Lexi's play in Euphoria season 2 shows why season 1's formula worked so well for the HBO series. Maude Apatow's Euphoria character Lexi finally gets her due in season 2, literally taking center stage to put on a production of a play about her life. Titled "Our Life," the play features well-known Euphoria characters, particularly Cassie, Maddy, Rue, Nate, Kat, and Suze, played by actors Lexi has found at East Highland High. The play flashes back to pivotal moments in each of their lives and the episode itself is interspersed with flashbacks and timeline shifts that flesh out the events of the play and the ongoing batch of episodes leading into the Euphoria season 2 finale.
Euphoria consistently plays with time, rarely telling a story through one chronologically ordered plot. In the first season, this was exemplified by each episode's cold open, which would flashback to the past and hone in on one character's backstory in order to set up the episode. Various characters in Euphoria got their own cold opens across the 8-episode first season and while season 2 has deployed this sparingly, some episodes have started with montages that relate to the present-day plot while other cold opens have fleshed out characters who are deserving of such attention, like Cal Jacobs. With Euphoria season 2, episode 7 utilizing flashbacks once again, it's a reminder of why season 1 worked so well.
The flashbacks in Euphoria season 1 gave each episode a sense of direction while deftly fleshing out a newly introduced and expansive cast of characters, some of whom could've gotten lost in the shuffle without this pertinent information that the cold opens provided. Lexi's play in Euphoria season 2 does the same thing through a new medium, flashing back to moments in Cassie and Lexi's youth, Rue's father's funeral, and other pivotal moments in Cassie's relationship with Maddy.
All of this works to underscore the complicated dynamics these friends now share, but most importantly, it fleshes out a central relationship of the show that has yet to be explored fully. Lexi has always remained fiercely loyal to Rue and it's clear that there's a robust history between the two—one that hasn't been fully explored yet. Cassie even points out to her sister that Rue treats her terribly, yet her compassion for Zendaya's drug-addled character is apparent. Lexi's play gives Euphoria an opportunity to show why that is, showing several flashbacks of the pair before Rue's experimentation with drugs took a darker turn.
While Euphoria season 2 has seemed to lose the plot episodically, the bigger picture has come into focus with the latest episode. Lexi's play is the linchpin of the season, uniting the characters around the events of the play and invoking some troubling reactions. From Cassie's near-breakdown as she watches scenes about her and Maddy's friendship to Nate's outburst at seeing himself portrayed in the play's final dance number, what happens in the Euphoria season 2 finale will have a lot to do with Lexi's play and it all makes just a bit more sense now that the backstory of each of these moments has been fleshed out properly.