A Different Euphoria

The hottest series on television right now is Heated Rivalry, produced by Crave in Canada and broadcast in America on HBO Max. If there is a series that can rival the virality of Heated Rivalry, it’s another HBO title, Euphoria.

When the first images of season three were released in the back half of 2025, the social media response was loud. Now, three months ahead of the premiere on April 12, we have the first trailer. And it looks like a completely different show…

 

I don’t hate that this is not the Euphoria we knew. It’s long been confirmed that there will be a time jump, that Rue and everyone else won’t be in high school anymore. So the complexion of the show was always going to – and should – change. What no one expected is that it would be giving Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh, Pulp Fiction x Traffic, at least that’s the vibe I’m getting.

Still, some things will never change. Everyone is still a mess. Rue can’t unrun her mess. Cassie and Nate are messy and getting married. Maddy is a judgy mess which only means she’ll be in a mess of her own, soon, and I really hope Jules gets a real story. Sam Levinson has never been able to resist serving shock value and already in the trailer shock value is the energy. Drug lords are fighting, prom queens are throwing ass, and Rue is talking to Jesus. Season three looks like it could be great and a disaster, that too is a Euphoria signature.

To me, though, the best parts of this preview are, obviously, Zendaya. And specifically her micro-expressions. She’s a two-time Emmy winner for this role and she earned it – what is indisputable about Euphoria, with all its provocations and controversies, is that it features some of the best work of her career. Even in just a two minute trailer we’re seeing Z’s talent come through.

And we’re about to see her talent over and over again over the next 12 months as she rolls out one project after another, from Euphoria to The Drama to The Odyssey to Spider-Man: Brand New Day to Dune 3. Early promotion for at least one if not more of these projects should already be underway. We’ll be seeing Zendaya soon. We might even see her at the Oscars considering The Drama comes out two weeks later.

What could be noteworthy about these anticipated appearances is that for weeks now there have been rumours. They’re all over social media, even though she’s made an attempt to shut them down. It started when she was seen by regular degulars just before the holidays in England with Tom Holland wearing baggy clothes and big coats, leading to speculation that she might be pregnant. A few fake photos then started circulating of her with a belly bump.

TikTok content creators, every other day, are posting videos about this – conflating actual sightings with the AI generated images, convincing themselves and the rest of the internet that she and Tom are about to become parents. This is the kind of thing that prompted her to drastically scale down her social media activity years ago. But she is likely fully aware of the conversation. 

Zendaya has a lot to do in 2026, and it’s not like it would have crept up on her – this was always the plan. We’re about to see it in action soon.