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Euphoria drug kingpin Laurie (Martha Kelly) scares many fans. But one fan theory says Laurie might not be as evil as we think in the HBO series. If Rue (Zendaya) simply asked Laurie if she could leave in season 2, episode 5, would she have let her? We’ll never know because Rue didn’t ask.

Laurie (Martha Kelly) in season 2 of 'Euphoria'
Martha Kelly | HBO

Rue didn’t ask Laurie to open the padlocked door so she could leave 

Rue turns to Laurie out of desperation in “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird.” After trying Fez (Angus Cloud) and the Howard’s house, she resorts to Laurie’s apartment, but not before stopping to rob someone of their cash and jewelry because Rue still owes Laurie $10,000. 

“This isn’t a pawn shop,” Laurie warns Rue, who is in withdrawal in the season 2 episode. Then, Laurie administers morphine to her intravenously — a first for the character.

After succumbing to the morphine, Rue goes on a trip down memory lane. She catches glimpses of her childhood but focuses on the eulogy she gave at her father’s funeral. When she wakes up, Rue finds herself in Laurie’s padlocked apartment, seemingly with no way out.

“Just saw someone on TikTok say they were wondering why Rue didn’t just ask Laurie to open the door,” a Euphoria fan on Reddit pointed out. 

“It’s funny it sounds like something Cassie would say,” said another Redditor. “You don’t have to jump out the window, maybe kindly ask Laurie to open the door for you.” Still, others reiterate the severity of Rue’s situation, wary of the potential Laurie is up to something much more sinister. 

Could Laurie be running a sex trafficking operation in ‘Euphoria’?

After “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird,” many Euphoria fans thought Laurie could be more dangerous than they previously thought. “Laurie was trying to play innocent,” said a fan in a thread about the episode. “Her entire motive is to make Rue feel like she can be safe around her. That way, she lets her guard down and Laurie can just take what she wants.”

Another Redditor pointed out the possibility of Laurie being involved with sex trafficking and trying to control Rue by letting her have the drugs. In their mind, Laurie only agreed to let Rue take the suitcase because she knew Rue would be back. 

“[Laurie] wants her desperate, using the needle, and she keeps making references about selling her body. There are locks everywhere in the house. She is most likely a trafficker as it usually is women who recruit girls into trafficking, not men … 

There’s a reason all those other drug dealers fear her and take her so seriously. Laurie is not this teddy bear, soft-spoken teacher if she made it that high up in the drug business.”

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The birds in Laurie’s apartment also had fans agreeing about the possibility of Laurie having a sex trafficking operation. “The birds, I believe, were trained to caw whenever they hear the scratching to cover it up,” another Euphoria Reddit user pointed out. According to this fan, the scratching Rue heard on the other side of the door was another young woman trapped in Laurie’s apartment. 

Miraculously, Rue got out of Laurie’s clutches by jumping out of a window. But did she make it home, or was Rue’s mom greeting someone else unknowingly at the end of the episode? Tune in to Euphoria Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET. to see how Laurie’s storyline plays out. 

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