Euphoria Trying To Get You To Sympathize With Nate’s Dad Is A Mistake
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Euphoria episode 3 begins with a prolonged flashback centered round Nate’s dad Cal, however it’s unclear why the present desires viewers to sympathize with him.
Warning: SPOILERS for Euphoria season 2, episode 3.
Euphoria season 2, episode 3 begins with a prolonged flashback to Cal Jacobs’ senior yr in highschool, presumably in an effort to get audiences to sympathize with him, however this begs the query – why? Cal, played by Grey’s Anatomy‘s Eric Dane, was launched early on in Euphoria season 1 as a mysterious determine who sleeps with Hunter Schafer’s character Jules. The facility imbalance within the relationship is straight away clear and the truth that this older man is sleeping with a excessive school-age woman makes your entire scene excruciatingly uncomfortable. Cal is supposed to be a nasty man and one in every of Euphoria‘s greatest twists is that he’s the daddy of Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi), a fellow classmate of Jules and the remainder of Euphoria‘s characters at East Highland Excessive.
Flashforward to Euphoria season 2 and Cal has turn out to be one of the distinguished characters of the HBO show right now, however not essentially because the villain many presumed he could be. Euphoria season 2, episode 3 exhibits Cal in highschool falling in love along with his finest buddy Derek. The flashback paints Cal and Derek as victims of circumstance and the social mores of the time. They can not be collectively brazenly, so that they pine for one another in secret. This culminates in a drunken scene at an area bar the place Cal and Derek kiss whereas dancing. Within the morning, although, Cal is woke up by a cellphone name from Marsha (the long run mom of Nate), telling him she is pregnant. Smash reduce to the current and Euphoria appears to imagine that the character of Cal has been discovered.
Euphoria appears to be implying that, as a result of Cal was compelled to suppress who he was all through his life, his anger and his sexual habits of sleeping with native youngsters, by some means is sensible. This additionally interprets to his son Nate, one of many least likable characters on Euphoria. Cal’s forceful oppression of his id has manifested in anger points which have then reared their ugly head in Nate, who treats his classmates and girlfriend Maddy as objects to be managed. All of that is meant to elucidate away the very dangerous issues that each Nate and Cal have executed. Whereas we have seen extra of the terrible ways in which Nate treats the individuals in his life, it’s closely implied that Nate’s solely repeating habits he is realized from his father, together with deal with ladies and simply be an all-around good particular person.
Making villains three-dimensional is a crucial a part of storytelling, however Euphoria season 2 will get it mistaken on the subject of Cal in a couple of methods. The present has but to handle the truth that Cal is a rich, influential white man, however portraying complicated racial dynamics has by no means been one in every of Euphoria‘s sturdy fits. The episode touches on poisonous masculinity and the methods it’s handed down via generations in a quick interplay with Cal and his father within the opening flashback, however it’s nonetheless not sufficient to warrant sympathy for him. On the finish of the day, Cal is committing statutory rape when sleeping with Jules and, it is implied, various different underage individuals.
Writing Cal’s illicit acts off as some symptom of his rectifying along with his sexuality turns into harmful territory. Accusations of pedophilia, rape, and different sexual crimes have been leveled on the LBGTQ+ neighborhood in homophobic efforts to quell equal rights efforts. Whereas Euphoria does not paint a direct line from Cal’s previous to his current, it does convey into query why precisely this story is being informed the best way it’s. Euphoria episode 3 appears to ask audiences to sympathize with Cal, however it could be even braver to not ask that of viewers. Cal can simply be a nasty man – there does not need to be causes behind his actions, particularly when these causes dangerously suggest stereotypes which have confirmed to be dangerous in real-life conditions. The place Cal goes from right here stays clear, however a redemption arc for Cal in Euphoria season 2 does not appear out of the query, but when it chooses to go that route, the present is heading in direction of a storyline that creator Sam Levinson could not have the ability to write his means out of.
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