• "Euphoria" returned on Sunday for its third and potentially final season.
• Once a dramatic and lucrative juggernaut for HBO, the series has become a shell of its former self.
• The cast has outgrown "Euphoria," and the characters have literally outgrown the show's premise.

Zendaya was gearing up for a big spring.

As she busied herself with interviews and PR stunts to promote her twisty new A24 movie, "The Drama," and shared trailers for her forthcoming blockbusters, "Dune: Part Three" and "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," there was one imminent project she'd yet to openly push, or even acknowledge: The long-awaited third season of "Euphoria," in which she'd reprise her Emmy-winning role as the adolescent drug addict Rue Bennett.

The show kick-started the prestige phase of her post-Disney career. But in the four years since "Euphoria" season two aired, Zendaya's career changed even more drastically, perhaps along with her priorities.

As she posed for splashy magazine covers with her "The Drama" costar Robert Pattinson and fielded questions about working with Christopher Nolan, "Euphoria" fans fretted that Zendaya had abandoned Rue for bigger and better things.

But Zendaya isn't the only "Euphoria" actor whose schedule has been packed between seasons. Both Jacob Elordi and Sydney Sweeney's profiles have risen significantly since season one premiered in 2019. Now, Elordi is a muse for "Saltburn" and "Wuthering Heights" director Emerald Fennell and earned his first Oscar nomination for Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein." Sweeney joined the MCU and starred in several box-office hits, including "Anyone But You" and "The Housemaid." Meanwhile, Hunter Schafer is positioned to become an indie darling; she earned praise for Neon's horror film "Cuckoo" and appears alongside Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel in A24's next big swing, "Mother Mary."

When the castmates reunited last week for the season three premiere in Los Angeles, one thing was painfully clear: the tentpole stars of "Euphoria" no longer need the show that brought them here.

Adding insult to injury, the "Euphoria" season three premiere gives them precious little worth sticking around for.

'Euphoria' has lost the plot, both onscreen and off

Sunday's season three premiere put an end to four years of anticipation. If only it had been worth the wait.

If not for Zendaya's dynamic portrayal of Rue, the newest episode of "Euphoria" would be unrecognizable as "Euphoria."

A five-year time jump has completely changed the show's focus. Now, Rue is in her early 20s and working as an indentured drug mule. As such, what was once a mosaic of coming-of-age stories about high schoolers has become, inexplicably, a crime drama.

Without the connective thread of high school, the ensemble cast fractures. Rue has always been the show's narrative anchor, but so far, hers is the only arc with any meaningful stakes — or screentime. Nate (Elordi) and Cassie (Sweeney) dutifully provide a B-plot as the not-so-happily engaged couple no one is rooting for, while Jules (Schafer), Maddy (Alexa Demie), and Lexi (Maude Apatow) have been relegated to side characters at best and afterthoughts at worst. Indeed, despite being one of the most important and interesting characters in the show's heyday, Jules doesn't appear at all in the season three premiere.

The agonies and wonders of teenagedom — when everything feels spectacular or like the end of the world, or both — have been replaced by the still-dramatic but far more mundane problems of adulthood: side hustles, money problems, domestic squabbles.

Along with its core themes, the series' signature aesthetic touchstones have been pushed to the margins or discarded entirely. Gone are the iconic sequined eyelids and glittery teardrops; in season three, Cassie vamps for the camera in classic red lipstick, and Maddy opts for clean black eyeliner. Even the lavish party scenes in a California mansion — a "Euphoria" staple — are lacking the neon-lit maximalism of seasons one and two.

Worse still, Labrinth, whose haunting music helped shape the show's emotional landscape, had his contributions removed from season three. He's replaced by a forgettable score from blockbuster composer Hans Zimmer, proving that bigger budgets don't always mean better ideas.

The characters are older, the world they inhabit has grown larger, and yet, "Euphoria" has never been more boring. The scenes that should create shock and tension — a montage of Rue forcing drug balloons down her throat, a forcibly decapitated chicken, a dead stripper foaming at the mouth on a shag carpet — are so shamelessly soliciting shock and tension that it knocks the pendulum in the other direction.

"Euphoria" creator Sam Levinson has always had a taste for absurdity and spectacle, and after two successful seasons, he may be too comfortable indulging. Without the character depth or inner conflict that once justified its melodrama, "Euphoria" is an expensive shell of its former self.