Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for “Euphoria” Season 3 Episode 6, “Stand Still and See,” now available on HBO Max.
The big cliffhanger of last week’s “Euphoria” was what happens to Lou (Zendaya) when Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaye) charges her with a polo mallet. Near the start of the latest episode, we learn that Alamo narrowly saved her, but that revelation only comes after we learn what Alamo’s childhood was like in a series of Zendaya-narrated flashbacks (shades of “Euphoria” Season 1!). “The cruelest woman Alamo ever knew was Alamo’s mother,” the mother, played by Daniel Deadwyler, tries to raise young Alamo single-handedly, while taking on unworthy men one after another as a combination of lover and mark. Her journey through beautiful women left young Alamo with issues of trust in women and vague ideas about how men should behave.
After that, the plot thickened. Here’s what else happened this week:
Lou has spiritual problems
Looks like Lou is finally out of the woods, at least in a sense. Her secret recording of Laurie (Martha Kelly)’s interactions with Alamo seems to win the authorities over and get her out of legal trouble. Yet, she still can’t get out of her own way. An initially flirtatious conversation with Jules as she paints on an easel (while Lou says to herself in voiceover, “against all expectations, life seemed okay. Maybe all the mistakes I made led me to the right place after all”) ends in a testy conversation after Lou questions Jules’ relationship with her sugar daddy. Jules slapped Lou in the face and she crashed to the canvas, collapsing beneath it.
But as the episode progresses, Lou still has big fish to fry. Seeking some kind of peace of mind, she sat in a church pew and called her estranged mother and said, “I just thought that if the Lord exists, then there is salvation. If there is salvation, then there is salvation. I need it. I just don’t want to get caught up in all the mistakes I’ve made.” They part peacefully, if not reconcile.
Something higher seems to be on the show’s mind throughout the episode. In the final minutes, Lou is nearly run off the road by an unknown vehicle that appears to be aiming at her, but when she escapes the fatal collision and gets out of the car, she sees burning bushes.
A star is born
Cassie (Sidney Sweeney)’s rise to stardom on “LA Nights” goes better than she expected. When Cassie unexpectedly flashes back to a nightmare from her first night of marriage, her scene partner riffs on her, turning Cassie’s raw emotions into an authentic performance. When asked by the show’s producer (Sharon Stone) about her background, Cassie declares, “I’m a performer who uses my body to tell a story.”
It’s not a joke. Of course, it turned out that Cassie was appearing on OnlyFans, and the studio demanded that her (lucrative) channel be shut down if she wanted to have a future in the new plot line she created for herself in “LA Nights.” (Incidentally, she did so over the subtle but strong objections of Maud Apatow’s sister, Lexi, who also works on the show.) Cassie prayed, called her estranged husband Nate (Jacob Elordi), and finally hit the delete button. Shortly before that, a piece arrives in the mail – Nate’s finger from an unpaid and displeased financier.
The Alamo is playing against an opponent…?
One of the most interesting aspects of this episode was the continued flirtation between Alamo and Maddie (Alexa Demme). Before Cassie left for LA Nights, she was one of Maddie’s management clients, but now Maddie also manages the Alamo dancers (Rosalia and Anna Van Patten) and has been photographed with Cassie proving Maddie’s provocative instincts. Maddie also seems completely unfazed by Alamo’s air of threat, even though, as Lou says in the voiceover at the beginning of the episode, Alamo swore as a child that “as long as I live, I’ll never let a bitch get the best of me again.” It’s not as big as a burning bush or a finger in a box, but it’s something to keep an eye on for us as we approach the end of the season.
