Euphoria Recap: The Sins of the Father

Cassie’s whole “I think I should be single and work on myself” plan hits a psychopath-sized snag in this week’s Euphoria — but that’s far from the only havoc Nate Jacobs wreaks during the hour.

Before the ending credits roll, The Artist Formerly Known as Tyler has dumped (and then done) Cassie in a location straight outta Serial Killer Digest AND he’s managed to get his father in a blackmail-type situation. Whatever else you wanna say about the kid, you’ve gotta admire his multitasking abilities.

Read on for the highlights of “Out of Touch.”

‘IT WAS COMPLICATED’ | Rue’s voiceover informs us that Nate was in love with Cassie, “but it was complicated.” As Maddy and Cassie drive him from the New Year’s Eve party to the hospital, we watch Nate fantasize about Cassie — who’s naked in a lot of this flight of fancy — and come to the conclusion that he wants to be with her for the rest of his life. (Side note: Was it just me, or did that montage include flashes of Jules shooting nudes, too?) Cal comes to the hospital to pray over his bloodied boy; meanwhile, an out-of-it Nate dreams about Cassie being pregnant with their child and Cal being really, really weird about the whole situation. In fact, Rue’s voiceover tells us, Nate sometimes wished Cal would just drop dead.

All of the fantasizing about Cassie, however, is pointless: As Rue points out, Maddy still has the disc that she found in Nate’s room in the Season 1 finale.

CAL IS ON IT

| When his father asks, Nate claims not to remember who turned his face into raw hamburger at the party. So Cal pays a visit to Lexi and Cassie’s house, where he threatens to involve the police — who will check their cell phones, he bluffs — and the mere thought of Maddy finding out that Cassie and Nate are texting has Cass singing like a bird. (By the way, that text, in which Cassie said it was a “mistake” that she and Nate slept together? It was followed immediately by a call from Nate, who warned her, “Don’t ever put that in writing again.”

Cal then swings by Fezco’s shop; he carries a gun, but doesn’t take it out of his pocket. Lexi happens to be there at the same time; so are Ashtray and Fay, the heroin addict from the season premiere, who pushed the motel manager off a balcony and is crashing with the boys while she lays low. Nothing actually happens while Cal is in the convenience store, but it’s a VERY tense scene nonetheless.

While that’s happening, Nate drives Cassie to a very creepy housing development construction site to tell her he really likes her but they can’t be together and “we can never, ever speak about this.” Cassie responds by getting out of the car and running; anyone else know at least one girl in high school who always stalked/ran away from situations of heightened drama, if for no other reason than to center said drama on themselves? Not that I’m blaming Cassie; running away from Nate is probably one of the best decisions we’ve seen her make so far. But it seems like she does so in order to make him run after her — which he does — and ugh.

She winds up on the second floor of one of the skeletal homes. Somehow he finds her. He kisses her and takes off her panties, then sinks to his knees and starts nosing around but stops to wonder “How are you ever going to be able to look Maddy in the eye again?” Given that earlier, Nate warned Cassie that Maddy would “actually kill you” if she ever found out about their dalliance, this move seems like head games in the extreme, no?

NATE HAS THE UPPER HAND | When Nate gets home, Cal is waiting for him. “You wanna tell me why some punk drug dealer beat you up?,” Papa Jacobs wonders. Be careful what you wish for, dude. “You remember that classmate of mine that you f–ked, Jules?,” Nate calmly asks his dad. He says Jules told Rue, who told Fez, and they threatened to go to the police to say that Cal is a pedophile. “So maybe I was sticking up for you,” Nate muses, conveniently removing his stint as Tyler from this incredibly icky story.

Cal, stricken, apologizes, saying that he didn’t know Jules went to school with Nate “or what she was.” Nate says Jules didn’t know Cal was filming their encounter, and we see a new panic fill the older man’s eyes. “Do you have it, Nate?,” he asks just before the hour ends. “Do you have it?”

HOW LONG IS THIS DOWNWARD SPIRAL, ANYWAY?

| Over in Rue-land, we learn that she’s been spending a lot of time with Elliot, the guy she got high with in the laundry room on New Year’s Eve. But she hasn’t mentioned him to Jules… which makes things incredibly awkward when the trio run into each other at school. Rue is acting so weird that Jules immediately realizes that Rue has a crush on Elliot; what she doesn’t realize, much to Elliot’s later surprise, is that Rue is doing drugs pretty regularly.

Jules later goes bowling with Kat, Ethan and Maddy. When Rue texts that she wants to come over, Jules ignores it.

Also that evening, Rue gets high with Elliot then bikes to her Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Ali instantly realizes she’s not sober. “I see you’re still on your suicide mission,” he remarks. “Let go, let God,” she shoots back, strung out. He drives her home after, freaking her out when he announces that he wants to come in and meet her mom. It’s all very cordial, though Rue is vibrating at a very high frequency as she worries that he’s going to out her continued drug use to her mom. And when her mom asks Ali how Rue is doing, it seems like maybe Rue’s fears are founded. But he dodges the query a little, saying only, “She’s got a long way to go.”

‘LOVE YOURSELF! LOVE YOURSELF!’ | About that bowling night: It was supposed to be an Ethan/Kat date, and he’s not psyched that she invited her friends. But as we learn throughout the episode, Kat is realizing that she doesn’t love Ethan, but it’s probably because she hates herself. (Side note: That scene of all of the influencers etc. showing up in her room and screaming at her to “LOVE YOURSELF!” was pretty great.) Also of interest: All of Kat’s friends think her relationship with Ethan is unproblematically perfect, and they’re jealous.

In other news: Maddy is babysitting for a boy named Theo, whose mother (played by Friday Night Lights‘ Minka Kelly) has a to-die-for closet that Maddy likes to raid after the kid goes to bed. And from the way the buzzed mom lets her hand linger on Maddy after asking for an assist with a zipper at the end of one evening, you know this is going to get weird quickly.

Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!