‘Euphoria’ Star Hunter Schafer Co-Wrote the Upcoming Special Episode
While Season 2 of Euphoria may be a long ways away, fans are being appeased with two special episodes which bridge the gap between the seasons. These episodes offer a deeper dive into characters that fans known and love and allow them to check in with them following a particularly challenging season finale. While the first special episode of Euphoria focused primarily on Rue and premiered on December 6, the second one focuses on Jules.
When Euphoria viewers last saw Jules, she was boarding a train after failing to convince Rue to run away to the city with her. Though she appeared in the first special episode, it was only in Rue’s imagination. In reality, we see that Rue and Jules relationship seems to be struggling at present. Furthermore, Rue has a very twisted perspective about how their relationship has played out thus far. Rue seems to be rewriting history and only taking her feelings into consideration, and she isn’t the only one.
‘Euphoria’ creator, Sam Levinson, doesn’t like that viewers are villainizing Jules
Many fans of Euphoria seemed to have a warped view of Jules as well. Because the show is narrated from Rue’s perspective, some people have begun to label Jules as “toxic” or a “villain.” This has deeply disturb Sam Levinson, who is the show’s writer and creator. In fact, in an interview with GQ, Levinson revealed that part of his goal with the second special episode is to make viewers see things from Jules’ perspective.
“The idea that people could watch the show and walk away feeling that she was a villain was so appalling to me that I thought, ‘I’m gonna write an episode that forces the audience to look at the world through her eyes and understand the burden of loving an addict,'” the Euphoria creator shared.
Levinson co-wrote the upcoming special episode with Hunter Schafer
Of course, Levinson had help with the script. He revealed that Hunter Schafter, who plays Jules, actually co-wrote the second special episode with him. “I’ve been writing a movie with Hunter, which I’m very excited about, so we talk pretty often,” Levinson shared about the Euphoria star. “And I called her up to get her thoughts on this episode. Several hours later, we were talking and she said something that was based on a poem she had written when she was sixteen about the ocean and its femininity and strength. And I said, ‘Well, this ought to be actual dialogue. Do you want to just write this thing together?’ Four days later, we had a draft of the episode that we co-wrote.”
This type of deep collaboration isn’t unusual for Levinson. In an interview with Collider, Sydney Sweeney, who plays Cassie Howard on Euphoria, revealed that the cast had a hand in rewriting a scene as they were filming if something wasn’t working out.
Levinson is known for rewriting scenes on the spot with his cast
“That was one of the really amazing things, if a scene didn’t feel like it was working or flowing, Sam would sit with us and we would just change it, right then and there, and just rewrite an entire scene,” Sweeny shared about what it’s like to work on Euphoria. “You can see on the show that every scene does flow and it does work, and it does feel very real because we made sure that it was.”
What is the release date for the second special episode of ‘Euphoria’
It’s amazing that Levinson has such a collaborative spirit. We imagine that it’s part of the reason that Euphoria has already achieved so much success. We can’t wait to see what Levinson and Schafer have cooked up together. The second special episode premieres on January 24, 2021 on HBO and HBO Max.
