance from Zendaya who uses every second of this opening brawl to remind us all why she is the star of Euphoria. In these 10 minutes she traverses between being possessed by the demon of her withdrawal symptoms to a whimpering mess apologising in tears on the floor, and back again several times over.

She is perhaps most affecting however when she lands somewhere in the middle of these two states – calm and quiet, gently delivering obscene cruelties to her nearest and dearest, with an malevolent smirk across her face that assures them there’s no line she’s unwilling to cross now.

Zendaya easily clinched her second Emmy nomination in just the first 10 minutes of tonight's #Euphoria pic.twitter.com/hCm8UEboWx

— Avery Thompson (@avery__thompson) February 7, 2022

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She’s eventually coerced into her mother’s car under the guise they are going to the hospital so she can dry out. Slumped in the back of the vehicle, Rue paints a harrowing picture of the suicide she claims she was considering attempting next month – at the beach, lying on the sand and simply letting the waves slowly take her out to sea.

Upon realising she’s in fact being taken back to rehab, she bolts from the car and finds herself running through moving traffic to terrifying effect. Shout out to Storm Reid, who plays Rue’s little sister Gia with brilliant subtly throughout both this episode and Euphoria in general. By understanding the power of being silent is just as great as the power of a tortured scream, she makes her your heart break even harder for this family.

no spoilers but zendaya really gave an incredible performance tonight, as did storm reid and nika king. i’m still upset, still teary. i can’t believe DARE had the audacity to say that euphoria glamorizes addiction because every scene with rue is like its own mini horror film

— lauren badillo milici (@motelsiren) February 7, 2022

Fast forward a couple of hours, after waking up on the side of the street Rue begins a tour of the suburbs in search of any narcotic that might ease her pain. First stop, the home of her old BFF Lexi. She cautiously opens the door, but before she can get into it with Rue the pair are interrupted by her oblivious and scene-stealing mother. Rue manages to slip off to the bathroom but it seems the Howard household’s medicine cabinet doesn’t stock anything that would satiate her, so she leaves empty-handed, save for a pair of gold earrings she swipes, presumably to pawn – we guess she has to start chipping away at that 10 grand somehow?

When Rue emerges from the bathroom she’s greeted by her mother and sister, plus Cassie, Maddy and Kat who were also hanging out at the house before she arrived. Her mother begs and pleads with her to come with her in the car but Rue refuses, telling the group it’s just not realistic that she could stay clean long-term. “You don’t have to,” Cassie offers. “You can just take it one day at a time.” This piece of well-meaning, if unsolicited, advice is not well-received by Rue who interrupts the intervention to ask Cassie one quick question: “How long have you been f**king Nate Jacobs?”

“I have a quick question for you. How long have you been fucking Nate Jacobs ?” #Euphoria pic.twitter.com/DqKWHfLJPG

— 333 (@the333stripper) February 7, 2022

It’s the moment Euphoria fans have been waiting for and it does not disappoint. Cassie begins to fall over her words and tries to deflect from the truth by dismissing Rue’s accusation as the deranged ramblings of a drug addict, but Maddy knows her best friend too well and sees right through it. She reacts in quintessential Maddy fashion, pointing her gleaming acryllic nails in her so-called best friend’s face and delivering a searing, expletive-ridden rant before chasing her up the stairs. Kat fails to diffuse the situation, telling her friends: “Not here!” Poor Barbie Ferreira is left with less than 10 words to say in this episode, but boy is she going to deliver them with all the gusto of a child determined to prove themselves after being cast as Shepherd #7 in the school nativity play.

The way this aged sksksk #Euphoria pic.twitter.com/rVi8hrvzVf

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