Do Audiences Want a Euphoria About Rue Smuggling Drugs Across the Border?

After a long wait, Euphoria is back. Here’s everything that went down in the first episode

n some ways, Euphoria is too big to fail. This cast has been slingshot into A-list stardom, and after four years off the air, it was impossible for Sam Levinson’s drama to return without all eyes on what the new iteration of this universe would look like. One thing is clear from the jump: this is not necessarily the Euphoria we know and love, but something new entirely. Will compelling performances and nostalgia for these characters create a show that is just as big and addictive as it used to be? We’ll have to watch and find out.

The third season’s premiere opens with Rue (Zendaya), ripping through the desert of Chihuahua like she’s in an off-road car commercial, after some locals help her get unstuck from some sticky mud. Welcome back, Sirât! She then gets stuck again shortly after, this time while trying to drive onto a flimsy ramp over a border wall and barely escapes with her life, let alone the bag of goods she’s trying to smuggle into Texas. It’s quite the opening, also establishing something of a Western tone and visual approach for a show that has skewed more toward a Petra Collins neon-glitter visual palette in the past. Not to mention Hans Zimmer’s new score, which has much more cowboy vibes than Labrinth’s synthy orchestral sound. Taylor Sheridan’s impact?

Rue passes out in a barn she stumbles on in El Paso, awakened the next morning by a farmer’s daughter and a cup of milk (freshly milked from Dahlia, the farm’s cow). Rue joins the very large Miller family for breakfast and we find out during the pre-meal prayer that she’s masquerading as a college newspaper reporter, “exposing” the cross-border drug trade. Their generosity earns her a ride with Daisy, the eldest daughter, who shares she’s never been on the internet, despite her curiosity (jealous!). Rue has a moment of reflection while she turns the music up. I’ve really missed Zendaya playing this character: She’s able to encapsulate so much of her hardship in just one moment or facial expression, where we can really see, at least for a brief moment, the full weight of what she’s been through, and how things could have been different in another context. Rue makes it to a Greyhound stop and is on her merry way.

Her road trip brings her all the way to a house in California, where we meet a crew of familiar birds. It’s Laurie (Martha Kelly) and her birds, of course! We knew she would play a key role this season after Rue’s $10,000 worth of drugs were flushed down the toilet back in high school. We find out Rue was working at a smoke shop after graduation which is where Laurie and her goons corner her, 46 months after she borrowed the suitcase. $10,000 is now $43 million after interest…yikes! What kind of loan is that? They make a deal to meet at $100,000, and Rue officially becomes her drug mule to pay off her tab (which now includes Laurie’s car, literally half-stuck in Mexico).

Aside from Uber driving in her spare time, Rue’s main gig is “body packing,” or swallowing a kilo of lubed-up balloons of fentanyl in order to shit them out into a strainer once safely at their destination across the border (ew!). She even recruits Faye (Chloe Cherry) to help her out. I’m not going to lie, this scene made me gag. Too visceral! And gassy, apparently. Rue rises up the mule hierarchy after a dozen runs, but we’ll see how long this good fortune lasts. One night, Faye shares that their coworker Wayne is trying to pivot from the drug business to avocados and is saving up some cash in his basement’s safe. They playfully wonder about what it would look like if they stole his stuff…a mischievous sign for where Rue’s head is at in the midst of all this.

Later on, Rue stops by Lexi’s (Maude Apatow) apartment in LA, where she crashes on her couch sometimes. Rue says her younger sister Gia (Storm Reid) is doing well in college in Arizona, although I doubt they actually maintain much of a relationship between all the drug stuff. Rue hasn’t looped Lexi in, so she’s vague about her life and dodges any probing questions (“what are your long-term goals?”). We also find out Fez is actually alive and serving a 30-year prison sentence in the Euphoria universe; Lexi has been dodging his calls. An interesting writing decision here considering the passing of Angus Cloud back in 2023. Lexi, on the other hand, judging by the fanny pack in her kitchen, is an assistant director for LA Nights, a nighttime soap. But her role mostly involves carrying large towers of Starbucks coffee and driving her boss Patty Lance (Sharon Stone) around, and waiting for her chance to make a smart note on set.

Meanwhile, her sister Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), is living in a “suburban bubble” as a housewife making sexy TikTok videos (kinky dog is the video we see her filming). Nate (Jacob Elordi) comes home from work in his Tesla monstrosity and starts reaming her out for spending the day wiggling her butt on all fours instead of doing dishes. She’s making content (with her housekeeper as the videographer), Nate! While she’s trying to monetize so that they can renovate more rooms of their very large house, Nate sees it as sex work. Inevitably, their argument turns to puppy foreplay.

As Rue tells us in her narration, Nate took over his dad’s construction business. His big project is Sun Settlers, an “end-of-life transitional facility,” targeting the aging baby boomer generation. Lounging by the pool, Cassie is selling her friend on starting an OnlyFans empire. Scrolling through Maddy’s Instagram (which includes pictures with various celebs like Donatella Versace) is what finally convinces her to do it. Over a candlelit spaghetti dinner, Cassie takes a roundabout approach by emphasizing her need for $50,000 worth of flowers at their wedding, which of course, Nate refuses to pay. Her solution? Well, launching an OnlyFans of course. She doesn’t want a “ghetto” wedding! Nate doesn’t have the funds given everything he has going on, but Cassie doesn’t want a wedding unless she can have it her way. Ultimately, by flashing him at the dinner table, he agrees to OnlyFans under one condition: She doesn’t show her face alongside any nudity. I’m glad that’s settled.

Back at Lexi’s building laundromat, Jules finally comes up. Apparently, Maddy (Alexa Demie) told Lexi that she’s a sugar baby. Maddy was on set with Lexi because she’s an agent representing influencers and actors, including LA Nights star and heartthrob Dylan Reid (Homer Gere). We get a neat but brief scene showing the making of an LA Nights scene and dang, HBO isn’t sparing any budget. Sometimes Maddy attends flashy premieres (like for if i may, i might, a hilariously titled HBO film), but her job often involves transferring calls to her boss from behind a desk and she’s not pulling enough money to support herself.

Elsewhere in LA, Rue meets up with her sponsor Ali (Colman Domingo) on a rainy evening at a diner. This scene is set up in a remarkably similar way to “Trouble Don’t Last Always,” the pandemic special that aired in 2020, but Rue has made a lot of progress since those nihilistic days. She’s working her way through the AA steps, wrapping her head around the spiritual aspect of the 12-step program. They unpack why the bible might include alienating language about gay sex. Domingo says “butt sex” a lot. But faith isn’t necessarily about the fine details of a religion’s texts, it’s about belief. Rue wants to do it “right,” though, so she decides to start listening to the bible from page one of the Book of Genesis during her Uber rides.

Otherwise, it’s time to get to work: Rue departs on a new drug mission from where the goods are made (a farm where chickens get brutally beheaded, apparently). She arrives at a large home for the drop-off and takes a detour upstairs to pee, where she stumbles on quite the party, including many topless women. She finally finds the bathroom and stumbles on Tish (Emma Kotos), who’s having trouble tying up her swimsuit by herself. They bond over her new boob job and Rue ends up having a whole kiki with the girls of the party, overstaying her welcome.

Before getting dragged out by security, she is granted an audience with Alamo Brown (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). Over at the house’s bar, we find out he’s the “motherfucking king of pussy.” He owns five, fully-nude strip clubs in California. Rue says it’s her dream job to work at his clubs, and begs him for a job to escape her current drug-swallowing woes. But right when she seems to have won him over, things get messy: The drugs she brought from Laurie’s are laced with fentanyl, leading to the death of poor Tish. Is Laurie trying to sabotage him? Is this the start of a drug war? Rue gives Alamo a panicked mini recap of her whole relationship with Laurie as a Hail Mary to level with him, and also contends it might be the hand of God that brought them together. Her impassioned plea and her newfound faith finds her outside, balancing a green apple on her head, hoping she’s not about to get shot in the face by Alamo’s gun. Thanks to his steady aim, the apple gets shot clean off and she’s in one piece, phew. I guess God is on her side after all.

It’s hard to tell where things go from here on Euphoria, and how the storylines of these various characters will intersect now that they can’t run into each other between classes. If Levinson’s aim is to build out a broader drug war that Rue gets increasingly swallowed up by, perhaps even a conflict between Laurie and Alamo’s factions, that’s a lot to take on for an audience who is mostly looking for Euphoria’s usual debauchery. Regardless of how messy things are about to get in this new grown-up version of Euphoria, I know we’re still in for an entertaining season.

Streaming ratings: ‘Landman’ wraps second season with another big week

Streaming Ratings: ‘Landman’ Wraps Second Season With Another Big Week

Landman concluded its second season on Paramount+ on Jan. 18, and the finale contributed to a series high for show in Nielsen’s streaming ratings for that week. It barely slowed down in the week following the finale.

The Billy Bob Thornton-led drama had 1.62 billion minutes of viewing time for Jan. 19-25, pushing Landman’s streak of weeks over a billion minutes to 10. Since it premiered in November, only Stranger Things has logged more viewing time among original streaming series.

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Speaking of Stranger Things, the Netflix show returned to the No. 1 overall ranking with 1.66 billion minutes of watch time, just ahead of Landman. The prior week’s top title, His & Hers, slid to fourth overall but still drew a strong 1.37 billion viewing minutes.

The Pitt notched a second consecutive series high with 1.19 billion minutes for the week of its third episode, up from 1.16 billion the previous week. HBO Max says through six episodes – i.e., a few weeks past Nielsen’s current count – the show is averaging 12 million viewers, 50 percent ahead of season one.

Not (yet) joining The Pitt in the Nielsen rankings is A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, HBO’s latest Game of Thrones offshoot that premiered Jan. 18. Though HBO says the series has racked up 13 million viewers per episode as of Tuesday, the series premiere wasn’t able to crack the top 10 list. Like other shows that originate with the HBO linear channel, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is considered an acquired show, which usually means a higher bar for entry on the charts. The No. 10 acquired series for Jan. 19-25 was Law & Order with 669 million viewing minutes on Hulu and Peacock.

Three former TNT shows made the top 10 acquired shows list via Netflix. Southland (930 million minutes) and Rizzoli & Isles (817 million) made their debuts in the rankings and joined The Closer (911 million), which is on a five-week run in the top 10 (and also streams on Peacock and Pluto TV).

Veronica Mars (456 million minutes) also got a bump after being added to Netflix on Jan. 14 – though it’s classified under original series due to its made-for-Hulu fourth season (it streams on both services).

On the movie charts, The Rip spent a second week in the top spot with 1.38 billion minutes of viewing, almost identical to the 1.39 billion minutes for its opening frame. Sinners (297 million minutes on HBO Max) re-entered the top 10 after earning a record-setting 16 Oscar nominations.

Nielsen’s streaming ratings cover viewing on TV sets only and don’t include minutes watched on computers or mobile devices. The ratings only measure U.S. audiences. The top streaming titles for Jan. 19-25, 2026, are below.