Euphoria is not your average teen drama, with sex, drugs, trauma, and identity struggles reigning supreme across students and adults alike in East Highland, California.

Told through the eyes of drug addict Rue as she tries to find her place in the world, the Sam Levinson created world has proven to be scandalous, troubling, and relentlessly addicting.

The first season, released in 2019, is comprised of eight episodes and became an international smash hit.

So much so, two stripped-back specials were created across the pandemic year of 2020 to fill the gap ahead of season two.

Want to know exactly how sordid the life of a teenager is in this fictional California town?

Here’s how the first season plays out in all its brutal glory.

Both seasons of Euphoria – and the two specials released in between the two seasons – are available now.

Sky is the exclusive home of the entire franchise in the UK, so it is not available on any other service such as Netflix or Disney+.

You can watch the series on Sky Atlantic, on demand via Sky Go, or by streaming on NOW.

The key characters of season one are:

• Zendaya (The Greatest Showman, Spider-Man: No Way Home) as Rue Bennett
• Nika King (Funny Married Stuff, Greenleaf) as Leslie Bennett
• Storm Reid (Missing, A Wrinkle In Time) as Gia Bennett
• Hunter Schafer (The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Cuckoo) as Jules Vaughn
• Jacob Elordi (Saltburn, Priscilla) as Nate Jacobs
• Eric Dane (X-Men: The Last Stand, Grey’s Anatomy) as Cal Jacobs
• Sydney Sweeney (Anyone But You, Madame Web) as Cassie Howard
• Maude Apatow (The King Of Staten Island, Hollywood) as Lexi Howard
• Alexa Demie (Mid90s, Ray Donovan) as Maddy Perez
• Angus Cloud (Abigail, Your Lucky Day) as Fezco O’Neill
• Javon Walton (The Umbrella Academy, Samaritan) as Ashtray
• Barbie Ferreira (Unpregnant, Nope) as Kat Hernandez
• Austin Abrams (Do Revenge, This Is Us) as Ethan
• Algee Smith (Detroit, Judas and the Black Messiah) as Chris McKay
• Colman Domingo (Rustin, Fear The Walking Dead) as Ali Muhammed

Welcome to East Highland High School, where everyone has their secrets and struggles as they navigate teenage life.

However, some are struggling far more than others.

Rue, a troubled teenager who has struggled with anxiety since childhood, is released from rehab and heads home. But she has no intention of staying sober, and heads to dealers Fezco and Ashtray. While there, Fez informs her of a new girl around town – which turns out to be trans teen Jules, who Rue is immediately drawn to.

Jules, struggling with her own identity and the impact of her parents’ divorce, has secrets of her own, using hook-up apps and lying about her age to sleep with older men.

She has at least made friends with Kat, who invites her to high school jock McKay’s summer party before he starts college. The party proves eventful for everyone - Kat loses her virginity, Maddy – on the rebound from her split with boyfriend Nate – makes drastic moves to rile him up, and Nate, in his rage, takes it out on Jules. McKay, fresh from discovering his girlfriend Cassie’s nudes have been leaked to the boys of the school, attempts something new with her.

Once the party’s over, Jules and Rue go home together, and it turns out Nate’s father is someone we’ve already met.

In a flashback, an 11-year-old Nate Jacobs discovers his dad’s secret double life - and it informs who he becomes as we know him, complete with his rage problems and issues around sex. Still fuming about the events of the party, a twist on events by Maddy causes him to violently lash out. He later finds a new way to mess with Jules.

It’s the first day back at school after summer, and new faces leave Rue and Kat swooning.
However, when forced to confront the tumultuous events of her summer, particularly with her sister and mother, Rue finds herself on the edge.

Visiting Fez to pick up turns dangerous, and she finds herself in an incredibly vulnerable situation when his supplier drops by.

After discovering her tryst at McKay’s party was filmed, Kat decides to turn her humiliation into a business opportunity, while McKay starts to turn on Cassie.

The origin story of Kat’s struggle with her weight is revealed in a new flashback, as in the present timeline she begins her new job as a financially-dominating camgirl.

As Rue continues to lie about her drug use, Jules delivers her an ultimatum, Fez cuts her off, and Ali calls her out at an NA meeting.

Jules and Nate’s online chatting continues, causing a shock discovery by Maddy on Nate’s phone. Meanwhile, Rue’s attempts to help Jules with a new love interest goes wrong, and after an argument the pair end up changing their dynamic completely.

After that, she finds herself someone to talk to about what she’s going through.

In a new flashback, Jules’ history before arriving at East Highland is shared - including her stint in a psychiatric hospital aged 11 due to gender dysphoria, depression and self-harm.

She later begins to transition, and experiments with troubling and at times violent relationships with men.

Nate and Maddy get into yet another fight, which reaches a new, violent level. McKay and Cassie continue to fail to get on each others’ level, prompting Cassie to look elsewhere while high on MDMA.

At the school carnival, Jules suffers an awkward run-in. Cal later confronts Jules to keep their secret, with Nate later providing further back-up with a terrifying threat.

Jules is also left heartbroken when her mysterious text-mate doesn’t turn out to be the person she hoped.

Kat starts getting close to her biology classmate, Ethan, but she takes drastic action after she wrongly assumes he’s flirting with someone else.

Tables turn on Rue when she finds her little sister, Gia, high, and she takes her relationship with Jules to a new level.

In this week’s flashback, Maddy’s past as a beauty pageant entrant is explored, leading to how she found herself in a volatile relationship with Nate.

Following the events of the carnival, Nate finds himself in major trouble. Despite this, the pair seem unable to stay away from each other.

Rue comes out to her mother about her relationship with Jules, but things get rocky when Rue is dismissive of a traumatising event from Jules’s past, and Ali is sceptical about how long they will last. She later tries to build bridges with Lexi by offering an olive branch for their friendship.

Ethan and Kat’s will they/won’t they continues, with Ethan unsure what he’s done wrong and Kat continuing her sexual experimentation spiral.

In this episode, McKay’s childhood and life before college takes the spotlight in the flashback, including the pressure his father put on him to be a football player, and the chances of him turning pro.

Struggling to find any kind of footing among his college peers, an embarrassing moment at a party in front of Cassie turns aggressive when they head into the bedroom.

Nate’s life goes from bad to worse when he’s suspended from school - so he takes matters into his own hands to get his status back as the big man on campus.

Jules starts having doubts about her relationship with Rue, and turns to drinking at the latest high school party. Rue notices a strange look from her that could signal something darker.

Ethan finally makes some headway with Kat, only for her to turn cold on him again.

Finally, Cassie finds herself in an emotional state when, after being insulted for turning down sex with high schooler Daniel, she also realises her period is late.

The breakdown of Cassie and Lexi’s family unit is explored in the latest flashback, with their father descending into drug addiction after a car accident before abandoning their family.

Strapped with daddy issues, Cassie has turned this trauma into troubling relationships with men - particularly sexual in nature in order to receive validation. That is, until she met McKay. But things don’t go as she hoped when she shares with him she’s pregnant.

Rue and Jules continue to grow apart, sending Rue into a spiral. Determined to defend her after discovering what happened between her and Nate, she recruits Fez to get him to back off, but her plan spectacularly backfires.

Meanwhile Jules visits a friend from her old town that results in a night of drugs, partying and sex – with a twist Jules hasn’t experienced before.

Kat continues her lucrative new business as she continues to grow in confidence, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Maddy.

Rue ends up in hospital – this time not for drugs – prompting her to reconcile with Jules.

Maddy starts getting suspicious about aspects of Nate, causing a confrontation that results in horrific violence. Maddy later discovers the truth about Jules and her connection to Cal and Nate.

Nate reaches a mental breaking point when he fails once again to please his father.
Cassie has a major decision to make about her future.

At the school’s winter formal, more things come to a head as Kat and Ethan talk things out, Rue confronts Nate about his father’s behaviour, Maddy and Nate make a decision about their relationship and Jules makes a confession to Rue.

The pair come up with a potentially life-changing decision – but when it comes down to it,
Rue is left devastated, causing her to resort to an old habit that could have devastating consequences.

Filmed in the middle of the pandemic, the Euphoria specials are stripped back stories focusing on Rue and Jules in the aftermath of their decisions in the season one finale.

Following her relapse, Rue meets up with Ali on Christmas Eve to discuss her addiction and her inability to stay sober.

Meeting in a diner, Rue opens up about the guilt she feels about how her behaviour affects her family and other relationships, including the one she had with Jules. She also admits to feeling suicidal.

Ali, far more committed to sobriety than she is, discloses his past and how he wound up becoming an addict in the first place, as well as his reasons for converting to Islam and how his family was destroyed by his addiction.

In this, he tries to give her a pep talk that she has the ability to be the better person she wants to be - but she needs to forgive herself first.

On the same day Rue has her conversation with Ali, Jules is attending therapy.

Confessing her torn feelings about her relationship with Rue, Jules admits she finds it hard to deal with Rue’s sobriety, while simultaneously feeling like she’s the only one that truly ‘gets’ her.

In flashbacks, we discover Jules’s relationship with dealing with people with addiction hits extremely close to home, and her feelings for Rue tie in closely to those she has for her mother.

She also confesses that, despite the fact she knows it’s fantasy, she’s fallen in love with the idea of ‘Tyler’, and is even considering coming off her hormone medication after feeling like her femininity is attached to her desire to please men.

After the therapy session, Jules and Rue reunite, but their meeting is far more emotionally complicated than either of them want, leading to continued heartbreak.