Summary
“The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Pee While Depressed” proved chaotic and dark, delivering intriguing developments.
This recap of Euphoria Episode 7, “The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Pee While Depressed”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
Another week, another character under the microscope of Rue’s nihilistic narration. In Euphoria Episode 7, blessed with the unwieldy title of “The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Pee While Depressed”, it’s Cassie. And if you thought her life would have been easy and straightforward, better think again; a failed ice-skater cursed with family issues and good looks so distracting that nobody cares to look beyond them, she’s now pregnant. Nothing is ever easy in HBO’s coming-of-age-high show, and nobody gets off easy.
Take Tyler, for instance. He’s locked up for a crime he didn’t commit, and his only hope of release is Rue, impersonating an old gumshoe. It’s a fun bit of stylistic montage, and the first instance in Euphoria Episode 7 of Rue, still sober, chasing different, more natural highs.
But things aren’t easy for Rue in “The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Pee While Depressed”. Her mum has a new boyfriend, whom she immediately takes a disliking to, Jules is going away for the weekend, she’s constantly plagued by hallucinations as she attempts to stave off her drug habit, and her kidneys are playing up. Her depression is aggressive and outlandish; a string of stylized nightmares as she remains trapped, in her body, in her home, in her mind, while the person she cares most about gets to live the life she’s fighting off.
Ah, Jules, Her trip to meet old friends quickly spirals into chaos in Euphoria Episode 7, as she gets so high that she hallucinates Nate arriving in the same nightclub, only brave enough to attack and belittle him in her own imagination. In reality, her fantasy is playing out with a woman who isn’t Rue — a development that is sure to affect both of them in next week’s finale.
And that isn’t the only issue the finale will need to address. “The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Pee While Depressed” also touches on plenty of parallel issues, involving virtually the entire cast. Kat’s webcam career is rapidly becoming more sinister and potentially dangerous; Cassie tells McKay about her pregnancy; and Fez, after threatening to kill Nate if he doesn’t leave Rue alone, is forced to flush all his gear as the police are tipped off about his side hustle as a drug dealer. That’s a lot of different melodramatic threads and developments to deal with, not to mention the lingering question of whether or not Nate gets his comeuppance; it’ll be interesting to see whether or not the finale can stick the landing after what has been a great, fresh season of provocative television.
