WRITTEN BY C HUES
PUBLISHED February 21, 2021
Rue, the main protagonist of Euphoria, is a young African American teenager who struggles with drug addiction, mental illness, and low self-esteem. As most people that Rue meets and interacts with do not show her compassion or care, and terrible tragedies lead to further mental and emotional deterioration, Rue turns to drugs as a means of muting the chaos and violence that torture her every day. However, the same drugs that she uses for comfort cause her to act outside of her nature and experience feelings of shame. She begins to view her relationship with certain people as the same as her relationship with drugs, such as her friend Jules. Only through Rue’s relationship with Ali (also a drug addict, albeit recovering) can she gradually begin to gain self-confidence, self-worth, and forgive herself for her failures and mistakes.
In Euphoria, the meaning of Rue’s name reflects the pensive nature of the character. “Rue” means:
“verb (used with object), rued, ru·ing. 1. to feel sorrow over; repent of; regret bitterly:to rue the loss of opportunities. 2. to wish that (something) had never been done, taken place, etc.: I rue the day he was born. verb (used without object), rued, ru·ing. 3. to feel sorrow, repentance, or regret.noun 4. sorrow; repentance; regret. 5. pity or compassion.”[1]
In episode 2, Rue has a flashback when she picked up a shard of broken glass, pointed it at her mother and threatened to kill her.[2] Rue expresses regret for causing both her mother and sister pain, “If I could be a different person, I promise you, I would. Not because I want it, but because they do. And therein lies the catch.”[3] Not once does Rue ever say that she wants to get clean for the potential change that she wants to see actualized in herself, and the reason is because Rue does not feel that she is worthy of change and self-improvement. By constantly placing the emphasis on what others want for her, Rue incessantly sets herself up for failure. This attitude also allows Rue to blame others for her failures instead of accepting her disease of addiction and trying to change. When Rue’s drug dealer Fez refuses to give Rue any more drugs because he realizes that it is slowly killing Rue and putting her life in danger, Rue lashes out at him and blames him for her addiction. After he closes the door in her face, Rue screams,
“Fez, you’re full of shit man! You know you make your living off of selling drugs to teenagers, and now all of a sudden you wanna have a fuckin’ moral high ground. You’re a fucking drop out drug dealer. You know that? You’re a fucking drop out drug dealer with seven functioning fucking brain cells. Open the door! Fuck you, Fez—Ok! Are you doing this because you care about me? If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have sold me the fucking drugs in the first place…You fucking ruined my life.”[4]
Although Fez certainly aided in Rue’s addiction, Rue had been abusing drugs long before Fez started selling to her, and initially started using drugs after her father was diagnosed with cancer and she was forced to take care of him at night (her mom had to take two jobs to cover the medical bills).[5] Out of sheer curiosity, Rue took her dad’s pills as he was sleeping, and this engendered a relentless cycle of addiction. Rue has a pattern of placing the blame elsewhere, as she says in episode 1, “I didn’t built this system, nor did I fuck it up”[6] to casually dismiss her drug addiction. In episode 1, Rue mentions the circumstances of her birth, saying,
“I was once happy, content, sloshing around in my own private, primordial pool. Then one day, for reasons beyond my control, I was repeatedly crushed, over and over by the cruel cervix of my mother Leslie. I put up a good fight, but I lost—for the first time, but not the last. I was born three days after 9/11. My mother and father spent two days in the hospital, holding me under the soft glow of the television, watching the towers fall over and over again—until the feelings of grief gave way to numbness.”[7]
Rue literally rues the day she was born; she expresses that she felt happy being insulated and protected from the outside world when she was still inside of her mother. Rue’s first moment of birth, despite not knowing what was occurring at the time, was seeing death and destruction. She sees this as a sign that her life was destined to be miserable and is the start of her pessimistic perspective that life is a series of tragic circumstances beyond her control. Rue even expresses resentment toward her mom for giving birth to her, blaming her “cruel cervix” for pushing her out into a chaotic and violent world. In episode 1, when Rue goes to a party and talks to Fez, she explains,
“I remember when I was 11 years old, and it was a couple of months after my dad got diagnosed and we got the results back from the prognosis, and it was really good. It was like 80/20, and we decided to celebrate, so we decided to get a bunch of Chinese food. I remember that night, I was laying between my parents in bed, and, uh, all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. It was like, there was no more air left in the world. And I was gasping, and I was panicking, and they called the ambulance and I thought it was like, an allergic reaction or some shit, and then when I got to the hospital, they gave me liquid valium. Yeah, to calm me down. And when it hit me, I thought—this is it. This is the feeling I’ve been searching for my entire life, for as long as I can remember, because suddenly, the world went quiet. And I felt safe…in my own head.”[8]
Rue’s reliance on drugs stem from her inability to deal with the tragedy that life sometimes unfairly and undeservedly throws at innocent people. Rue was born into a world that wasn’t quiet, facing the aftermath of the harsh and tragic attacks that occurred on 9/11. Rue constantly tries to search for meaning behind the causes of things, and she turns to drugs because the comfort that they bring supersede her lack of answers from the world or from a higher power. Rue tells Ali (Rue’s mentor, a recovering drug addict and her sponsor at her Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings) that she often has “racing thoughts”, and drugs seem to be a temporary solution as they suppress these thoughts.[9] When a therapist tells Mr. Bennett and Leslie that a young Rue may have OCD, ADD, General Anxiety Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder,[10] she tries to search for a reason. Rue says, “It’s not like I was physically abused, or I had a shortage of clean water, or was molested by a family member. So explain this shit to me.”[11] OCD and Bipolar Disorder are often genetic and do not have to be a result of anything external;[12] Rue struggles to understand the nature of her mental illness and becomes obsessed with finding out why she has to struggle with them because she is unable to equip herself with the right tools[13] to face and at least try to conquer them.[14]
Rue’s battle with drug addiction also has roots in the unsympathetic, cold, and compassionless nature of the world and how others mistreat her. Virtually no one seems to have any empathy for Rue, and her classmates often mock her instead of trying to understand the nature of her disease. In episode 2, when Rue is in a school assembly and is forced by one of her teachers to tell her classmates about her summer (which was mostly spent in rehab), Rue has flashbacks about threatening her mother with a piece of glass and about her sister finding her overdosed and unconscious. Rue becomes increasingly nervous, begins to have a panic attack, and subsequently runs into the bathroom in a frenzy. Instead of expressing concern, her classmates mock her, with one classmate saying, “I bet it’s brain damage.”[15] Immediately after, Rue is seen in the bathroom stall taking out drugs to calm herself down. When Rue returns to school from a summer of rehab, her classmates make caustic jabs toward her addiction, remarking, “I thought you were dead”, to which Rue responds by flipping them off.[16] One of Rue’s classmates, Nate Jacobs, tried to sexually assault her a few years prior at their high school during the Freshman Formal.[17] He turns his attention to Rue’s friend, Jules, and starts to harass and blackmail her. When Rue finally confronts him, Nate mocks Rue’s drug addiction, saying that “I know over the years you’ve lost some brain cells.”[18] Even the classmates who do not outright condemn Rue fail to understand her and still (unintentionally) disrespect her struggles. For example, a college friend and former classmate of Rue’s, Christopher McKay, tells his friend Nate Jacobs that “you know, my mom is real OCD, she notices the smallest shit: a little scratch on the wall, the dishes are out of order.”[19] However, this is a common misconception of OCD and disrespects the horror that people who actually have OCD, like Rue, have to experience: “OCD is one of those terms that some people misuse as a way to describe people who like things super-clean or arranged just so. But if you have the actual condition that’s Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, how it negatively affects your life is very real.”[20] For example, Rue is seen as a child obsessively counting the lights on the ceiling of her family’s house, and when she is interrupted by her mother, she restarts the count again. Her mother’s interruptions cause her to break down in tears.[21] Rue seems to do her counting ritual to ease her constant anxiety. When drugs cannot calm her or are unavailable to her, she needs to use other methods such as counting to slow her mind down. Even as a seventeen-year-old, Rue repeats the same obsessive counting when she becomes extremely anxious. In episode 7, as Rue wracks her brain trying to solve a case that involves Nate Jacobs blackmailing her friend Jules, Rue paces diagonally in an alleyway, and repeatedly counts out loud to six.[22] A common theme of OCD is counting, in which the symptom is that “you say numbers in a certain pattern out loud or to yourself.”[23] Actress Lena Dunham of the show Girls elaborates on the misconception of OCD:
“I really wanted to make sure that the OCD stuff felt realistic, it’s something that I’ve struggled with and so I feel as though I’m able to shed a certain kind of light on the experience and do something that doesn’t necessary feel like a cookie cutter idea of OCD. One of my greatest pet peeves is when people go like, ‘I just love it when my room’s clean, I’m so OCD’—and it’s like actually, no, you’re just a neat person and not a slob animal. My hope is that, even though not everybody counts to eight, everybody has had that feeling of wanting to hide a thought process that felt shameful to them.”[24]
Indeed, OCD often makes the sufferer feel shameful because of the racing and dark thoughts that it produces in the mind, and the sufferer may also feel powerless as they are unable to control these thoughts. Rue’s mother tries to comfort her by telling her that she is not alone in having mental illness and compares her to famous individuals with similar struggles such as Vincent van Gogh and Sylvia Plath.[25] Like Rue, van Gogh and Plath are now believed to have suffered from bipolar disorder and both committed suicide.[26] In the Trouble episode, Rue has a discussion with Ali in which the latter mentions the alternative rock band Nirvana and the depression that was a constant theme in their music. The lead singer and lead guitarist of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, also suffered from bipolar disorder, drug addiction, and committed suicide.[27] Similarly to Rue, Cobain expressed feelings of shame in regards to circumstances beyond his control (such as the divorce of his parents) that even predated his drug addiction and lasted throughout his entire life.[28] Studies substantiate that many people with bipolar disorder or depression often have a high rate of suicide and substance abuse issues, “People with bipolar disorder are at a greater risk for suicide if they are not getting treatment. The National Mental Health Association reports that 30%-70% of suicide victims have suffered from a form of depression”,[29] and “[S]ubstance use disorders (SUDs) are extremely common in bipolar I and II disorders. The lifetime prevalence of SUDs is at least 40% in bipolar I patients.”[30] Since Rue sees that people who suffer from mental illness (such as bipolar disorder) like her often take their own lives, she believes that she will suffer the same fate. She tells Ali that, “I just don’t plan on being here that long.”[31] The ultimate irony of Rue’s drug addiction is that she uses drugs to protect herself from the cruelty and torment that runs rampant in the world, yet drugs have led Rue to unfairly condemn and judge herself as a cruel person who torments her loved ones.
Rue’s relationship with Jules is derived mostly from the high that Jules gives Rue, which is the same feeling that Rue experiences from drugs. Rue is constantly chasing a feeling instead of facing reality; Jules gives Rue the same feeling of numbness that drugs provide. When Rue first meets Jules, they bike back to Jules’ house and their very first experience together is doing drugs. They take the drugs on the bed and then hold each other under the protection of the covers, where this exchange occurs, “
Rue: Do you feel anything?
Jules: Do you feel anything?
Rue: No. I’m just so happy.”[32]
Just as Rue describes that she felt “happy” in her mother’s womb before being exposed to life, and Rue expresses a feeling of happiness when she was given liquid valium to negate her nerves about her dad’s cancer diagnosis, Rue’s relationship with Jules is rooted in the same form of comfort, numbness, and safety which shield her and provide a false and temporary sense of security from the cruelty of life. Further, when Rue meets Jules afterwards at school in Episode 2, Rue says, “It was the first day of school, my heart was racing. I had made a new best friend and for the first time since getting out of rehab, I was feeling good about the world.”[33] At this point, Rue has just met Jules two days ago,[34] yet still refers to her as a “new best friend”. Best friends cannot be new; friendships take time to develop and grow. Later, when Rue goes to Fez’s house to purchase more drugs, she meets a drug dealer named Mouse who forces Rue to take Fentanyl. When Fez pays off the dealer to leave Rue alone, Rue tells Fez in her drug-induced high, “I’m so happy”.[35] The statement “I’m so happy” are almost the exact same words Rue tells Jules when she first meets her, and they use drugs together. When Rue meets Ali to talk about her struggles, she reiterates her belief that Jules is her best friend and makes her feel good, “
Ali: Does the way in which you feel about [Jules] remind you of anything?
Rue: What do you mean?
Ali: You know, like the obsession, feelings, the withdrawal.
Rue: What, like drugs?
Ali: Bingo [while nodding].
Rue: Ok, but this is a good thing.
Ali: Didn’t drugs feel real good the first time you tried them?[36]
Indeed, in episode 5, Rue describes her relationship with Jules by comparing her best friend to Fentanyl:
“Nothing in the world comes close to opiates. A good ES 7.5 Vicodin, but honestly, the best thing I’ve ever had is Fentanyl. There is not a thing on the planet Earth that comes close to Fentanyl, except Jules. Jules is a close second. And you know what would be better—Jules and Fentanyl. But I can’t do both, because Jules won’t have me. So for now, I’ll choose Jules.”[37]
Rue’s description of Jules is very revealing because it corroborates Ali’s belief that Jules is just another drug to Rue; albeit a new and interesting one. However, Rue does not even consider Jules to be the best drug in her life, as she states Fentanyl gives her a better feeling. Since Jules threatens to stop being Rue’s friend if the latter continues using drugs, Rue decides to stay clean for Jules temporarily. Once Jules either disappoints her or their relationship somehow ends, Rue knows that she will inevitably return to drugs. Thus, she says “for now, I’ll choose Jules.” Interestingly, Rue says that she will “choose” Jules, yet still manages to place the blame on Jules when she relapses.[38] Rue believes that Jules was cheating on her, despite that they never discussed in full detail the status of their relationship.[39] In an exchange with Ali, he exposes Rue’s lies and misconceptions about her relationship status with Jules, “
Rue: I still blame Jules for all this shit.
Ali: Why?
Rue: Because I was clean. And I was like gonna stay clean. And for the most part I was pretty happy, and fuckin’ Jules.
Ali: Wait—wait, you were gonna stay clean?
Rue: Yeah.
Ali: With pills in your room?
Rue: I wasn’t taking them.
Ali: You were saving them.
Rue: Yeah.
Ali: Even though you just said you were gonna stay clean.
Rue: But—
Ali: And the relapsing was Jules’ fault?
Rue: Ali, you don’t know what she did to me.
Ali: You’re right, I don’t.
Rue: She cheated on me, when I was sober, she literally cheated on me.
Ali: I didn’t know that.
Rue: Exactly.
Ali: I thought you two were just friends.
Rue: No.
Ali: Ah. When did it shift?
Rue: Uh, the night at the carnival she came over and we like kissed a whole bunch.
Ali: Ok, but when did it become a relationship?
Rue: I just told you—that night.
Ali: It became a relationship that night?
Rue: Yeah.
Ali: So it wasn’t just kissing—you two talked about being together?
Rue: What? That’s so weird.
Ali: What?
Rue: Why would we talk about it?
Ali: Because that’s how people get into relationships, Rue, they talk about it.
Rue: [scoffs] I mean, we said “I love you” a lot.
Ali: I say “I love you” to my barber.
Rue: Ok, yeah, but you don’t make out with your barber.
Ali: Even if I did, my barber might just assume it was a casual thing.[40]
Rue accuses Jules of being unfaithful when Jules hooks up with an old friend.[41] The truth is that Rue projects her own unfaithfulness onto Jules, as Rue can be said to be in a love triangle with Jules and whichever drug she prefers at the time. When Rue describes Jules’ supposed betrayal of her by leaving town without her, Rue says,
“She lied to me and manipulated me. Like the whole thing at the train station, her tryna get me to run away with her even though I was, um, scared and um, didn’t have my medications, kinda fucked up and selfish. I didn’t think she was actually like gonna go, like leave me.”[42]
However, Rue fails to mention that Jules only leaves her at the train station when Rue refuses to go with her, despite Jules’ pleading. Rue reverses her choice to get on the train at the last minute, even though the decision to leave town was Rue’s idea and was agreed upon by both parties.[43] Show creator Sam Levinson states that “Rue’s perspective is very much Rue’s perspective, and she’s not always accurate in her retelling of things, and she is limited in her ability to understand the emotional wellbeing of other characters.”[44] Also, Rue tells Ali that right from the moment she decided to get clean for Jules, she secretly had a stash of drugs “for emergency purposes” that she chose to hold onto when things inevitably turned for the worse. Ali tells Rue, “So you never stood a chance.”[45]
Rue’s relationship with Ali reveals the most depth and truth about Rue because Ali can detect when Rue is lying; Ali gets Rue to talk honestly and freely (which is something she does not typically do when conversing with most characters). When Rue gives a speech at NA about an overdose and lies to the group about being sober for sixty days, Ali confronts her outside, “
Ali: Yo, sixty days, no small feat.
Rue: Thanks.
Ali: Very moving stuff.
Rue: Thank you.
Ali: Can I ask you something? How’d you survive that OD?
Rue: What do you mean?
Ali: I mean, somebody had to save your life, right?
Rue: It was my sister.
Ali: Older or younger?
Rue: Younger. Um, I have to get home.
Ali: Like twelve-thirteen?
Rue: I don’t really understand what the point-
Ali: Curiosity.
Rue: Yeah, she was thirteen.
Ali: That’s some heavy shit. But hey, we all do some bad shit in our lives right? It comes with the territory. But man, man, man—you just got me thinking about what that does to a thirteen-year-old, a thirteen-year-old kid, who finds her big sister overdosed. What that moment must do to somebody—how it affects the rest of their lives, you know. How it affects their ability to trust. Makes it hard for them to get close to people, relationships. Makes it hard for them to fall in love—living with the fear that at any moment, the rug could be ripped out from under them and they lose everything. Especially the people that they love. You ever think about that? Yeah, probably fucked up for life. But hey, you’re gonna have to make peace with that, just like you’re gonna have to make peace with the fact that you could be responsible for some shit like that and then get up in front of a whole group of people who are struggling with the same issues, and lie about being clean. You know what I’m saying?
Rue: No, I don’t know what you’re talking about [looks away].
Ali: Listen, young blood. You’re playing pool with Minnesota Fats.
Rue: Who is Minnesota Fats?
Ali: The greatest muthafuckin’ pool player that ever lived.
Rue: Ok.
Ali: I’m Ali. [gives Rue his card]. Lemme know when you wanna stop tryna kill yourself—and eat some pancakes.”[46]
Ali sees through Rue’s lies because he sees himself in Rue; Ali also understands the trauma and pain that Rue caused her sister and mother is reflective of the trauma that Ali caused his own wife and daughters. In a later meeting, Ali admits to Rue that decades ago, during his years of drug addiction when he was married, he got into a heated argument with his wife one day and physically beat her. His two daughters witnessed the beating and the youngest one, Marie, never forgave him. Ali lived several years in shame because he repeated a cycle of abuse that began with Ali’s own father beating his mother, which he considered an insidious action that he swore he would never copy.[47] Ali sees his chance at helping Rue as a way of redemption; Sam Levinson clarifies that “Ali is trying to make up for things that he’s lost and he’s trying to correct mistakes that he’s made in the past.”[48] Ali’s actor, Colman Domingo, notes that Ali considers Rue almost like a “surrogate daughter.”[49] Likewise, Rue considers Ali as a surrogate father. Ali’s mentorship of Rue and wise advice helps her to confront her issues of drug addiction (which began when she felt that she failed and betrayed her own biological father by taking his prescribed drugs for the cancer that slowly took his life). Ali helps Rue to realize that her disease of addiction paralleled her father’s physical disease of cancer, and that Rue should not continue to blame herself; a disease can be something that corrupts the body or the mind. Ali tells Rue,
“You didn’t come out of the womb an evil person. You, Rue, came out of the womb a beautiful baby girl, who unbeknownst to her, had a couple of wires crossed. So when you tried drugs for the first time it set something off in your brain that’s beyond your control. And it isn’t a question of willpower. It’s not about how strong you are—you’ve been fighting a losing game since the first day you got high. So you can destroy your life, you can fuck your little sister’s head up, you can abuse and torture and take for granted your mama and sit here and look me in the eye and say as calm and cool as can be, as cool as a cucumber, ‘Ima keep using drugs.’ Heh. That is the disease of addiction. It is a degenerative disease. It is incurable. It is deadly. And it is no different than cancer. And you got it. Why? Luck of the draw. But hey—but the hardest part of having the disease of addiction—aside from having the disease—is that no one in the world sees it as a disease. They see you as selfish—they see you as weak, they see you as cruel, they see you as destructive—they think, ‘Why should I give a fuck about her if she doesn’t give a fuck about herself or anybody else? Why does this girl deserve my time, my patience, my sympathy, right? If she wants to kill herself, let her.’”[50]
Ali tells Rue, “drugs change who you are as a person.”[51] The tight hold that drugs and mental illness have on Rue does not mean that she cannot control the trajectory of her own life. Rather, it means that Rue will often fail and make awful decisions under the influence of mania, depression, anxiety, or drugs, but the important aspect is that Rue at least tries to change and does not hold onto feelings of self-hate because of her failures or the pain her inevitable mistakes cause others. Although other people love and care for Rue (such as her sister Gia, her mother Leslie, her friend Fez, her oldest friend Lexi, her “new best friend” Jules, and her mentor Ali), she cannot progress or ultimately change until she finally frees herself from the burden of remorse and shame and reconciles that her past actions do not define her. Psychologist Dr. Christian Conte says of shame,
“There are levels of awareness, and there are levels of consciousness that we have. The lowest level of consciousness we have is something called shame. One of the reasons why shame is one of the lowest levels of consciousness is this: When people live in shame, they act out of shame…When people have said to themselves or believed that they were a no-good piece of nothing, then there is not much to stop them from continuing to hurt others. Why not? After all, they have nothing to lose.”[52]
Outside of the NA meeting where Ali confronts Rue for lying, there is a large cross that looms to the side of the building.[53] Right before Rue calls Ali, she gets into an argument with her drug dealer Fez because he has a change of conscience; he refuses to open the door for her or give her any more drugs. As Rue bangs on the door and insults him, a picture of Jesus[54] is shown on the side of Fez’s door. When Rue leaves and calls Ali for help, she stops in the middle of the alley where a horizontal ray of sunlight intersects a vertical line in the alley, forming a cross.[55] This imagery indicates that Rue’s relationship with Ali will help lead her on a path of redemption and that her sobriety will play an essential role on this path. Although Rue is an atheist and Ali is a Muslim,[56] the imagery of the cross and Jesus is largely a redemption story[57] and shows that Rue does have the power to change. Rue tells Ali that she feels the universe is punishing her for “being a piece of shit my entire life. Stealing from my mom, hitting her in the face. I picked up a piece of glass and I pointed it at my mom and I threatened to kill her. That is some unforgivable shit.”[58] However, Ali clarifies to Rue that the only way she can reach sobriety is by understanding that she must accept forgiveness and shun shame, and he tells her,
“Maybe if I was some random ass classmate of yours with no life experience and I heard that you picked up a piece of glass and threatened your mama, I’d be like, ‘Ooh—that’s unforgivable.’ But the more you believe that, the sicker it makes you because every time you do something unforgivable, you think, why change? I’m just a piece of shit. I better keep going. What’s the difference now? Without realizing that forgiveness is the key to change…Your punishment, the sentence you give yourself is that you, Rue Bennett, are beyond forgiveness. That punishment is way too harsh and it’s also way too easy. It allows you to keep doing exactly what you’re doing without changing because you deserve it, there is no hope. You’re beyond forgiveness—so you may as well just fuck the fuck off forever and go die in the gutter because that’s what this girl—this piece of shit deserves. This is why the world keeps getting worse. People keep doing shit that we deem unforgivable and in return they decide there’s no reason to change. So now you’ve got a whole bunch of people running around who don’t give a fuck about redemption.”[59]
Rue’s last name, Bennett, means “blessed”.[60] Although Rue considers herself to be cursed with the strife that mental illness and drug addiction have plagued her with, she is also “blessed” with people who care about her and with a mentor who helps her gain some self-worth. Rue’s last name is antithetical to her first name and substantiates one of the myriad ways in which Rue is a paradoxical, self-contradictory figure. Rue’s biggest struggle and her worst lie is believing that she does not have the power to redeem herself. Ali enlightens Rue and guides her on her path to self-forgiveness and self-respect. As Ali tells Rue, her only path to find forgiveness starts with sobriety. Drugs are the antithesis of revolution; they have changed Rue for the worse and engendered in her a physical, mental, and moral decay. However, the “revolution”[61] that Ali tells Rue that she needs is a positive, transformative power in which she can finally believe that she is worthy of sobriety. Sobriety scares Rue because it causes her to see the world as the ugly place that it is. Ali tells Rue that “the beauty” of drug addiction is the lie that it tells you, “No matter what’s going on in the world, and no matter what’s going on in your life, everything is gonna be OK.[62] Ali has struggled with drug addiction, shame, and doing what he considered “unforgivable” things just like Rue; it is precisely Ali’s demons and imperfections that make him the perfect mentor for Rue. Through talking to and empathizing with someone who has done “more unforgivable”[63] things than she has and still overcome them through self-forgiveness and redemption, Rue can finally begin to accept the idea that she can also change like her mentor.
Rue’s problems with drug addiction and mental illness have cost her unbearable pain and sadness, but she falsely believes that her issues and the decisions influenced by these issues define who she is as a person. Through her friendship with Ali, Rue begins to at least have the idea that she can be redeemed and ultimately reach sobriety. Rue’s journey to redemption starts with her eradication of self-doubt and self-hatred. Although she will always suffer from mental illness and drug addiction, and quite possibly relapse, Rue can look to the future with more hope that no matter what happens she must try to change and never give up on trying.
[1] “Rue.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/rue. Accessed February 18, 2021.
[2] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[3] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[4] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 3. 2019.
[5] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.
[6] Ibid. E1.
[7] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[8] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[9] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[10] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[11] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[12] Bhandari, Smitha. “Bipolar Disorder & Suicide: Statistics, Signs, and Prevention.” WebMD, WebMD, 20 July 2020, www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/guide/bipolar-disorder-suicide: “Bipolar disorder seems to often run in families and there appears to be a genetic part to this mood disorder…Experts believe bipolar disorder is partly caused by an underlying problem with specific brain circuits and the functioning of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters.” Accessed February 18, 2021.
[13] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[14] Ibid. Trouble.
[15] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.
[16] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.
[17] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[18] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 8. 2019.
[19] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[20] Bhandari, Smitha. “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Symptoms: 10 Signs You Have It.” WebMD, WebMD, 19 Feb. 2020, www.webmd.com/mental-health/understanding-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-symptoms. Accessed February 20, 2021.
[21] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[22] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.
[23] Bhandari, Smitha. “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Symptoms: 10 Signs You Have It.” WebMD, WebMD, 19 Feb. 2020, www.webmd.com/mental-health/understanding-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-symptoms. Accessed February 18, 2021.
[24] Dunham, Lena; Rubinshteyn, Steve; Schoeneman, Deborah. Girls, Season 2. Episode 8. 2013.
[25] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019
[26] Mondimore, Francis Mark. Bipolar Disorder: a Guide for You and Your Loved Ones. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2020.
[27] Chalasani, Radhika. “Famous People with Bipolar Disorder.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 11 Apr. 2018, www.cbsnews.com/pictures/famous-people-celebrities-bipolar/. Accessed February 18, 2021.
[28] Fu, Marilyn, et al. “Remembering Kurt Cobain: 25 Years Later.” Life Magazine, 29 Mar. 2019, pp. 11–11.
[29] Bhandari, Smitha. “Bipolar Disorder & Suicide: Statistics, Signs, and Prevention.” WebMD, WebMD, 20 July 2020, www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/guide/bipolar-disorder-suicide. Accessed February 20, 2021.
[30] Cerullo, Michael A, and Stephen M Strakowski. “The Prevalence and Significance of Substance Use Disorders in Bipolar Type I and II Disorder.” Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, BioMed Central, 1 Oct. 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2094705/.
[31] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[32] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.
[33] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.
[34] Ibid. E2.
[35] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 3. 2019.
[36] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 4. 2019.
[37] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 4. 2019.
[38] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[39] Ibid. Trouble.
[40] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[41] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 7, 8. 2019.
[42] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[43] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 8. 2019.
[44] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[45] Ibid. Trouble.
[46] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 3. 2019.
[47] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[48] Ibid. Trouble.
[49] Ibid. Trouble.
[50] Ibid. Trouble.
[51] Ibid. Trouble.
[52] “Dr. Conte: Anger Management Technique: Getting Angry Without Knowing Why”. Conte, Christian. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIh_H98pNKY
[53] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 3. 2019.
[54] Ibid. E3.
[55] Ibid. E3.
[56] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[57] “Cross.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/cross?s=t. Accessed February 20, 2021.
[58] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[59] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[60] “Bennett Family History.” Bennett Name Meaning & Bennett Family History at Ancestry.com®, www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=bennett. Accessed February 18, 2021.
[61] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.
[62] Ibid. Trouble.
[63] Ibid. Trouble.