Caution: Spoilers Ahead for Euphoria season 2, episode 5.
Nate, Cassie, and Maddy's toxic love triangle is a central plot in Euphoria season 2, but the latest episode exposes the affair of Cassie and Nate before quickly moving on. Euphoria episode 5 is the show at its best and worst, as the newest entry of the hit HBO show is a nail-biting bottle episode that follows Zendaya's Rue after her mother and Jules stage an intervention. Rue is eventually convinced to go back to rehab after a heartwrenching sequence that shows her verbally abusing her mother, her sister Gia, Jules, and Elliott, but before she can make it to the hospital, she escapes from her mother's car and goes on the run.
Rue's intervention was an inevitability, as the first few episodes of Euphoria season 2 tracked her descent to rock bottom. Another inevitability of the season seemed to be Maddy finding out about Cassie and Nate's affair, which began during a fateful New Year's Eve party in the season premiere. Cassie and Nate have proven to be just as toxic for each other as Maddy and Nate, and the entire situation seemed primed for an implosion of grand proportion. When Rue ends up at Cassie and Lexi's house during episode 5, though, Euphoria season 2 exposes the affair and then quickly moves on.
Rue exposes Cassie and Nate to Maddy in an effort to distract her mother and friends while they are attempting to lure her back to rehab. The moment is perhaps the funniest sequence in an otherwise devastating episode as Maddy can barely contain her anger amidst a situation that, for the most part, has nothing to do with her—and that's largely the problem with this twist. Cassie and Maddy are two of the show's best friends and having that crumble in the midst of an episode that is largely about Rue does a disservice to the pair as characters.
With Euphoria season 2 focusing on Nate and his father Cal, too, it seems like Jacob Elordi's character should've been there for a moment like this and faced Maddy's rage as much as Cassie did. In a cast full of standout characters, Maddy has always been one that shines the brightest thanks to Alexa Demie's tremendous performance. She delivers in spades in this scene, but not giving the moment time to breathe is indicative of a larger storytelling problem that Euphoria season 2 has had.
While the structure of season 1 wasn't as obvious—due in part to the fact that every episode opened with the fleshing out of each character's backstory—without that, Euphoria season 2 has faltered with character development. Some have been seemingly forgotten about, including Kat Hernandez and, most surprisingly, Jules. Others, like Lexi, have gotten bigger roles in Euphoria season 2, but even then, uneven plotting has been one of the show's weakest points during its sophomore outing. While it remains to be seen what the exposing of Cassie and Nate will mean for the show at large, the fact that this presumably major development was in the middle of an episode focused on an entirely different character is worrying for the rest of the season, and with only three episodes of Euphoria season 2 left, it's hard to see how the show could make up for this before it heads into season 3.
New episodes of Euphoria drop Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.