Season Three of Euphoria Is Missing Something and It's Labrinth
What happens when the music that made a show leaves with the person who made it?
Euphoria season three is here after four and a half years, and something about it feels off. Not unwatchable, just not quite right. Critics have noticed that the show that once sat comfortably in the high seventies on Rotten Tomatoes has crashed to 45% for its final run. There are plenty of reasons for that. But one of them walked out the door very publicly and took his music with him.
“Labrinth's music has shaped the show's identity.” - Hans Zimmer
For two seasons, Labrinth’s score wasn’t background noise; it was the whole feeling of the show. “All For Us,” “Formula,” “Never Felt So Alone.” That’s the music people mean when they say Euphoria hits different. When Hans Zimmer was announced as a collaborator for season three, even he acknowledged it: Labrinth had “shaped the show’s identity,” Zimmer said, and he was looking forward to contributing to it. Contributing. Zimmer knew whose sound he was stepping into.
Then Labrinth posted to Instagram, “I’m done with this industry. Fuck Columbia. Double fuck Euphoria. I’m out.” He later clarified he’d removed his music entirely and that he left because he wouldn’t let people treat him badly. Creator Sam Levinson, who was asked what happened, told Rolling Stone: “I don’t know.”
So Zimmer scores it alone. And he's Hans Zimmer, nobody's calling it a disaster. But it's a different show now. Levinson wanted something cinematic, Western, adult. What he got might be technically impressive and emotionally miles from what made Euphoria feel like Euphoria in the first place. The soundtrack was never just the soundtrack. We'll see what the rest of the season does with that, but episode one already feels like proof.
