Euphoria ended its season on a cliffhanger leaving fans desperate to know more. Emmy® Award-winning Zendaya’s Rue relapsed into drug use, and her girlfriend Jules (Hunter Schafer) left her at a train station as a result. While full-on production of season two has been paused due to COVID, creator Sam Levinson, Zendaya, and actor Colman Domingo (who plays Ali) got together to make a special episode with limited location and cast.

Sometimes stripping things down brings more truth, and this episode is a remarkable achievement, musing about life, death, drugs and how to live life as a good person. It’s a quiet piece that allows for deep contemplation through conversation. TV rarely gives us moments this quiet, or allows for this much time spent on the existential crisis of a key character, but every once in a blue moon this godforsaken pandemic provides us a little treat, and this episode should go in a special canon of entertainment that may not have been made in “normal times.”

Here are your five screenwriting takeaways from Euphoria’s: “Trouble Don’t Always Last”.

1. Sometimes, It's What's Not Said: Rue 
In a piece dependent upon performance, Sam Levinson is graced with Zendaya, who is believable in every moment of a scene that relies heavily on her face. Zendaya’s eyes give so much. With the flick of an eyelid Rue shows us the pleasure and pain of being in and out of a high. With a few tear drops, she gives us the pain of being alive in her — and collectively, America’s — present moment in time. Much credit should be given to Levinson here, as well.

The dialogue is a masterful escape as the audience is transported to the world of Rue and Ali, leaving the real world behind. The undeniable truth behind the script is loud and clear. This feels like an experience Levinson has lived, and based on his honesty of the show’s creation, he most definitely has. At the show’s premiere last year, Levinson stated: “I spent the majority of my teenage years in hospitals, rehabs and halfway houses. Some time around the age of 16, I resigned myself to the idea that eventually drugs would kill me and there was no reason to fight it. I would let it take me over, and I had made peace with that.” When Rue tells Ali: “The world's just really fuckin' ugly, you know? It's really fuckin' ugly, and, um... Everybody seems to be okay with it, you know?” And then states: “I don’t plan on being here that long." The audience and Ali believe her. Ali knows the addict has to make the choice to live, and perhaps that’s why Euphoria remains so compelling — Rue’s choice is not yet clear.

2. A Place of Reason, Not of Judgement: Ali 
Domingo’s Ali walks a tightrope in this episode as a voice of reason, but not a voice of judgement. It’s a difficult and impressive line to walk, and Ali remains empathetic through it all. Every time Rue throws a challenge at him: Why not do drugs? How are you a good person? If you relapsed, how could I not just keep relapsing? Ali manages to do a dance of conversation that always brings Rue back to his side and perspective. Ali can manage this because he knows better than anyone addiction is a disease that “no one sees as a disease.”

What’s masterful about this episode in general is that the seemingly meandering conversation touches upon what the collective consciousness of America is going through in the middle of a pandemic. In the episode, Rue and Ali are alone in the world on Christmas Eve. Ali can only connect to his family via telephone. Sometimes, the only comfort out there is a plate of pancakes. The world feels in a presently unbearable place. Ali could just as easily be the argument for doubling-down on believing in the country as he could be for believing in the idea of self-existence and preservation. He is a comfort in honestly acknowledging mistakes while still allowing room for human good. He’s the ear and the voice Rue needs in this moment, and he’s also a therapeutic watch for anyone in pain regardless of where that pain is coming from.

3. The Painful Voice of Experience: Miss Marsha
Miss Marsha (played by Marsha Gambles) works in the lonely diner that seems to have only one or two other customers. When Ali calls out to her as Rue wonders what to do about Jules, Marsha asserts (speaking from experience), you can’t give yourself to love while overcoming addiction. You have to pick getting sober above all else if you want to be successful. It’s both a moment of brevity (because Miss Marsha is so good) and a dark reminder that Rue has unfinished (likely painful) business to settle with Jules.

4. The Other POV: Jules
Speaking of Jules, the audience gets a false tease at the opening of the episode. Jules and Rue are living a happy life together in a one room apartment. Jules is about to give a big presentation, and life seems affectionate, happy and hopeful — but as soon as Jules leaves, Rue goes to her secret stash of pills to get high. Jules later sends Rue a text stating: “I miss you” and it's accompanied by a song. This all feels like a teaser, building up to Jules’ stand-alone episode which is likely to be from the POV of someone in love with an addict. Either way, it leaves Jules fans wanting more, and this episode leaves big shoes to fill.

5. Location, Location, Location: The Diner
Frank’s Diner, where most of the episode takes place, is the very real Frank’s Coffee Shop, considered a Burbank landmark. The diner, also featured in Sons of Anarchy, Parks and Rec, and Gone Girl is truly a character of its own. Featured on a lonely, rainy night, the near-empty location with its giant rain-stained windows doesn’t feel hopeful, but ironically, it also doesn’t want for lack of warmth in spite of its cool color palate, either. This is likely due to the presence of Miss Marsha and Ali, not to mention its scrumptious pancakes. Either way, much credit is due to Levinson and his DP for making a near-empty space feel like a living and breathing entity.

Final Takeaway: While the latest episode of Euphoria does not provide plot answers, it is still a satiating meditative breath in a relentless year. It offers time and space for listening, musing, contemplating, and, while more of a wallowing in the blues than an antidote for them, we all deserve that moment to catch our breath.