The network’s official Season 2 synopsis reads: “Amidst the intertwining lives in the town of East Highland, 17-year-old Rue (Zendaya) must find hope while balancing the pressures of love, loss, and addiction.” As for the cast, HBO confirms the following are locked in as series regulars for the new season: Emmy-winner Zendaya, Hunter Schafer, Nika King, Eric Dane, Angus Cloud, Jacob Elordi, Algee Smith, Sydney Sweeney, Alexa Demie, Barbie Ferreira, Maude Apatow, Javon Walton, Dominic Fike, Storm Reid, and Austin Abrams.

“Euphoria” Season 2 has been quite a while coming. The new episodes were originally set to begin filming in March 2020, but the pandemic forced the season to go on an indefinite hiatus. In the meantime, series creator Sam Levinson got creative and came up with two standalone installments centered on the characters played by Zendaya and Hunter Schaffer. These “Euphoria” episodes served as a bridge between the show’s first season and its upcoming second, and debuted as Christmas and New Year’s specials late last year. In between “Euphoria” seasons, the show became an Emmys favorite as Zendaya surprised the industry with her 2020 win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. The series also took home Emmys for Outstanding Contemporary Makeup and Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. Zendaya most recently starred in the smash hit “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which just amassed $260 million on its opening weekend. Specific plot details for “Euphoria” Season 2 remain under wraps. In an interview with IndieWire earlier this year, Schaffer spoke about her own expectations for the new season and her character Jules. “[I hope] this growth and interrogation of Jules…and what she wants and ultimately finding newer and healthier intimacies in her relationships, which I hope will be more queer and more healthy…[I hope] that will continue,” Schaffer said. “That’s a really beautiful process and something I want to see more of on TV. Representation-wise, we’re still working on getting trans women who lie on many different ends of the spectrum of conventional beauty and conventional attraction and conventional ways of navigating gender and sexuality. There’s a myriad of ways to do that. And many trans people move through all that in that myriad of ways, including myself.”

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