Critics are far from euphoric about the third, and presumably final, season of “Euphoria,” HBO’s gritty, stylized spin on adolescence that served as a launchpad for many of today’s most notable young actors.

Sam Levinson’s sex- and drug-laden series, which premiered in 2019, catapulted Zendaya to two Emmy wins and her current A-list standing as well as elevating the profiles of Sydney Sweeney, Hunter Schafer, Jacob Elordi and Colman Domingo.

“Euphoria” will pick up with a five-year time jump when it returns Sunday, more than four years after the second season’s cliffhanger finale in February 2022.

The long-awaited premiere is preceded by skewering reviews from critics who’ve seen the first three episodes. The season currently holds a 48% critical approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. There, seasons 1 and 2 still boast their Certified Fresh badges with respective scores of 80% and 78% approval.

Season 3 is not totally devoid of supporters and kind superlatives, particularly for the cinematography and Zendaya’s reliably impressive chops. Critics also tended to find poignance in the scenes with Nate’s (Elordi) sex offender father, Cal, played by Eric Dane, who died earlier this year following a battle with ALS.

New York Magazine’s Vulture, though, dubbed the show “a monument to Sam Levinson’s lack of creativity,” finding the show’s “thin” characters “caught in the same holding pattern and narrow worldview” as when we last saw them.

The Hollywood Reporter praised Zendaya’s return but found this latest batch of episodes pushes the show “closer to flashy irrelevance,” with the arcs of these once-chaotic teens falling flat “when run through a 20-something prism.”

BBC News similarly praised Zendaya but otherwise found “Euphoria” has “lost its zeitgeisty edge,” while Mashable is convinced “there’s a great show lurking” beneath its “lazy shocks,” namely in the arcs of Cassie (Sweeney) and Rue. That potential, it said, is “smother[ed] … with something far grosser” and while “it should be great … it’s gross.”

The Independent found the season finally “mastered” the show’s admitted “contradictions.”

The Daily Beast crowned these episodes “trashier, sexier — and better — than ever,” thanks to “far fewer dead-weight subplots” this go-round, with the “characters piercingly defined.”

Variety meanwhile found the show “is never not entertaining,” but was ultimately weighed down by the first few episodes’ “disjointedness.”

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