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In the highly anticipated premiere of Euphoria Season 3, viewers are thrust back into the tumultuous world of Rue, portrayed by Zendaya. The episode wastes no time in revealing the grim reality of Rue’s life since the conclusion of the previous season, as she finds herself entangled in the perilous world of drug trafficking.
Please note: Spoilers for Euphoria Season 3 Episode 1 follow, currently available on HBO Max.
The episode picks up with Rue having narrowly escaped the clutches of Laurie, the eerily calm drug dealer played by Martha Kelly, in Season 2. However, Laurie is not one to let bygones be bygones. She tracks Rue down at her new job at a smoke shack, where she chillingly reminds Rue of the outstanding debt from the past. The debt, originally a significant sum, has ballooned to a staggering $43 million due to accrued interest. In a cruel twist of fate, Laurie offers Rue a chance to reduce this insurmountable amount to $100,000—by becoming a drug mule.
Rue’s narration then leads viewers through the harrowing and unsanitary process of her new, dangerous role. Her journey begins with a trip to Mexico, where she is taken to a seedy bar. There, she is handed lubricant to facilitate the swallowing of numerous plastic-wrapped balloons filled with fentanyl. The process is unsettling: each balloon must be tested in water to ensure its seal is secure before it is ingested. Once swallowed, the perilous task involves crossing back over the border and retrieving the balloons by excretion, cleaning them to complete the process.
The episode starkly underscores the life-threatening nature of Rue’s predicament. Fentanyl is notoriously potent, and the risk is grave; if just one of the balloons were to rupture, it would lead to an instant and fatal overdose.
At first, Rue tackles this awful job alone. Then, she enlists Euphoria Season 2 standout Faye (Chloe Cherry) to join her. When DECIDER spoke with Chloe Cherry last week, she confirmed that filming these scenes were as gross as they looked on screen.
“So yes, it is disgusting to swallow bags, balloons filled with fentanyl, even if the fentanyl is fake because we’re on a set,” Cherry said. “It is very gross.”
“I guess I just kind of imagined in my mind I was like, ‘What if I was really fucking doing this? Like, what if I was actually doing this and I had to do it? How would I feel about it?’ And I just think I would be disgusted.”
Cherry then revealed that Euphoria creator/writer/director Sam Levinson was adamant that these scenes needed to be as gross as possible.
“He was like, ‘I really, really, really need to see in the scene that it is absolutely disgusting to swallow these fentanyl balloons. Like, I need it to be just awful. I need people to just see that it is so disgusting and hard and horrible to do this,’” Cherry said. “And I’m hoping that people could see that.”
Levinson also wrote a comic scene where we watch Rue and Faye struggle a little bit on their way back over the U.S./Mexico border. It’s not that the cops are on to them as much as Faye is struggling with some gastrointestinal issues.
“Obviously, I can’t fart on command,” Cherry said. “What they did do was have like a mic in the car and like Sam just himself kept doing fart noises for when he wanted a fart to be in there. And it was pretty funny, honestly, to have somebody just farting in the car and then your friends just like, ‘Stop, stop farting!’”
Cherry said that was a “really fun day to shoot,” even if she was initially skeptical if the scene would work when all was said and done.
“At first I was just like, ‘Oh my god, people aren’t going to want to watch this. Like, this is too gross,’” Cherry said. “Then once I watched it back and I was like, ‘Farts are kind of funny, I guess.’”
Another fun grace note in the sequence is the reveal that Faye’s full name is Faye Valentine on her passport. Cherry revealed that this is more than just an Easter egg that winks at the heroine of groundbreaking anime series Cowboy Bebop.
“So actually, fun fact: my character Faye is inspired by the Cowboy Bebop character of Faye Valentine,” Cherry said. “My character is loosely inspired by her, so that is why my character’s full legal name is Faye Valentine in the show.”
Here’s hoping this means that Faye not only survives Euphoria Season 3, but winds up a space cowboy bounty hunting across the Milky Way.