But it also posed a fun challenge for creators. If we're just going to be here, how do we keep it interesting? How do we keep the audience not just engaged but on their toes? Some of the best episodes of some shows have come from bottle episodes. (It's a great reminder that Constraints can often feed creativity.)
There's another kind of bottle episodes that occurs in ensemble shows, and that's a Character Bottle: instead of shifting among characters, as the show normally does, it stays for an entire episode locked in on one.
EUPHORIA 205, written and directed by Sam Levinson, is a Character Bottle. We start with Rue being confronted by her mother about her relapse. And we stay on Rue pretty much the entire time. No flashbacks, no dream sequences or cutaways. I think there's one moment where we see Rue's mom and sister in a car, or maybe two, but otherwise, it's all Rue. And at the same time, she delivers no narration. That's probably the most important choice of all; her narration is how she escapes her reality into fantasy and wins us over. But now she's simply trapped in this moment, and we are trapped with her.
The power of a character bottle is very much in its unrelenting quality. We never get a break from the character, which means it's a phenomenal way for us to get inside their head. We go through exactly what they go through.
The long first sequence at home is particularly riveting; Rue shuttles through so many different feelings and actions, many of them frightening. And just when it seems to calm down, we get the reveal that Jules and Elliot are in the living room, and have heard everything, which leads to a whole new set of reactions.And here's the crazy thing: that whole sequence is only about 13 minutes long. But I swear watching it, it feels like at least half the episode.
When Rue's mom and sister leave to take her to treatment—again, it's a character bottle, so they can change locations, we just have to stay on Rue—Levinson has us move back and forth inside the car, where Rue is ramping up again, and outside, where we can't hear anything, we just see Rue. It's sort of a microcosm for the whole episode: we're literally watching Rue trapped, desperate to get out, and then eventually breaking out. But of course you can't escape yourself, and so we can't escape her either.
If you're working on an ensemble series, especially one that's been on a while, so the episode structure has been firmly set, a character bottle can be such an effective choice. Simply by throwing out the pre-established structure, you create an energy and sense of uncertainty in the audience that is really compelling.
