'Euphoria' Special Part 2 Spoilers: Jules returns earlier on HBO Max, but why is she being locked up?
After Rue's gut-wrenching discourse with Ali (Coleman Domingo) at the local diner on Christmas Eve, one can imagine what the holidays would have been like in a post-Covid 19 climate of 'Euphoria'. With Jules' (Hunter Schaffer) departure still leaving her in a wreck, Zendaya's Rue finds strength in talking it out with the new gentle, father figure-esque person in her life, Ali. But has Jules found someone similar? What happened to her after the night she got on the train? Did Rue and Jules actually live together? Or is Rue being an unreliable narrator again? How come she and Jules have the same view of the 'what could have been's then? Expect all of these answers to drop in the second half as the winter special rolls out. Read on to find out how you can catch it early!
The first episode, 'Trouble Don't Last Always' saw Rue get real and open up a lot of things we saw in Season 1. Her conversation with Ali over pancakes in the dark of the night proved Rue really is as much of an unreliable narrator as she has always claimed. Turns out the lip tattoos never really happened, they just talked about it and that was all. Really makes us wonder just how much of their 'Euphoria' journey has happened in real-time.
We know for a fact that Jules running away from Rue, her father, and the rest of the town was real, as the official trailer of the episode discloses life hasn't been peachy to her since she left either. Much like Rue, Jules too keeps fondly picturizing a life they could have lived. Much like Rue's alt-world fantasy, in Jules' segment, she too imagines a life where she has indulged in fashion and still living with Rue in their happily ever after. Rue's version of the dreamy alt-space saw her still clinging on to her addiction while successfully hiding it from Jules. And although Jules' bits of the dream don't hint at anything about Rue's relapse, we sure know it was one of the reasons she had run away.
The trailer also hints at Jules deconstructing her recent past — both in Rue's town and the little escapes she has taken from the shackles of Nate Jacobs' menacing torture. Her situation is in jeopardy anyway because Maddie Perez has the CD that has Nate's father Cal's secret recording of his and the then-underage Jules' one night stand, but she most likely doesn't know that yet. Still, what she knows is enough to leave anybody scarred. Maybe we finally will learn why Jules isn't able to welcome Rue into her space the same way Rue did months ago, the very day the two had just made.
There are also other disturbing moments from the trailer, where Jules can be seen correlating incidents from her present to her past — especially that of her banging on a locked door out of frustration, the day her mom had gotten her admitted to a mental health facility for being a trans-kid. It was just Jules and her dad since then, and heartwarming as it was to watch her dad accept her and surround her with so much love and support, his desperation is clear in the trailer too. Is Jules okay or has she never been worse? At this point, it looks like Rue is handling this better than her, and that's saying something.
We don't know just how much of Jule's narration will be reliable, but anticipation picks up for Part 2 that is dropping earlier for HBO Max users. Initially scheduled to roll out on Sunday, January 24, on HBO, the network's newly initiated streaming portal will be bringing Part 2 of the 'Euphoria' special to fans earlier on Friday, January 22 itself, at 9 pm ET/6 pm PT. The episode will then go to the parent network channel and air on Sunday at the same time slot, only on HBO.