The At Home column appeared in the midst of the pandemic and most sever lockdown in Bulgaria. Through it, placescases.com tries to show that even at home one can be transferred to a different interesting place, or to an exciting event.

I continue the rubric with reviews about movies and series on online platforms, home-watchable. I already told you about Don’t Look Up on Netflix and And Just Like That on HBO, now I continue with a new season of an old TV series.

The TV series Euphoria are back on HBO with a second season and the favorite of all teens and children singer and actress, Zendaya, is back in it. However, I hasten to warn every parent. No matter how much your child asks you to give him/her access to Euphoria on HBO GO or to watch it on cable TV, because there is Zendaya in it, do not accept, unless he/she is already 17-18 years old. Why do I think so? Just keep reading below.

The second season of Euphoria with the first phrase and the first scene starts with profanity language, violence & gore, sex & nudity, drugs, smoking & alcohol, a bunch of other shocking things. In the world film base imdb most countries have declared PG- 18+, only Poland, unknown to me why and amazingly gave it PG- 12+.

For the first season, I can briefly say that it shows us the life of a group of high-school teens who seem to live in a nightmare. Everyone is mentally traumatized in one way or another, all of them are experiencing life dramas that they cause themselves in most cases. They live as if their superego has been amputated and they have completely subordinated their actions to their erupted Self. The film shows how disturbed human relationships in the family and society lead to disastrous results in adolescents. A sage had said that it takes a whole village to raise a child. In these series, the village is seriously damaged – there is no mutual help, everyone is in his own bubble of problems that they cannot deal with at all. The characters seem to be spinning in a spiral, which, like the 9 circles of hell only sends them to the next lower circle, without offering them an alternative to escape.

If you ask why a person even bothers to watch this thing, I immediately answer that the series are masterfully made. The camera seems to suck you in like an avatar, you enter to witness the action directly and experience the drama of the characters. The story is highly visual and brutally realistic, downright shocking and scandalous. The actors are extremely good. Zendaya, you may have seen her in The Greatest Showman, Dune, Spiderman, knows how to incarnate in all sorts of characters. Here is a teenager addicted to drugs, struggling with her problems and the constant temptation to relapse. Her only ray of light and hope is her best friend, another troubled teenager, with whom she starts a sexual relationship.

The other thing that is very impressive is the original makeup, as this is not about transforming make-up, but aesthetic makeup as a work of art.

Another reason to watch is that the creator of the film is Sam Levinson, who is the son of the legendary Barry Levinson. You don’t know who Barry Levinson is? If you’ve seen Rain Man with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman, Bugsy with Warren Beatty, The Wizard of Lies with Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer, The Perfect Storm with George Clooney, you know him. It is interesting to see if the talent here has been passed on immediately to the next generation, and not through a generation, as is claimed anecdotally. Sam recounts his own experiences because he himself had drug problems. Hence the realistic narrative in the film.

Apart from teen dramas and emotional traumas, the series has a bit of gangster, a bit of thriller, a bit of psycho, even humor, but it’s captivating and if you start watching, you don’t want to stop.

Intriguingly, the second season begins with a mega-cool drug-dealing grandmother, who, when asked by her drug counterparts why she brings a child at meetings with them (her grandson, a 6-7-year-old boy), explains that this is not a child, but her business partner.

I recommend trying Euphoria. It feels like a carbonated, slightly bitter drink, with very little sweet, peppery and sour at the same time, but from which you remain thirsty, drink more, however do not get drunk, rather sober up.

You don’t have to keep watching it if you feel it bothers you a lot, but it’s worth thinking about the exact reason for the latter. Is it only the harshness of the story and the vision that disturbs your mind or the fact that it has raised doubts in you whether you know your child well enough, especially if he/she is a teenager, whether you see them in their true light or just what you want to see or they want you to see. Don’t you just notice their shortcomings, which exacerbate your own fears and make you go crazy, and do you remember to remind yourself that this is the creature you love the most, before starting with your endless criticism? If the film has made you think about whether you communicate with them enough, whether you always offer them your attention unselfishly and non-judgmentally, with empathy, willingness to support, without excessive demands and most importantly with unconditional love for them, then it was worth to watch it.

Follow the section At Home, if you prefer to read unobtrusive, light and fast-readable reviews of movies and series, without deep analysis and claims for a vast knowledge in the field of the seventh art, that you wonder if you should give them a chance to watch.