AT&T/HBO’s “Euphoria” is “More Deranged Than Before”

“More deranged than before.”

“Far too much nudity, sex, and violence.”

That’s what TV critics are saying about the season 2 premiere of Euphoria. And after PTC staff finished watching and analyzing every scene of this nihilistic program, we can confirm those comments are gruesomely accurate.

We could tell you about the more than 150 uses of the F-word (in just 1 hour). We could tell you about the multiple on-screen depictions of exposed breasts and male genitalia. We could tell you about the explicit sex scenes, the ultra-violence, and the mainstreaming of underage drinking and illicit drug use – but the numbers alone don’t tell half the story.

Here’s why you should really be concerned:

• HBO, which is owned by AT&T, is heralding the season 2 premiere of Euphoria as the “youngest-skewing drama series” on its digital streaming platform, HBO Max, where parents have less ability to monitor the content their kids are seeing, and have less ability to mitigate the dangerous messages.
• What HBO is not disclosing is how many of the show’s 2.4 million viewers are children. Based on news reports and social media commentary, that number appears to be significant.
• iNews reports, “Teens are watching after all… Online analysis of the second season’s trailers has been forensic and the show is huge on TikTok.”
• The Detroit News says, “The HBO series about messed-up teens in a messed-up world debuted waaaay back in 2019 and it was shocking. It likely featured more penis pictures than any show in TV history, its main character was in a constant haze of heavy drugs, there was rape, domestic violence, betrayal, robbery and hormones gone wild… But creator Sam Levinson always pushes further than most, shoving the desperation and disillusionment of a young and apparently mostly hopeless generation right in front of the camera.

The second season opens with a woman walking through a strip club, past naked women performing sex acts on patrons, and walking in on a man in the middle of having a sex act performed on him. She shoots the man in both legs and his exposed genitals are displayed repeatedly. That’s just in the opening minutes!

The next scene has the same woman instructing her ten-year-old grandson how to cut, measure and bag drugs for sale.

This is the dark, seedy, hopeless world of “Euphoria.”

This is the world series creator Sam Levinson inhabits -- and he wants to drag your teenager, and millions of other teens, into this darkness with him. Teens who, after months of isolation and social distancing, are already feeling disconnected from the world around them. Teens who are already struggling with unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, hopelessness and suicidal ideation.

HBO promised that this season would be even darker than season 1, and so far, we’re convinced it is.

Kids growing up in a world of drug addicts, deadly weapons, violent criminals, strip clubs, sexual deviants, rapists…. Does it happen? Tragically, yes. But is it the common experience of most teens? Absolutely not.

So why are Levinson, HBO and AT&T trying to mainstream this kind of behavior?

Worse, why are they presenting it to teens as normal?

You don’t see characters smoking cigarettes in movies or on television anymore, because somewhere along the way, responsible people recognized that children imitate what they see on screen. But depicting kids drinking, smoking pot, injecting heroin, and snorting lines of cocaine is somehow acceptable? Apparently AT&T and HBO think so.

I won’t go into any more detail here about the dangerous content on Euphoria, but we will be tracking content throughout the season and making it available here, so you can read and see for yourself what HBO is marketing to America’s teens. Please warn friends and family members about this dangerous threat to our children and grandchildren.

We will also be providing specific action items you can take to help push back against this grotesque darkness HBO calls “entertainment.” If we are going to succeed, it will require the collective voices of millions of Americans speaking up and speaking out together.