The first reviews for “Euphoria” Season 3 are in, and critics are split on the star-studded HBO drama’s new episodes.
It has been over four years since the Sam Levinson-created coming-of-age series’ second season wrapped up its turbulent run on HBO in February 2022. There were questions in the ensuing years about whether or not “Euphoria” would ever be back, due to both behind-the-scenes creative delays and the growing stardom of original stars Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi, Hunter Schafer and Colman Domingo.
Against seemingly all odds, though, the long-awaited “Euphoria” Season 3 premiere is now just a few days away. The show’s cast has also returned mostly intact, save a few exceptions (Barbie Ferreira, the late Angus Cloud). Unfortunately, “Euphoria” Season 3 has not earned the overwhelmingly positive critical reception that some may have hoped it would.
The reviews released Wednesday morning for the season reveal a critical divide over the HBO drama’s forthcoming episodes.
For TheWrap, Hunter Ingram dinged the new season as a “redundant return,” writing, “Three episodes in, the four-year wait doesn’t make a strong case for why ‘Euphoria’ came back. You can miss high school, while still acknowledging the antidote lies in at least trying to prove it wasn’t your peak. But in its return, it’s hard not to feel like Levinson is convinced he and ‘Euphoria’s’ best days are behind them.”
In his IndieWire review of the season, critic Ben Travers also deemed it “old and boring,” adding, “Even in a season filled with compulsory changes — brought on by a four-year gap between seasons that instigated a narrative time jump past high school — too many characters remain languidly, pointlessly stagnant.” Travers later called the season “spiritually hollow” and negatively compared it to the show’s first two, “more active, insistent and ambitious,” seasons.
TV Guide’s Lyvie Scott similarly critiqued the season, writing, “‘Euphoria,’ as always, is at its best when it remembers that Zendaya is its universe. Capable as she is, though, she’s not enough to save it from the fate that haunts all false provocateurs: irrelevance.”
RogerEbert.com critic Brian Tallerico had a lukewarm initial reaction to the HBO drama’s new chapters as well. “There are individual beats, scenes, and performances in these three episodes that spark with that energy that the show found at its best, but 2026 ‘Euphoria’ feels more uncertain of what it’s doing or saying than ever before,” Tallerico wrote.
Not all the reviews for “Euphoria” Season 3 have been negative.
Decider’s Meghan O’Keefe praised the season’s opening episodes, noting that they “mark a massive creative leap forward” for Levinson and the series, before concluding, “It’s unclear whether there’s hope for Rue and her friends, but there’s definitely a chance this polarizing HBO show might end its run on an incandescent high note.”
Variety’s Alison Herman had more mixed praise for the season, writing, “The first three episodes of Season 3 (out of an eventual eight) do feel like ‘Euphoria’: bombastic, stylish and able to offset grandiosity with sly, cutting humor. What they don’t feel like is tethered to the grounding ballast that kept the first two seasons on the rails even at their most over-the-top.” Ultimately, Herman concluded bluntly that the HBO series is “never not entertaining.”
The Daily Beast’s Nick Schager had a largely positive reaction to the season, writing in his review that the drama is “back, as tawdry and titillating as ever” and also “somehow, better.” Of the HBO series’ creator, the critic added, “Like his wayward youths, Levinson appears to have learned a mature thing or two since his last outing—even if he hasn’t lost his taste for the crazy and vulgar.”
As of this writing, “Euphoria” Season 3 holds a 56% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 18 reviews.
“Euphoria” Season 3 premieres Sunday, April 12 on HBO and HBO Max.
