Euphoria Season 2 Episode 6 Review

Story posted February 25, 2022 in Arts & Entertainment by Erell Williams.

Euphoria’s sixth episode of its second season, “A Thousand Little Trees of Blood,” is definitely like its title and builds up on a lot of seemingly inconsequential moments to take huge steps in the series.

This episode explored the theme of forgiveness while hinting at the characters’ senses of self-awareness. It allows viewers to ask questions about who deserves forgiveness formed by unseen perspectives.

Throughout the first half of the episode, viewers get the chance to see characters like Leslie, Marsha and Gia express their feelings about the not-so-beloved main cast. These unusual accounts of what different characters are like, from people who are the closest to them, are exciting to delve into because viewers finally get to hear what they already think on-screen.

A lot of the dialogue in this episode almost mirrors thoughts that viewers have and pushes towards Levinson’s goal to create “empathy” for the characters.

During this episode, Ali's character plays a big role in guiding the thoughts of viewers and what is important in the episode. Like most of the side characters, Ali is just as flawed yet rational and full of wisdom, and they pose themselves as supporting characters that are there to genuinely help.

Most of the episode felt as though characters were confessing their deepest thoughts and feelings towards each other back to back and somehow at slow pacing.

A nice development was having characters verbalize that they understand their images.

Rue was the first to express what her character is like from her point of view and how she believes she is perceived and it almost makes watchers take a step back, coming from the last episode. Nate also gets the chance to self-reflect but instead of taking the same path as Rue, who is attempting to reach out for forgiveness through change, he seems to try to take on comfort that people may never like him because of what he’s done and will continue to do.

One of the more frustrating things that Euphoria has been lacking this season is development for Kat. The originally striking girl that was growing into her person seems more like a less interesting background character included in scenes just to reach the episode’s required length. Not only has her character not made any progress since the beginning of the season, but her lines don’t appear to have any meaning towards her character arc.

Another potential issue is that the cinematography of this episode wasn’t very eye-catching in comparison to other episodes. Most shots consisted of typical close-ups and cuts aside from the end scene which has a unique transition to black. Some of the shots were also wonky when trying to place emphasis on certain parts of a scene or emphasize character emotions.

It is possible that the episode being off visually was intentional because the episode primarily focused on connections, symbolism and story prep.

The episode managed to feel tame despite the many extreme moments that the characters had to endure.
Strangely enough, at this point in the show, it looks like the directions of the characters are becoming clearer, however, it won’t be a shock if there are last-minute changes that throw the characters off course again.

This episode wasn’t outstanding, but it does piece together a lot of character development.

Erell Williams is a first-year majoring in broadcasting journalism. To contact her, email exw5303@psu.edu.

About the Contributors

Erell Williams's photo

Erell Williams

First Year /

Erell Williams is a first-year student, and her intended majors are Broadcasting Journalism and Chinese. She grew up in Douglassville, Pennsylvania. She is a member of the CommRadio News and Arts department. To contact her, email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).