Season three of Euphoria has already delivered moments that have made viewers feel uneasy about what the characters are enduring, but one sequence was so revolting to film that the crew reportedly broke into a standing ovation as soon as production stopped.
Anyone who’s watched the premiere on HBO Max will understand why. In the episode, Chloe Cherry’s character, Faye, demonstrates to Rue (Zendaya) how to swallow a bag of fentanyl—an instruction that turns into one of the most stomach-churning beats of the hour.
That wasn’t the only scene to spark strong reactions. Sydney Sweeney returns as Cassie, who is now trying to create OnlyFans-style content in a setup that has already drawn criticism—particularly because she’s dressed like a baby.
Cherry’s sequence, which some fans have branded “disgusting,” unfolds as Rue looks for ways to move small bags of white powder over the US border. The episode cuts to a montage of Rue attempting to ingest the bags, echoing the dangerous reality of exploited drug mules around the world.
Rue turns to Cherry’s porn-star-turned-actor character for help, and the two are shown gagging and vomiting as they try to force the drug-filled baggies down.
Even if it made some viewers feel queasy, Cherry told Metro that the intensity of her performance earned her applause from the crew once they wrapped the take.
Cherry said: “[The director] Sam came up to me, and he said, ‘I need this scene to really show how disgusting it would actually be if you were to swallow balloons filled with fentanyl and how disgusted you would actually be’.
“He was like, ‘I really, really, really, really, really need you to turn the disgust up in this scene,’ and I was like, all right, I’m gonna give it a go.”
She continued: “I just managed to pull it off… and when we stopped shooting, everybody clapped. I’m not even kidding, the whole crew clapped for me. They were so amazed at how disgusting I made that scene.”
While Levinson and the team were apparently pleased with how convincingly the actors pulled off the moment, the premiere left a section of the audience raising broader concerns—less about plot, and more about what the show is asking its cast to do.
‘This is basically a humiliation ritual for everyone involved…’ one viewer wrote after the scenes featuring Cassie, including a moment where her housekeeper records her making OnlyFans content while she wears a small corset and dog ears and drinks from a bowl on the floor.
Some branded the segment “gross,” while another summed up the wider reaction to the dog-themed setup with: ‘EWWWWW????? THE DOG WHAT’.
Another viewer questioned the piling-on of kink imagery, adding: “This nasty as hell omg. They threw in every possible fetish all at once, Euphoria you died.”