Sydney Sweeney Went Nude For Her Most Provocative 'Euphoria' Scene Yet
In a matter of minutes, the third episode in Euphoria’s third season flashed through clips of Sydney Sweeney (as Cassie) posing nude while eating an ice cream, nude while wearing a baseball cap, almost nude while wearing a soaking wet American flag t-shirt, and, perhaps most demeaning, all but nude in a sheer shirt while posing as a baby, sucking on a pacifier and spreading her legs as her housekeeper snapped photos.
The montage is hardly the most shocking scene to come out of an episode that also featured a graphic sex scene in front of a Nazi flag, but it is perhaps indicative of the growing disconnect between Euphoria creator Sam Levinson and his once-devoted Gen Z audience.
While nudity, particularly Sweeney’s nudity, has been a staple in Euphoria since season one reached viral popularity in 2019, the show has frequently struggled (and often failed) to toe the line between warranted nude scenes and gratuitous degradation of its female characters. The result is a feeling of weariness among fans of the show when it comes to the frequency and graphicness of the show’s nude scenes. To make matters worse, this weariness coincided with a growing contempt for Sweeney’s public persona, making Cassie fall even further out of favor.
Fans’ waning interest in Euphoria’s sexually-charged plotlines correlates with data about Gen Z’s view of sex more generally. Research shows this generation is having less sex than earlier generations, and in 2023, the majority of teens and young adults who participated in a UCLA study reported that they wanted to see far less sex and trauma on TV. Bad news for Levinson.
On the heels of Heated Rivalry’s success in late 2025, Euphoria’s writer-director couldn’t be faulted for assuming that there is still an appetite for sexy TV among this demographic, but even though Euphoria’s viewership hasn’t suffered, Levinson has failed to garner the resounding acclaim HBO’s other horny drama show achieved.
It seems that it’s Levinson’s particular branch of sex and nudity that repels Euphoria viewers. While Heated Rivalry strips down its male leads in equal measure for fully consensual (and sensual) sex scenes, Euphoria saves its leering gaze for women who are, more often than not, experiencing some form of exploitation.
In earlier seasons, it was possible to strain past all the underlying misogyny in Cassie’s storylines to see why Sweeney’s character faced frequent humiliation. She was vulnerable; the daughter of an absent addict father and an alcoholic mother who sought validation from men and looked for love in the wrong places. But in season three, that nuance has been abandoned, and fans’ calls for a plot driven by the vulnerability that attracted us to Euphoria’s characters in the first place have been ignored.