Like… okay i didn’t know that’s what we were doing #euphoria #euphoriaseason3 #samlevinson #zendaya #euphoriafinale

Is the ending of the Euphoria finale Republican propaganda or is it an ironic commentary on the state of America? I watched this entire hour and a half long podcast interview with Sam Levinson and read some other interviews, and it was all incredibly revealing as to what's actually going on here. First of all, Sam Levinson is a religious person. He is Jewish and in a recent interview with Tablet, which is a Jewish, I believe, right-leaning publication, he said things like, "Once I started living my life with the knowledge that God exists, life got better." In the podcast interview, he references the Garden of Eden, and given how much it's shown up in his work, it's clearly a big part of his life. And believing in God or a higher power, it does not make someone or a Republican or make this mega-propaganda. I hope we can have a nuanced conversation about this. But what I found interesting is that Sam Levinson is also on record saying that he doesn't involve himself in politics. He says things like, "I don't believe in politics, I believe in human beings." He has not publicly aligned himself with a political party or really spoken out about these things at all, and by extension, I think the show feels very removed from those things. But as we know, art is political regardless of how much the artist tries to distance themselves from that conversation. And I read this season as being very much about the failure of the American experiment, the fentanyl, Hollywood, the human trafficking, social media, and the interview is actually brought it up in that context, and Sam Levinson rejected the idea of America as a failed country. He put a lot of emphasis on Ali's stated belief that the future will be bright and said he doesn't really agree that things are worse now than they have been before, and that if we believe that, we will make it true. He described the final scene at the homestead not as bleak or pessimistic, but as a moment of grace for Ruth's character. And I want to read the homestead as this impossible ideal, right? Alamo even talks about the white picket fence in this episode. It's this picturesque image of the American dream, the nuclear families, something that the characters in the show don't have access to. But it's something that we've grown in society to see as either a conservative value or just a complete lie. But despite this, Ruth really wanted that. She began to believe in this ideal alongside her growing faith in God. And finding solace in God or a higher power is obviously something very common in AA or with recovering addicts in general. Ali was able to take her there in the end, in a sense, and it's a moment of catharsis for him, and I think there's a sad beauty in that. There's no mistaking that the themes of addiction here are very close and personal to Sam Levinson. He struggles with addiction himself. They lost Angus Cloud. There's clearly a feeling of anger at the fentanyl epidemic and the people responsible for it. But between Ali, like calling himself Martin McQueen and Lexi's monologue about the Bible, which at first I did think was like, okay, Lexi's been the traditionalist fingerwagon character this season. Maybe he's showing that she is going down a conservative pipeline or something. But it really was an earnest and that's not so much that Levinson is so strongly pushing his beliefs clearly and really like trying to sell you on how great the Bible is. Like I'm not against using religious metaphors or allegory or exploring those beliefs through art. Like, let's talk about it. I just think Sam Levinson views these things in such an abstract. Again, he has completely removed this from any political context at all, and he has so many contradictory beliefs like what he says contradicts what's in the text of the show, things that are in the show don't come together very well. I might not agree with his religious beliefs or the political implications of it, but there are also so many mismatched elements of dealing with these really real institutional failings with sex trafficking and fentanyl, but kind of hand-waving a lot of it when just not really giving a strong message at the end of the day about all the topics that you've dealt with this whole season and this whole show. And I was pulling harder for you for more than anyone. There were so many elements this season that I really enjoyed, and despite its flaws, I was hoping that this final episode would pull things together in a satisfying way. I don't think the American flag at the end is at least meant to be Magger Propaganda or this like Yago America symbol. I think that Levinson means it as an image for like the hope of the future of America, but I don't think this image of the homestead is cohesive at all with the rest of what the show has been grappling with. I've tried to make the best sense of it possible, but I just can't reconcile those things, so let me know what you guys think.