'Euphoria's Wildest Storyline: Lexi Howard's Stage Play in Season 2

After four years, you've probably forgotten about the storylines and character developments of the last two seasons of Euphoria. The one thing that's easiest to remember is that the series is absolutely bonkers. Sam Levinson's high school drama about the perils of sex and drugs for adolescents returns for a third season this April on HBO, with its primary stars, including Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and Jacob Elordi, having skyrocketed in fame since we last saw them at East Highland High School. The show's calling card is its shock and excess, and its unflinching portrait of graphic violence, nudity, and substance abuse has made it both irresistible and notorious for audiences.

Catching up a viewer on all the ins and outs of Euphoria, dating back to its first season in 2019, is a tall task. However, if there's one storyline across its entire run that best encapsulates the gonzo energy and manic dissection of teenage angst, it is the bizarre, wild, and enduring fictional stage play created by one of the show's most unsung characters, Lexi Howard (Maude Apatow).

Lexi Howard Came Out of the Shadow in Season 2 of 'Euphoria'

Throughout most of Season 1, Lexi, sister to Cassie (Sweeney), lurked in the shadows of Euphoria. Besides being the overlooked, timid younger Howard sister, her signature trait is being the essential support system to Rue Bennett (Zendaya), her childhood best friend, whom she tries to aid in her fight for sobriety. Lexi is an audience avatar and source of endless sympathy as someone caught between the trauma of Rue's drug addiction and Cassie's toxic and abusive relationships with her best friend Maddy (Alexa Demie) and boyfriend Nate (Elordi).

After witnessing all the drama unfold in Season 1, Lexi is ready to announce herself in Season 2 by channeling everything she experienced into a stage play. This production, entitled Our Life, is the story of Lexi's outsider status amid the chaos and drama of her family and school life. Lexi's play, which debuts in Season 2's penultimate episode, "The Theater and Its Doubles," is barely even an allegory, as it's obvious to the viewer that each character and plot point directly parallels what we know about Rue, Cassie, Nate, and Maddy. Putting herself out there also helped her strike an unlikely bond with a local drug dealer with a heart of gold, Fezco (the late Angus Cloud).

Lexi's Stage Play Inspired an Uproar in the Penultimate Episode of 'Euphoria' Season 2

Audiences were braced to expect the unexpected during Season 2 of Euphoria, but few could have predicted that the grand setpiece of the season would be a stage play envisioned by a secondary character and performed in front of the student body. This stage production is no cheap Shakespeare re-imagining; this is a raw portrait of Lexi's most formative memories, from Rue's father's wake to Cassie's puberty. Lexi grapples with her complex relationship with her best friend and sister, and even takes a jab at Nate's sexual insecurity with a musical number by the lead star, Ethan ( Austin Abrams), performing a homoerotic rendition of "Holding Out for a Hero" in a locker room. It doesn't take long for the students to recognize that Our Life is heavily autobiographical from Lexi's point of view, prompting Maddy's hilarious line-reading that spawned countless memes, "Wait, is this f--king play about us?"

Lexi's personal and extravagant stage play represents the peak of Euphoria's maximalism, at least until Season 3 premieres. However, it is not without self-awareness, as Levinson and his writing team's heightened execution of this fake play is a conscious act of poking at the audience's senses. The production value and pristine choreography would've been impressive for a professional Broadway production, so the idea of his lavish artistic expression coming from a high school drama club budget is laughable. Every scene, captured by disorienting editing, flashing lights, and other lurid visual cues on-camera, is a nod to the hyper-stylized formalism of an average Euphoria episode. In any other series, Our Life would be its figurative shark jump, but with this show, it's a logical way for a previously quiet and reserved character in Lexi to vent her frustrations.

Our Life Is the Most Brilliant Part of 'Euphoria' Season 2

Euphoria struggled when it devolved into self-serious tropes and relentless trauma porn. Just when you thought the writers lost their pitch-black sense of humor, Lexi's play, which kicks off the chaos of the season finale, "All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For a Thing I Cannot Name," is pure comedy gold. The highlight of the entire sequence is the series of crowd reactions to what happens on the stage and within the aisles. Along with Maddy's aforementioned disgust at the nonfictional threads of what's on stage, Rue is having the time of her life in the audience, particularly when Nate storms off in disgust, and Cassie increases the cringe factor by crashing the stage and lampooning her sister. Jules ( Hunter Schafer) is equally transfixed by all the madness, oftentimes covering her eyes in second-hand embarrassment.

The long-awaited performance of Our Life was a throwback to Euphoria's initial draw as a gonzo, pull-no-punches teen drama that made you squirm and rile you up. Beyond all the sensationalism and groundbreaking developments (this set the table for the vicious fight between Cassie and Maddy), this storyline was a triumphant coming-out party for Lexi Howard, who seemed like she had little to work with in Season 1. It was easy to forget about her, but while everyone else was beefing and screaming at each other, she was cooking up the meanest diss track East Highland had ever seen. Of course, going the extra mile to convey these frustrations through an artistic medium rather than talking it out is perhaps a slight on Lexi, but it's an honest representation of how we deploy creative mediums. If anyone can respect Lexi's vision, it would be the team behind Euphoria.