Euphoria Season 3

Euphoria, a tv series exploring coming-of-age storytelling through the filters of sex and substance abuse, is coming back for a third season on HBO Max. This series is adapted from a 2012 Israeli tv series of the same name. It’s fitting then that this American remake opens with a gospel choir singing the African American spiritual “Go Down Moses.”

The trailer begins with a montage of the hustling activities that Rue (Zendaya) has taken up in the years following the events of season 2. At 0:22, as the choir finishes the line “Let my people go,” we get some foreshadowing of where the music is headed next. Notice the subtle electronic filtering of the word “go,” stuttering as it fades out. The next shot (at 0:25) sees Rue coming face to face with the drug dealer Laurie (Martha Kelly) to whom she owes money. This sets the trailer’s season 3 plot in motion.

At 0:30, a bass synth comes in, and the gospel choir returns, followed by a trap hip hop drum groove as we see that there’s tension in the relationship between Nate (Jacob Elordi) and Cassie (Sydney Sweeney). We cut to the night of their wedding at 0:48 and the groove gets louder, now with rapped samples of the phrase “Go down” (referencing “Go Down Moses”) integrated into the music.

Then at 1:08, over a sweeping wide shot of a car driving towards a mansion on a scenic California hillside, we hear a DJ’s mix of a looping chord from the gospel choir along with a drum machine’s snare pattern growing louder and rhythmically building. But at 1:14 the music cuts out to emphasize the introduction of the sinister owner of the mansion (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) as he meets Rue for the first time.

This sets off a 20-second buildup, with white noise risers and pulsing bass. From 1:36, the intensity takes off, as we see shots of a truck racing through the desert, bonfires, and other excitement. The segue out of this section is quite nice - a run of sixteenth note triplets timed to synch with a strobe light effect on screen, ending with the sound of Rue cocking a rifle at 1:44. And the ensuing cut to silence is followed with a cut to Rue’s character in a different scene, laughing awkwardly.

At this point we’re 20 seconds to the trailer’s title card ending, so we lean into the big finish, and it’s a tasteful recap of the musical mashup that got us here. At 1:48, over a montage of sex and violence, we have a series of notes walking down to set us up for the return of the gospel choir. And when the choir does return, we cut to a shot of Rue alone in a church, praying. This transitions immediately back to a scene with Rue being interviewed by the gangster kingpin we met earlier, now accompanied by growling bass and drum machines. To finish, we hear the final line of the song “Let my people go” as Rue stares into the night while the kingpin aims his gold pistol at the camera.

In sum, the soundtrack for the Euphoria season 3 trailer aligns well with the stories on screen. The gospel choir enhances Rue’s connection with the church, and the remixing of the gospel choir with electronic and hip hop elements taps into the age-old conflict in American music between the sacred and the profane (and the young and the old).

Euphoria starts streaming on HBO Max on April 12.

— Jack Hui Litster