The second season of Euphoria, it’s fair to say, has split opinion. The slow pacing has been criticised, while the performances and cinematography have continued to be praised.

Whatever you think of the show, though, it’s always interesting: “episode 5 is by far and away the most uncomfortable – yet exciting – 54 minutes of TV that I have ever sat through in my life,” as one of our writers put it.

And Euphoria has another huge fan in notorious Broadway playwright Jeremy O. Harris, who fiercely came to the defence of the show’s creator Sam Levinson on social media this week.

In a rather pretentious series of tweets, Harris said, “I been told y’all to stop talking shit about my boy Sam Levinson bc THIS SEASON OF #EUPHORIA is made for ppl with an intellect for CINEMA and not the impatience of TELEVISION. Episode 5 is that bitch. I screamed when I read the first draft. My writer’s screamed seeing Z (Zendaya) on set.”

Harris wasn’t finished there, adding, “I see this season of #Euphoria as a Gesamtkunstwerk that rejects the ‘episode’ by ‘episode’ mentality of most shows. I hope this episode inspires more patience in how the piece will feel as a whole when it’s done. Think of it like Dickens’ periodicals and not serialized tv.”

For the majority of readers without a theatre studies degree, a Gesamtkunstwerk roughly translates as “total work of art” and is a work of art that makes use of all – or many – art forms; a piece of art that tries to be everything and anything, in other words.

There’s so much to unpack here. Firstly, the praise from Harris comes with the key caveat that he was brought in as a co-producer on Euphoria‘s second season, meaning he has a serious stake in the show’s appraisal.

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HBO, with it’s indulgent slogan “It’s not TV, it’s HBO”, has been pushing towards this point for decades now, ever since the era of The Sopranos first ushered in the idea of Prestige TV. TV isn’t allowed to simply be just TV anymore: every show has to be a dark metaphor, or a profound exploration of trauma, or a dazzling homage to cinema.

To use a term like Gesamtkunstwerk to describe a show about high schoolers dealing with drugs, love, mental illness, and sex – Skins but with Hollywood money – seems wilfully obtuse at worst and sublimely silly at best.

The reaction on Twitter to Harris was “mixed” (see below). “He brought out the G word ok we know u did an MFA,” wrote one Twitter user. “This reminds me of the most pretentious thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life: when people tried to claim that Twin Peaks: The Return wasn’t a TV limited series but an 18-hour movie,” noted someone else.

“Ok so 3 out of 5 episodes have been bad bc the tv show is made for people who love cinema and not people who watch tv, that makes sense,” considered another.

Harris rose to fame for his 2018 play, Slave Play, which followed three interracial couples undergoing “Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy” because the black partners no longer feel sexual attraction to their white partners. Reaction to the work was extremely divisive, although it did receive a record 12 nominations at the 74th Tony Awards.

Do you agree with Harris? Do you think his comments are done in jest? Do you find yourself constantly referring to something as a Gesamtkunstwerk?

For more on this topic, follow the Film & TV Observer.

https://twitter.com/mqutins/status/1490997860179279873?s=21

https://twitter.com/midrangefader/status/1490852099638558722?s=21

https://twitter.com/austerof/status/1490836924977881088?s=21

https://twitter.com/hereditarystan/status/1491109292795363330?s=21

https://twitter.com/annieswens/status/1491107414321799172?s=21

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