Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
The last time we saw Zendaya as Rue onEuphoria, she was in the middle of a drug relapse.
Shes not fidgety Rue doesnt have enough energy to fidget.
Her mouth does the fidgeting for her.
I wasnt really trying not to relapse, Rue admits.
Weve all heard that great acting is about reacting, and Zendayas work proves that here, too.
She has an incredibly gifted scene partner in Domingo and the flow between them is seamless, which helps.
There is also something definitively end of 2020 about what Zendaya captures in this performance.
A key part of that is the exhaustion that radiates off of her, off of Rue.
Her eyelids, devoid, like the rest of her face, of all makeup, frequently droop.
She talks slowly and sometimes cant muster more than a mumble or whisper.
Were all spent and depleted and running on the last tiny cloud-remnants of fumes.
Zendaya makes manifest that feeling.
Her entire being in this episode is the equivalent of a jagged, heavy sigh.
The worlds just really fuckin ugly and everyone seems to be okay with it, she says.
Thats a pretty accurate, concise way to summarize why 2020 has wrecked so many of us.
Ali is not inclined to argue with Rue or talk her out of things.
He knows that wont change her mind-set.
Instead, he does what hes done throughout the entire hour: He challenges her instead.
This is when Zendaya does the most remarkable piece of acting in the whole episode.
She just sits on the question, without saying a word, for 30 full seconds.
Her expression is almost blank.
But then her lips betray her again.
They start to tremble.
Her nose runs, and her lower lip swallows her upper one again to catch the drop.
As someone who tried really hard to be someone I couldnt, she finally says.
Thats when a tear finally falls from Rues eye.
Another actor might have leaned harder into that cry, letting out a cathartic, heaving sob.
But Zendaya understands that Rues despair is being expressed by someone who is weary to her bones.
As she has been the entire time in the diner, she is still.
