![]() ![]() And even when Rue gets turned away from rehab at the last minute, that hopelessness is alleviated just a little by the image of two sisters sleeping soundly together. That night, Rue confesses that she doesn’t actually know anything about her, and despite how sad that revelation is, it’s the kind of regretful honesty that wraps the bandages on their relationship. Gia’s life is so inextricably tied with Rue’s so as to not be regarded as an individual, and yet they’ve never been so far apart. And when Ali asks how she feels, you get the sense that it’s a question she’s rarely heard. As the two cook dinner together, he comforts her by validating her anger and suspicions of Rue’s intentions to get clean. In a show so firmly rooted in Rue’s perspective, there’s unsurprisingly been little time devoted to Gia, a character who’s usually seen lingering behind doors and suffering in silence. Euphoria is often so focused on mining Rue for her pain, but I find there’s something equally potent in these in-between moments - that happiness is just within her grasp. But he’s already put it in the past, and quotes a verse from the Quran: “The Hour is certain to come, so we must forgive graciously.” He comes to visit later that night, and the Bennett family finds some semblance of normalcy once again around the dinner table. Ridden with guilt from their confrontation over the suitcase, she calls him to apologize. “Even if I got clean today, no one would forget the trauma of me not being clean,” Rue says, but one of the few people that can empathize is Ali. ![]() Rue’s recovery encapsulates more than just her suffering but the emotional and social consequences of her addiction. But Rue’s determination to do the smallest of tasks by herself is emblematic of the work that needs to be done before she learns that accepting help won’t cost her dignity. Tears cascade, snot dribbles, Zendaya is ACTING. At first, it’s tortuous - the effects of withdrawal grow so debilitating that she can’t muster the strength to open a Jolly Rancher. After she narrowly escapes Laurie in the last episode, she commits herself to go clean the painfully hard way - and the episode is bookended by moments that set the ever-shifting fortuity of her recovery. If “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird” was an explosion of pent-up anger and resentment, “A Thousand Little Trees of Blood” is the path to healing. It’s also seemingly done the magic of an overachieving student bringing up the average grade, as “A Thousand Little Trees of Blood” evens out the disproportionate allocations of screen time that have plagued this season. I wouldn’t call it “this generation’s Pulp Fiction,” but it was pretty great. ![]() ET/PT.Last week, Euphoria bought back all the goodwill it lost from discourse-fueled fans with an undeniably outstanding Rue-centric episode. ![]() The latest episode is slated to air on Sunday, February 13, 2022, at 9 p.m.
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