Your Best Show Is The Perfectly Imperfect Euphoria

By Deepa Lakshmin


On the red carpet ahead of the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards Sunday (June 5), Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney was hoping the series “gets a bunch of love,” and she got her wish. The HBO drama took residence Best Show, one of the night’s most coveted awards — beating out Netflix’s Inventing Anna and Squid Game, Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso, Disney+’s Loki, and Paramount Network’s Yellowstone.


Created by Sam Levinson, Euphoria primarily follows Rue Bennett — played by Zendaya, who took house Best Efficiency in a Show — and her complex journey as a recovering addict. Immediately after season 1 premiered to key acclaim in 2019, season 2 arrived in January 2022 and squeezed a unsettling quantity of emotional baggage and inner turmoil into eight episodes. (Revisit Cassie vs. Maddy — the hair-pulling, face-slapping drama that won Best Fight — here.)


“Without you, this would not be possible,” Sweeney, who plays Cassie Howard, mentioned while accepting the Golden Popcorn on behalf of the show’s cast at Los Angeles’ Barker Hangar. “Thank you for loving characters that might be hard to love sometimes… We do this for you and we love you and thank you.”


Though Rue is centered as Euphoria’s protagonist, fans have noticed something to love about nearly every messy, deeply flawed character in the series. From Cassie’s necessary for validation to Maddy Perez’s sass to Nate Jacob’s daddy issues to Jules’ impulsivity to Lexi’s introversion to Fez’s legal concerns to Kat’s relationship problems and several more — seriously, I can’t start to sum up the quantity of collective trauma these teens have experienced into a neat little sentence — each character is properly imperfect.


Although that’s what makes them human! These cute, hot messes are on complex journeys to identify who they are and what they want out of life — and all of us watching at house just can’t look away.


The 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards are airing live from the Barker Hangar in L.A. Now on MTV, with the Movie & TV Awards: UNSCRIPTED to follow. Find all of the winners here.