In the fifth episode of Euphoria, “03 Bonnie and Clyde,” Billie Eilish’s “you should see me in a crown” plays as Katherine “Kat” Hernandez (Barbie Ferreira) walks through the mall. While it’s the first auditory instance of Eilish’s presence, her imprint on the show was already long ago born. Right at the same time Rue Bennett (Zendaya) is in the pilot.
Birth: it’s everyone’s first trauma, obviously, but Rue succinctly describes it with the detached ennui that only Gen Z can (as any Eilish song will reiterate). So it is that she narrates, “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.” Billie Eilish, instead, was born three months after 9/11. And it is this key historical detail of the first wave of Gen Z that cannot be underlooked in appraising the decided “the sky is falling, let’s get fucked up and dissociate as much as possible” nature of a generation born into the fall of the Empire.
So it is that the trauma of birth was compounded by this cataclysmic collective injury as her parents “[held her] under the soft glow of the television, watching those towers fall over and over again until the feelings of grief gave way to numbness.” It is this numbness that remains firmly planted within Rue’s worldview and psyche, though, at the same time, she’s one of those “I have to be numb because I feel everything” types. Ergo, the free-flowing use of drugs to secure that numbness. Which came after being diagnosed at an early age with OCD and bipolar disorder. As her mother tries to encouragingly point out, her “favorite,” Britney Spears, also has BPD, it doesn’t seem like much of a consolation. For this is still during a period in time when mental health issues are too stigmatized to find comfort in Britney shaving her head.
“Luckily,” by the time Rue reaches high school–the point where she finally catches us up to with her rueful reflections–it seems like you’re a freak for not having some kind of disorder. And even Eilish suffers from Tourette’s and depression. It’s all par for the course in a post-Empire world. Based on a short-lived Israeli series of the same name, the Euphoria of America appropriately takes place in Florida. Because, in pretty much every way, Florida is the full-tilt embodiment of all the cracked outness that is the United States (perhaps only Texas can otherwise best encapsulate everything this “great” nation represents). And as Rue describes to us how things are only at their “best” (which isn’t saying much) when she reaches that ultimate drug high where you’re thinking about absolutely nothing, and the anxiety just melts away, we can’t help but hear Eilish’s “xanny” as a sardonic description of that indelible (non-)feeling only a drug can give. And how, like Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer), the transgender M-to-F love interest/new best friend of Rue, the overall sentiment toward this sort of person is, as Billie phrased it, “I don’t wanna love someone who I’m gonna lose because they’re killing themselves.”
Which is why “xanny” isn’t an anti-drug song, per se, so much as Billie both cautioning against and questioning the “value” of Xanax and other drugs when measured against the potential tradeoff of death at such a young age. And so, she deems it more of her “be careful” drug song–the pragmatic Gen Z approach to telling youths not to not do drugs, but to not overdo them. It’s a far cry from the days of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign that Gen X had to endure before spawning Gen Z. Seeming to talk about both the opioids themselves and the company she’s keeping, Eilish croons with a muddled voice and skewed backing track (to conjure the effect of being trapped inside a cloud of secondhand smoke), “What is it about them?/I must be missing something/They just keep doin’ nothing/Too intoxicated to be scared.” Like Rue, she must “come down/Hurting/Learning.” And, just as Jules, she knows better than to believe that drugs are going to solve her issues like the panacea that many Gen Zers make “checking out” to be.
As other characters of the show are introduced through Rue’s interior perspective on them, we’re shown how requisite jock Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) is like the Bryce in 13 Reasons Why figure–everyone hates him, but still somehow needs him. And his long-time girlfriend, Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie), is no exception–in spite of how physically and verbally abusive he is toward her. Among her crew of “besties” is Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney), who is constantly targeted for being the weakest link, even by her own father, as shown in episode seven, “The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Pee While Depressed,” when he wakes her in the middle of the night to essentially rob the family of their china for drug money (after becoming addicted to fentanyl while in the hospital–again, it’s Florida… even if it’s filmed in California).
Another member in Maddy’s crew–though to a less interested extent–is Kat. After being told by Jules regarding her persistent state of virginity, “Bitch this isn’t the 80s, you need to catch a dick!,” Kat decides to up her game and just surrender to losing it. When that deflowering appears on the internet (another joy Gen Z must deal with that no generation before them ever really had to at such a pernicious level), Kat is quick to kibosh rumors that it’s her, threatening to rat out Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum for child pornography if they don’t delete it. Child pornography is, indeed, a very real threat within the world of these characters, and Nate, too, is able to manipulate that form of blackmail to get Jules to do something he wants. Of course, his psychotic and equally as closeted father, Cal Jacobs (Eric Dane, a long way from playing Jason Dean on Charmed), is a major contributing factor to why Nate himself is so loco en la cabeza.
Kat’s own “madness” stems from a childhood incident when she was eleven years old on a family vacation in Jamaica (Sandals). Specifically, she was bitten by a jellyfish and kind of realized the only thing she liked about the resort was the unlimited supply of virgin piña coladas that led to an inevitable weight gain which neither of her parents felt inclined to warn her about or guide her on. This, in turn, causes her elementary school boyfriend, Daniel, to break up with her. Or rather, make another female classmate write her a terse “thank u, next” note. Ergo, Kat’s most relatable Eilish songs are “all the good girls go to hell” and “wish you were gay.” Regarding that latter title, Kat’s decided “Gen Zness” in exercising her literary muscle by way of writing online fan fiction manifests in her most beloved story yet: the one that launched the Larry Stylinson conspiracy theory. A.k.a. that Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson of One Direction were more than just “band mates.” Yes, the fans more than “kind of” wished they were gay.
Eilish who wrote “8” from the perspective of someone whose heart she had broken, echoes the same burden placed on Jules’ shoulders as she contends with the notion of being Rue’s “end all, be all.” Especially in terms of finding a “replacement drug.” Eilish sings, “You said, ‘Don’t treat me badly’/But you said it so sadly/So I did the best I could/Not thinkin’ you would have left me gladly/I know you’re not sorry/Why should you be?/’Cause who am I to be in love/When your love never is for me?” No, instead Rue’s love is always, first and foremost, for the high. It’s a constant quest that also stems from her manic personality.
“ilomilo” is another very Rue-centric track, with its theme of codependent love (as based on the puzzle game in which Ilo and Milo must be reunited) mirroring the trajectory of the intense “Rules” (Rue and Jules) relationship. The lyrics, “I tried not to upset you/Let you rescue me the day I met you/I just wanted to protect you/But now I’ll never get to” mimic Rue’s own feelings of wanting to be “better” for Jules, rather than a “burden.” Although she wants to set Jules free, she can’t avoid her continued sense of neediness, as expressed in Eilish’s words, “Where did you go?/I should know, but it’s cold/And I don’t wanna be lonely/So show me the way home/I can’t lose another life.”
Meanwhile, we have occasional flashes of Maude Apatow, for no ostensible reason other than to reveal the ever-relevant benefits of entertainment industry nepotism and for her to serve as the “Sharon Cherski” role from My-So Called Life to iterate that Rue, like Angela Chase, no longer identifies with the person she was when she was still able to be childhood friends with Lexi Howard, Cassie’s less “noticeable” sister. Though she does make a more memorable impression as the all-around ultra supportive “being” for the various fuck-ups she orbits in episode six, “The Next Episode.” This one, of course, is arguably the most famous as a result of the many memorable Halloween costume visuals, including Jules doing what seems to be her best Claire Danes as Juliet impression (again with the Claire Danes parallels of this show). Cassie, too, makes Gen Z seem slightly more “in touch” with “old” pop culture by donning her best impression of Alabama “‘Bama” Whitman from True Romance, only to be, once again, made to feel like a slut by her boyfriend, Christopher McKay (Algee Smith).
The surreal final scene of episode eight, “And Salt the Earth Behind You,” is not only tailored to Zendaya’s theatrical acting abilities, but Eilish’s own sense of hyper-stylized drama sprung out of the mundane (including the music videos for “when the party’s over” and “xanny”). While this was the finale of season one, Levinson offered up two additional “specials” told from Rue and Jules’ point of view, respectively. That is, right after the heart-crushing denouement they both endured in “And Salt the Earth Behind You.”
“I’m not planning on being here very long,” Rue tells her new NA sponsor, Ali (Colman Domingo), at a diner. It’s a more isolationist “we’re fucked” Gen Z moment that echoes Billie Eilish scoffing at the idea of ever making it to eighty years old in her recent Vanity Fair video interview. Except, rather than being about self-destructive and suicidal tendencies, it was an obvious nod to the finite amount of resources Earth has left to give.
But still, this fatalistic air that Gen Z possesses more than any other about the short-lived lifespan they’re bound to have (see: Greta Thunberg) is a running motif in both Euphoria and the music of Eilish. In contrast, Jules, in her own “Richard Linklater episode” (the style of which has subsequently bled into Levinson’s Malcolm & Marie), tells their therapist that being trans has always been about “staying alive”–their desire to keep on going, in a manner they see as spiritual. Yet now they feel they’ve fallen prey to the same trap that most women do: tailoring who they are to what they think men want. Eilish, incidentally, has been consistent in never doing that, in her position as the twenty-first century ideal of a sexless pop star.
And so, in addition to “you should see me in a crown” being used earlier in season one, it should be no shock that an Eilish song created specifically for Euphoria (and featuring Rosalía) called “Lo Vas a Olvidar” materializes. Played long after the opening that allows Lorde’s (another Gen Z icon) “Liability” to set the stage for Jules’ fraught and defeated mindset as she has a tête-à-tête with her new therapist, it is this montage paired with the Eilish soundtrack that lends the perfect shade and depth to Jules’ entire dynamic with Rue as Eilish sings, “Can you let it go? Can you let it go?” It doesn’t seem likely that either will ever really be able to. And the name of a lead character being Rue is, of course, a poignant choice. As in: rueing the damn day you were ever born. Therefore lived to have your heart broken in so many ways, over and over again.
Yet, as Eilish puts it in her aptly titled “i love you” (surprisingly not called “ily”), the penultimate track on When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, “I love you and I don’t want to.” Because Gen Z knows better than anyone (especially of late) that feelings for another can become a real emotional bane. But hey, “Maybe we should just try/To tell ourselves a good lie” and become invested in those we know will only hurt us. Whether they mean to or not.
