Featured Image Credit: Brianna Bryson/WireImage
Topics: Euphoria, Sydney Sweeney, HBO, Film and TV
Callum Jones
Topics: Euphoria, Sydney Sweeney, HBO, Film and TV
Warning: This article includes spoilers for Euphoria season three episode two
Some Euphoria viewers believe the latest episode of the HBO series may have 'gone too far' after Sydney Sweeney was involved in a divisive nude scene.
Episode one of the third season provided several strange moments and viewers believed it couldn't have got any wilder.
However, that was just episode one guys, of course it was going to get crazier and the latest episode that dropped on Sunday certainly proved that.
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Titled 'American Dream', the second episode sees the continuation of Sweeney's character, Cassie, and her OnlyFans storyline - with Maddy (Alexa Demie) coming onboard to help manage her career.
In the episode, Cassie poses for more adult content, including one NSFW shot showing ice cream dropping down the actor's nude chest.
Another scene sees Cassie wearing nothing but a see-through US flag wrapped around her body, while a baseball-themed shot sees Sweeney's character in just a thong.
The shot sees Cassie wearing nothing but a backwards baseball cap, trainers, glove and shin pads. Her arms are positioned to cover her front and chest.
Finally, perhaps the most shocking scene of all, viewers couldn't believe their eyes as Cassie posed in a baby costume, with a dummy and holding her legs open in the air.
Zendaya's character Rue said in a voiceover: "It's a shame she was with Nate. Cassie was exactly the kind of girl you'd dream of signing. Beautiful, but directionless. So desperate for attention, she's willing to humiliate herself."
After watching the latest episode of Euphoria, many viewers flocked to social media to discuss their thoughts.
One person penned on X: "Honestly, Euphoria has always pushed boundaries, but it does feel like this season is going a bit too far for shock value. I get that it’s trying to portray dark and uncomfortable themes, but there’s a fine line between storytelling and unnecessary degradation."
"I’m glad everyone in Euphoria also thinks Cassie dressing as an adult baby is f**king weird," a second added.
While another described the scenes as 'shocking'.
Euphoria fans were already taken aback by Cassie's 'puppy play' exploits, which lead to the show's creator, Sam Levinson, having to defend the scene.
He told The Hollywood Reporter: "[Cassie] has got her dog house and her little dog ears and the nose, and that has its own humor, but what makes the scene is the fact that her housekeeper is the one filming it.
"What we wanted to always find is the other layer of absurdity that we’re able to tie into it so that we’re not too inside of her fantasy or illusion — the gag is to jump out, to break the wall."
"I don’t get nervous," she told the publication. "I think that the female body is a very powerful thing. And I’m telling my character’s story, so I owe it to them to tell it well and to do what needs to be done."
After the first season of Euphoria premieres, Sweeney tells HuffPost: "The thing about the nudity in this show is that it’s not glamorized. It’s not, ‘Oh, here’s a pair of tits.’ It’s just real.
“I had to look at the whole picture of the entirety of the show, and I just fell in love with the rawness and the situations and the emotions that all these characters go through.”
Following the release of the second series, Sweeney reveals that on occasion she pushed back on the levels of nudity director Sam Levinson called for.
She tells The Independent: "There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here.’ He was like, ‘OK, we don’t need it’.
"I’ve never felt like Sam has pushed it on me. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.”
Around the same time, she also calls out the double standard around nude scenes, telling Cosmopolitan: "There are hour-long compilations of world-famous male actors with nude scenes who win Oscars and get praised for that work. But the moment a woman does it, it degrades them.”
The following year, Sweeney also reveals that fans are trolling her online with screenshots of Cassie's nude scenes.
She tells The Sun: "It got to the point where they were tagging my family. My cousins don’t need that. It’s completely disgusting and unfair
“You have a character that goes through the scrutiny of being a sexualised person at school and then an audience that does the same thing."
In spite of the trolling over her nude scenes and the sexism she’s come up against, Sweeney says she’s not hesitant to perform nude scenes when a script calls for it.
She tells W Magazine: "I don’t get nervous. I think that the female body is a very powerful thing. And I’m telling my character’s story, so I owe it to them to tell it well and to do what needs to be done."