Euphoria‘s Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney) has worn many hats. Figure skater. OnlyFans model. Kaiju.
The latter hat comes into play in Season 3, episode 5, when Cassie’s OnlyFans fame goes to her head in a supersized fantasy sequence. As she watches her OnlyFans notifications pour in, Cassie imagines herself growing into a giantess and stomping through downtown Los Angeles, ready to take Hollywood by storm.
It’s a technically impressive sequence that draws inspiration from 1958’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and the Godzilla franchise. In a behind-the-scenes video released by HBO, the Euphoria team takes viewers through how they brought it all to life by building painstaking miniatures
“It was a lot of fun. It took about a year to build all the miniatures,” Euphoria creator Sam Levinson said in the above behind-the-scenes video.
Cassie’s dream of Hollywood glory is Euphoria Season 3‘s first major departure from reality, something which used to be a staple in earlier Euphoria seasons. Think Rue’s (Zendaya) views of herself as a private detective, or her relapse at the end of Season 1, which turns into a memorable musical number.
It’s a shame, then, that the inventive Cassie-zilla sequence is tied to a hyper-sexualized montage of her OnlyFans work. Euphoria‘s portrayal of sex work has already earned criticism from sex workers, and it continues to fall into the same trap in episode 5: highlighting fantasies of sex work without actually fleshing out the sex workers themselves. After all, Cassie is little more than a fame-hungry caricature by this point, and as fun as it is to see Euphoria embrace practical monster effects, it’s not enough to mask the emptiness and shock value of her narrative.
New episodes of Euphoria Season 3 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
