HBO's Euphoria has quickly become one of the most talked-about shows of the winter. The drama centers around high-schoolers born on and around 9/11, making them members of Generation Z, but the Emmy award-winning series also focuses heavily on parental relationships.
Critics of Euphoria tend to mistake its surreal experimentation for an unrealistic depiction of high school life. When Gossip Girl aired from 2007 to 2012, it faced similar pushback for setting impossible standards for American teenagers-- it was, after all, centered around the children of Manhattan's elite. The extraordinary characters in Euphoria and their wild narrative arcs are matched only by the students of Constance and St. Jude's-- and their parents.
Maddy Perez & Blair Waldorf
For fans of both of these two series, this comparison should come as no surprise. Like Maddy (Alexa Demie), Blair (Leighton Meester) rules her school and is known for her iconic fashion choices. Both girls manipulate those around them with force, and their confidence has made them undisputed fan favorites.
Considering the cultural shift away from celebrating insult comedy and mean girl archetypes, Maddy has received a positive response. This could be attributed to emerging trends of nostalgia for 2000s fashion and media like Gossip Girl. A few of Maddy's latest fashion moments even resemble things that Blair might wear, like her Marc Jacobs birthday dress. More than anything, these characters are identical in their sharp wit and haughty attitude that disguises a soft underbelly.
Fez & Nate Archibald
Fez (Angus Cloud) and Nate Archibald (Chase Crawford) are both stoners that frequently find themselves in sticky situations because of their fierce loyalty to trouble-making friends. They seem to always try to do the noblest thing and, while speaking very little, always say what someone needs to hear.
Although they grew up with very different backgrounds-- Nate in a wealthy two-parent household, Fez with his drug-dealing grandmother-- both were pressured by their family in different ways. In a round-about way, Nate does eventually mimic his father's white-collar crimes in Season 6, just as Fez inherits his grandmother's shady business and use of violence. Even still, they maintain reputations as level-headed voices of reason, particularly for their erratic friends Rue and Chuck.
Lexi Howard & Daniel Humphrey
Both writers and self-identified outsiders, the comparison between Euphoria's Lexi (Maude Apatow) and Gossip Girl's Dan (Penn Badgley) is a straightforward one. Lexi writes and directs a play based on the other students at her high school, including her friends, and Dan writes a novel with the same premise.
Lexi often eavesdrops on conversations, taking on the role in the world of Euphoria that Dan's website Gossip Girl takes on in its titular series. Lexi and Dan are both known for their stark moral compasses, which they are similarly quick to abandon in order to make a public spectacle of their friends and families in the name of art. Dan's characterization of his own father in his debut novel is cruel and comical, as is Lexi's dramatic portrait of her sister. They don't seem threatening, but they are cunning satirists.
Rue Bennett & Chuck Bass
Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) and Rue Bennett (Zendaya) are equally controversial characters with tragic pasts. Both suffer great emotional trauma from the death of their parents at a young age and rely on substances to cope with their hardships. When faced with a crisis, they escape into a bender and lash out at those closest to them.
Despite their abuse of the people that try to help them, Rue and Chuck are both beloved characters. Like "young Bass," Rue has some of the most iconic lines of the series. Both are likable not just for their wit but for their earnest attempts at redemption. They are tortured by their flaws but will use their self-awareness to shield themselves against criticism. Their destructive behavior is a major source of drama, but their breakthroughs are some of the more powerful moments of either show.
Cassie Howard & Serena van der Woodsen
Every good teen drama tends to have an unstable blonde looking for love in all the wrong places. In Euphoria, it's Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), and in Gossip Girl, it's Serena (Blake Lively). In both shows, chaos ensues when the soft-spoken bombshell sleeps with her best friend's boyfriend.
Like Cassie, Serena has a string of boyfriends and struggles with being self-sufficient. She usually acts out after getting rejected and taking a blow to her confidence, just as Cassie does in Euphoria. Both characters have a bubbly personable side as well as a dark and impulsive side, which makes them polarizing for the shows' audiences. Their betrayals of their brunette BFFs ultimately serve to show the softer side of ice queens like Maddy and Blair.
Jules Vaughn & Jenny Humphrey
Jules (Hunter Schafer) and Jenny (Taylor Momsen) both have ambitions of becoming fashion designers at Parsons. They both live with their fathers, who try to be supportive even when their daughters run away from home. They have a strong desire for excitement and romance, and it tends to lead them into trouble.
Like Jenny, Jules has been met with mixed reactions by fans. Jules and Jenny each fall victim to deceitful men, which inspires a great deal of sympathy, but their participation in illicit affairs earn the scorn of other characters and viewers alike. They both struggle with complicated (albeit very different) relationships to sex and love that leave them feeling alienated and somewhat lacking in boundaries and awareness.
Nate Jacobs & Georgina Sparks
Although this may not be the most obvious match on the list, Nate (Jacob Elordi) and Georgina (Michelle Trachtenberg) both have an iron grip over the rest of the characters in their respective shows. Unlike Chuck or Rue, Nate and Georgina are calculated manipulators who know no boundaries, even in moments when their intentions seem almost noble.
Georgina is everyone's favorite Gossip Girl villain. Nate is certainly Euphoria's villain, but he's nobody's favorite, and if he was they probably wouldn't admit it out loud. He has become a symbol of toxic masculinity and, in her own way, Georgina is a symbol of toxic femininity. She ruthlessly exploits others with zero regard for the consequences, a similar ethos as Gossip Girl. This early criticism of social media is insightful for such a light-hearted show. Nate is clearly the darker of the two, but so is Euphoria.
Kat Hernandez & Vanessa Abrams
Kat (Barbie Ferreira) and Vanessa (Jessica Szohr) don't get a whole lot of shine. They are both intended to be more relatable depictions of a teenage girl than their castmates, but this ultimately leads them to be flat until inserted into the central drama either as a voice of reason or to act out irrationally.
Their condensed screentime makes their motivations feel poorly developed, and every major dramatic decision is somehow both too sudden and impossibly drawn out over randomly scattered scenes in episodes about more important characters. Kat in particular has fallen victim to this pattern and doesn't play much of a part in season 2's central plotlines. Like Vanessa, she dips in and out of focus as an occasional source of mild drama or support with one or two weakly molded "down-to-earth" qualities.
Cal Jacobs & Lily van der Woodsen
Nate Jacobs' father Cal (Eric Dane) and Serena's mother Lily (Kelly Rutherford) are surprisingly similar parents. They try to do right by their families but end up in a web of lies and scandal that blows up their domestic life. Their illegal activity and illicit affairs, although morally complicated, wreak havoc on their children's lives.
Cal and Lily fail to understand their offspring and are ultimately unable to control them because they are too wrapped up in the complexities of their personal lives. This gives their teenagers plenty of room to indulge in even more dangerous behavior than their parents do. Cal and Lily see their darker inclinations reflected back in them in Serena and Nate, and it both frightens and perplexes them to the point that it becomes a blind spot.
Elliot & Rufus Humphrey
Just like Dan's father Rufus Humphrey (Matthew Settle), the newest Euphoria character, Elliot (Dominic Fike), is a guitar-toting musician whose moral compass is complicated by his attraction to a certain blonde-- among other things. Both characters engage in affairs with women in committed relationships but are ultimately driven to do the right thing and be honest.
Unlike Rufus, Elliot is only a. teenager, but the wisdom of his words exceeds his years. Some Euphoria fans have theorized that Elliot is Rue's replacement for her dad, which would make his betrayal all the more gut-wrenching. His insightful and supportive nature makes his impulsive behavior read as hypocritical, just like Rufus. Both characters have this contradiction thrown back in their face when they act in the name of honesty, especially when breaking someone's trust to do so.