Euphoria (2019) [HBO] [** Spoilers **]

I thought the more extreme stuff worked better in S1 because it kind of grounded Rue's storyline even more, but the balance was way off in S2. It was like they were just filling time until they got to where Rue was at rock bottom, and once again her storyline, and the episodes focused on her, were the highlights. I think S2 was really just a switch your brain off and accept it's a wild ride, whereas S1 felt like it might actually have something to say.

I was reading another "expose" on Sam Levinson yesterday and the set sounded like it was chaos. He's obviously very creative but how he's been allowed to run this show by himself for 2 seasons without HBO stepping in is beyond me. Not only does he change scenes and entire storylines as they're setting up to shoot them, he apparently did away with shot lists, storyboarding, any kind of actual day to day structure, in S2 and he and the cinematographer just decided on the fly what to shoot. Extras were left sitting around in the cold for hours in the middle of the night, weren't fed, weren't allowed use bathroom, all sorts of mad stuff. Given there's going to be another long break between now and S3, it'll be interesting to see what, if anything, changes before S3.

I'd take some of it with a grain of salt, but here's the latest article with quotes from people who worked on the show. https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-euphoria-season-2s-messy-behind-the-scenes-drama-from-sam-levinson-to-barbie-ferreira-storming-off

Between one thing and another the shine fell off this pretty quickly. S1 was at least stylish and interesting, but S2 was a mess and made it clear Levinson had very little to say. Throw in the flop that was The Idol and HBO are probably happy to bin this.

I do think the "permission to take other roles" things refers to the months they were supposed to film. Most of the cast have been working pretty consistently since the last season wrapped. Sydney Sweeney said only a few weeks ago that as far as she knew they were back to shooting in May. So I'd assume they had a chunk of their calendars blocked off for that, which they can now fill with other things