There's a lot of talk about God in Euphoria season three, but the imagery that writer-director Sam Levinson felt the need to capture in pristine detail on 65mm Kodak film feels like the work of the devil. Here's a collage: Rue (Zendaya) pushing golf-ball-sized packages of fentanyl down her throat; a chicken's head being ripped off; a young woman's mouth foaming after an overdose; a plunger suctioning a toilet overflowing with brown water; a pig shitting onto a carpeted floor; another pig's brains being blown out on a stripper's face; a dog licking shit off a drug mule's leg. Even for a show that has dealt with paedophilia, teen drug abuse and gun violence, the first three episodes (the only ones made available for review) are a turn into a darkness we haven't yet explored. It's a lot, and despite offsetting it with some actually beautiful cinematography (including some wide, Western-inspired vistas), the show does struggle under its weight.

When we pick things up, the students of Euphoria High - among them Rue, Sydney Sweeney's Cassie, Alexa Demie's Maddy, Hunter Schafer's Jules and Jacob Elordi's Nate - have long since graduated. They are five years older but no wiser, and the glimmer of hope they had for their futures has dwindled as they sit in the sad stew of adulthood. Rue is now carting fentanyl over the US-Mexico border in her intestines. Jules is making a living as a sugar baby, having dropped out of art school because she couldn't make her paintings pay for the lifestyle she desires. Maddy is working for an agent in Hollywood but struggling to prove her worth. Cassie and Nate are living in a Stepford Wivesian suburban bubble, but malaise leaks from their pores; Cassie is dissatisfied as a housewife and turns to OnlyFans for fulfilment, but her husband doesn't approve; Nate has turned his dad's construction business into a crumbling empire, and now owes money to some dangerous people.

In the real world, the new season comes four and a bit years after the last. A lot has happened in the interim. Zendaya, Sweeney and Elordi have matured into generational movie stars. Former cast member Barbie Ferreira left the show following reports of a feud with Levinson over the handling of her character Kat's storyline. That came after HBO had to defend the series when background actors on season two alleged that they had experienced a toxic working atmosphere (some said the production refused to let them go to the bathroom, and described 15- to 17-hour shoots as "hellish"). The rumour mill swirls on about subsequent fallouts, not helped by the fact that none of the main cast are doing press for the show, for which no explanation has been given. Most harrowingly, in 2023, Angus Cloud - who played Fez on the show - died of an accidental fentanyl overdose. In a note to critics alongside the new episodes, Levinson explains how Cloud's death heavily influenced his writing this time around. "His death stirred an anger - not only for him, but for the many young lives in America cut short by fentanyl," Levinson writes. "This season became my way to honour Angus and all the kids who weren't offered a second chance. I wanted to tell a story where hope and light could still be felt in the darkness." I'll have to take his word for it that things are about to take a turn for the better; after three episodes, it is jarring how heavily fentanyl features in the plot, even though it's not totally new to the show.

After taking a back seat to Sweeney's Cassie in season two, Rue once again feels like the centrifugal force, and her storyline is by far the most compelling. Zendaya is so good that you can't help but sympathise with Rue, who finds herself doing unthinkable things, having fallen off the wagon. Early on in season three, she begins to work for Alamo (newcomer Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a strip-club owner and arms dealer moulded after classic cowboy movie stars like Jim Brown and Woody Strode. But even while all of this is going on, we can see Rue grasping for something bigger. We get a hint of where things might be headed in the season premiere, when she takes shelter with a Christian family in Texas. "They were so happy," she remarks, reminiscing on it with her sponsor Ali (Colman Domingo), "and it made me think maybe I'm the one missing something." If there is indeed hope to be found in later episodes, you have to believe it'll be through her. As Alamo, Akinnuoye-Agbaje is an excellent addition, giving the show a proper golden-gun-toting villain, who feels three-dimensional after just a couple of episodes.

Elsewhere, however, the plot is more meandering. There is a fanfic vibe to the continuing tales of Rue's school friends, all of whom are kinda doing what you would expect them to be doing. Cassie and Nate, in particular, are a bit of a letdown, though maybe that's the point - they are the type of people who peak in high school, after all. Even their wedding, which offers up a beautiful opportunity for chaos in episode three, falls a bit flat. When Sweeney - who was so excellent as an emotionally unstable teen last time around - does get to dial up the drama and let the waterworks flow, it feels like she's playing the hits a little less well than before. And, from what I've seen so far, Maddy, Jules and Lexi (Maude Apatow) are just padding out the room, albeit quite nicely.

It's difficult to judge any TV series on just a few episodes, let alone one that so clearly aspires to be one long work of cinema (I could feel a heavy Tarantino influence bleeding in here - in the dialogue and the western pastiche in particular). And Euphoria season three has moments that do stack up to the peaks of its previous outings, most of which belong to Zendaya. But the evidence on show here leaves the question open: can Levinson find genuine salvation in the final few episodes? Let us pray.

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