For me EUPHORIA 206 runs in parallel with 203. In both episodes we're dealing with our "villains", Cal (203) and Nate (206). And at first 206 seems like it's going to take us through the same humanizing moves. Cal was in love with another boy as a kid and then had his life turned upside down. Nate, we learn from his mom, had something terrible happen at 9 and then changed.
But where 203 builds on that introduction, in 206 its echo is really a sleight of hand set up. We expect more pathos, but instead we get Nate breaking into Maddie's apartment, drawing a gun on her and threatening to kill first her and then playing Russian roulette with himself until she reveals where she has the DVD of his dad having sex with Jules. It is one of the most disturbing moments in the entire show (and honey, that is saying something).
The crazy thing is, the episode refuses to leave us with our renewed understanding that Nate is a Monster, either. He brings the DVD to Jules so that she can choose what to do with it; and he's nothing but good to her, although given what we've just seen we spend the whole sequence living in fear for Jules, a brilliant choice on writer Sam Levinson's part. It's such a great technique to remember: Each character scene delivers an emotional package that we the audience carry with us into the character's next moment (and sometimes just the next moment period). If you see Nate threatening to murder Maddie in scene one, we are definitely going to be terrified of him the entire next scene, no matter what.
And even at this point we're not done with Nate. He calls Cassie and tells her she's coming home with him, which while not as bad as holding Maddie at gun point is definitely messed up.
The roller coaster of all this serves a character purpose, right? By the end of the episode we no longer have any idea what Nate might do next. The writing has effectively blown past our expectations so many times that there's really nothing left for us to do but surrender. Which is terrifying, and also exactly what Levinson wants us to feel when it comes to Nate.
In a lot of shows that I've written about, we've seen a writer do one twist on expectations. And that seems to fit the structure of TV: a character enters with a problem or question, and the ending should resolve that issue in an unexpected way, but also one that builds over the course of the episode.
But in 206 Levinson makes it clear there's more room to play with expectations than we might think. You can overturn expectations far more than just once in one ep. And if you do it well (i.e. it's justified, not just random twists for the sake of twists, which an audience will always recognize on a gut level), the power of those twists upon the viewer grows almost exponentially.
