TV

Everyone Had The Same Reaction To Elliot’s Long Ass Song In The ‘Euphoria’ Finale

"I know Rue was battling the urge to walk out on Elliot mid-song cause MY GOODNESS."

by Millie Roberts  1 March 2022
Elliot Euphoria

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

The finale of Euphoria was a chance to wrap up a lot of loose threads from the anticipated second season, however, one of the main takeaways from Episode 8 was how bloody long Elliot’s song was.

— Warning: Spoilers for Euphoria ahead. — 

Everyone is shredding into actor Dominic Fike’s four-minute acoustic serenade, which the showrunners considered a very normal response in a sincere apology attempt between Elliot and main character Rue. Hate is a strong word — and some genuinely enjoyed the endearing track — but its length in the scene was clearly beyond.

Making Amends

Having gone cold turkey to overcome addiction, Rue seemed to be doing well. She’d had heartfelt conversations with her mother and sister about the impact drugs have had on their family home, we saw her looking healthy and alert in the audience of Lexi’s play, and she apologised to her sponsor Ali for cruelly insulting him while high.

The last stop on her reconciliation tour was with her ex-girlfriend Jules, and best friend Elliot — who both helped staged an intervention in a haunting episode. Rue visited Elliot’s house and tells him she’s thankful for saving her life.

Elliott asks to perform a song he wrote for her titled ‘Little Star’, and proceeds to play not a snippet, but the full thing in one, longwinded go. It’s beautifully written, but the slow pace against the impending home invasion at Fez’s house, and the resolution of Cassie’s villain monologue, felt overblown and unnecessary.

“Us against the world, just a couple sinners making fun of hell. If I keep you here, I’ll only be doing this for myself,” sings Elliot. “Been some time since we’ve spoken, one day we’ll meet again. Some distance when you’re older, you’ll come lean on my shoulder, tell me that story’s over, that day we meet again.”

We don’t really learn whether Rue knows intuitively that Jules and Elliot hooked up at the peak of her drug spiral, but a song isn’t the usual choice of apology in those situations.

Music Front And Centre

From Labrinth’s musical oversight to some of Season 2’s episodes being compared to a glorified music video — songs form a large part of Euphoria‘s creative zeal.

Fike is a singer-songwriter by profession and got to finally show his chops before the season wrapped up. After the momentous Season 1 finale with Zendaya performing Labrinth’s ‘All For Us’ in a beautiful cliffhanger, it was only natural to expect another musical number this time around, albeit with less significance to the plot than its predecessors.

‘Little Star’ was written by Zendaya and Labrinth; Fike recounted how director Sam Levinson announced the song would weave into the episode: “Sam just came up to me and said, ‘Yo, I was thinking you like, play the guitar in this and you sing a song. It’s to Rue, but not really about Rue, but it is about Rue, but it’s a surreal moment, but it’s not,’ he said in an interview.

Season Finale

There’s a lot of left unresolved in Euphoria: how drug dealer and potential human trafficker Laurie will next respond to Rue’s debt, whether Kat or Jules will get a redemption arc in the future, or whatever the point of the weird sexual tension with the mother of the kid Maddie babysits and the teenager.

Maybe we didn’t get the closure this season, but at least we got a free performance from Dominic Fike. Here’s looking forward to Season 3 in another two years time.