Girls Is The Perfect Euphoria Replacement That Keeps Getting Better

After years of anticipation, Euphoria season 3 has fallen painfully short of expectations. Though the many controversies of Euphoria season 3 — Sydney Sweeney’s kinky OnlyFans storyline, Zendaya’s grotesque bodypacking smuggling sequence, etc. — the show’s dramatic tonal shift has caused arguably the biggest backlash.

The HBO show used to be a boundary-pushing teen drama exploring what it means to come of age in a very online world. However, now that Euphoria‘s main characters are all aged up without the tether of high school keeping them together, the series feels like a generic drama about young adulthood that only stands out because of its provocative content.

Well, that and its phenomenal cast. Euphoria has made A-list stars out of Zendaya (Rue Bennett), Sydney Sweeney (Cassie Howard), and Jacob Elordi (Nate Jacob), and though they haven’t reached quite the same level of fame, Alexa Demie (Maddy Perez) and Maude Apatow (Lexi Howard) are just as strong and worth watching despite season 3’s weaker material.

Fortunately, for those disappointed by Euphoria season 3, HBO has another adult coming-of-age series that’s (almost) just as controversial and boasts an equally talented cast. Girls, Lena Dunham’s career-defining 2010s dramedy about the messy lives of young millennials, sparked many heated debates about everything from its unlikable main characters to its frequent graphic and sexual content.

No matter how a viewer feels about Girls, it’s impossible to ignore the cast’s phenomenal performances, including Dunham, a pre-Star Wars Adam Driver, and the woefully underrated Zosia Mamet. However, unlike Euphoria, the cast of Girls was given top-notch material to work with throughout the show’s entire six-season run.

Girls Captures “The Voice Of A Generation” Better Than EuphoriaGirls | Trailer

Hannah Horvath may have been dripping with narcissism when she proclaimed, “I think that I may be the voice of my generation… or at least a voice of a generation” in the Girls pilot, but the Lena Dunham character wasn’t wrong. Through Hannah, Dunham presents a warts-and-all portrait of post-college millennial life, in which the characters can be just as ugly as the adult world they’re entering.

Whereas Euphoria is glamour and intricate eye makeup, Girls is grit and smeared mascara the morning after an ill-advised hookup. Both shows can feel like a horror movie where the monster is the characters’ terrible decisions, but in Girls, it’s always clear that the reasoning is rooted in some combination of self-discovery, entitlement, and a need to be — or at least, appear to be — adventurous. Meanwhile, the hyper-stylized world of Euphoria creates distance from the audience, thus posing the question as to whether the characters’ behavior and choices are for shock value.

This isn’t to say that Girls didn’t face the same accusation. However, much of this controversy opened up greater questions as to why there was so much discourse around the show’s graphic content, particularly Dunham’s frequent nude scenes. Many asked whether Girls‘ detractors were objecting to the explicit scenes themselves or the fact that they centered around a woman who is not Hollywood-slender being sexual, often with conventionally attractive men.

Even with its aesthetics-first approach, Euphoria still had a lot to say about mental health, LGBTQ+ identity, and growing up Gen Z. However, ironically, by abandoning its gloss and style in season 3, Euphoria lost much of its substance and its ability to speak to the generation it depicts. Meanwhile, for as narcissistic as it may be, Girls never loses its voice.

Now Is The Best Time To Watch Girls

Though Girls ended almost a decade ago, it’s made a splashy return to the pop culture conversation thanks to the release of Lena Dunham’s second memoir, Famesick, which was released on April 14. The memoir centers around Dunham’s meteoric rise to fame via Girls, and the mental and physical toll it took on her.

This makes looking back on the HBO show uncomfortable, as does Dunham’s allegations about Adam Driver’s toxic workplace behavior and her falling out with Girls showrunner Jenni Konner. However, it’s also a reminder that Dunham created a one-of-a-kind yet wholly universal masterpiece about becoming an adult, and in that regard, no other show has been able to top Girls since.

Beyond Dunham and Famesick, now is the perfect time to watch (or rewatch) Girls because, if episode 2 is any indication, Euphoria season 3 will be an exercise in diminishing returns. Now that the shock of Sydney Sweeney in a baby costume and Zendaya’s drug-running misadventures has worn off, what’s left is just… boring, making Euphoria feel even more gratuitous in its emptiness.

What makes Euphoria season 3’s subpar quality so frustrating is how long audiences had to wait for it. Fortunately, thanks to Girls, those looking for a provocative coming-of-age series with something real to say can scratch their itch.

Release Date

2012 – 2017-00-00

Network

HBO Max

Showrunner

Lena Dunham