Actress Sydney Sweeney, who played Cassie Howard in Euphoria, has stepped in to defend the HBO series and its finale that sparked so much controversy.
Euphoria is over, but the conversations around it are far from finished. The HBO series burst onto the scene with fanfare in 2019, establishing itself as a new benchmark for teen drama—thanks to its bold aesthetic, the intensity of the topics it tackles, the razor-sharp direction, and a cast of young prodigies (especially Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, and Sydney Sweeney). Yet after two and a half years of waiting, season 2 began to lose some of its hold on viewers, followed by the downward spiral of the third and final season.
This final chapter arrived a little over four years after its predecessor, and it certainly didn’t win everyone over. While the first two seasons scored roughly 67–74 out of 100 from critics and audiences rated it above 7/10 on Metacritic, the latest batch earned 56/100 from critics and even fell below the audience average with 4.7/10. In short, the post-launch phase is far from over. After Sam Levinson defended the nudity in the show, it’s now Sydney Sweeney’s turn to defend her character, Cassie, who was widely criticized.
EUPHORIA IN ITS EARLY DAYS
Between her chaotic marriage to Nate, her financial struggles, and her forays onto OnlyFans to make ends meet, Cassie faced particularly brutal treatment in this final season. Her performer, Sydney Sweeney, has also faced negative remarks from internet users, which the actress reminded Variety of:
“I don’t know if I’m expressing myself well, but I’ve always found it fascinating that people scrutinize the way Cassie is treated on the show, while they treat me the same way in real life. They don’t realize that [Cassie’s circle] sexualizes her on screen, yet they’re doing the exact same thing in reality. To be honest, it’s sometimes tough, but I hope that in a few years, when people are distant from the madness and clickbait headlines of social media, someone will take a step back, take the time to analyze all of this deeply, and say: ‘Hey, maybe we’ve all gotten it completely wrong.’“
“I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with Cassie’s ending, simply because I know there were still things to tell. But I have that feeling about many of my projects. I did a one-season show when I was 18, Everything Sucks!, and sometimes I wake up thinking: ‘What if we went back?’ I don’t think that feeling will ever leave me. I’ll always wonder what Cassie became in the Euphoria universe.”
Meanwhile, after Echo Valley, Eden, Christy and The Maid in 2025, Sydney Sweeney still has several projects on the horizon, including the Gundam adaptation, Edgar Wright’s remake of Barbarella, a new goth-meets-erotic reinterpretation (apparently) of Sleepy Hollow, the Kim Novak biopic and, of course, The Maid 2, slated for December 15, 2027 in France.
