HBO Max's hit drama Euphoria has been a hot topic in pop culture since it premiered back in 2019. After waiting nearly three years for the much-anticipated follow up to the highly successful first season, fans were overjoyed to see Season 2 drop on the streaming platform in January 2022. Fueled by just as much trauma, drama and drugs as the first season, Euphoria's sophomore outing did not disappoint.
With Emmy Award-winning Zendaya (Spider-Man: No Way Home) leading the series as the troubled Rue Bennett in another stunning, award-worthy performance, Euphoria brought fans back to the fictional town of East Highland for another tumultuous season. Euphoria is told through the eyes of Rue for the entirety of the story, with Zendaya's narration filling in the gaps in the plot not shown onscreen. Unfortunately, as viewers know, Rue doesn't always have the clearest, most reliable mind. As such, even the series' location is up for debate.
Rue has had a troubled past, turning to the heavy use of narcotics as a way to cope with her father's untimely passing. Because of the fact she's inebriated for a majority of both seasons of the show, Rue is not necessarily the most reliable narrator, as her recollection of events may be skewed due to her not being in the right frame of mind while certain major plots were happening. This could also be applied to the actual setting of Euphoria, where Rue provides minute, vague details about her hometown, leaving viewers to put together the pieces on where exactly Euphoria takes place.
In Season 1, Rue mentions that she grew up with a "middle-class childhood in an American suburb," though it's clear that the location of this suburb is somewhere in the more rural areas of Los Angeles County. Most of Euphoria is shot at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, and it's clear that for other on-location shots, the cinematic team elected to stay close to that geographical area, filming parts of the series in Burbank, Montclair and other parts of Los Angeles. This is most likely to keep the locations all looking as seamless as possible as well as saving budget costs for shooting in multiple locations stretched across the country.
Many Euphoria fans have made their own deductions of the show's setting based on the name of the high school all of the young characters attend. Though the scenes set inside the school were all shot at Ulysses S. Grant High School in Valley Glen, the school is called "East Highland High School" in Euphoria, leading many fans to believe it's named after the town in which the series takes place. Film and television fans may recognize Ulysses S. Grant High School from series like MTV's Teen Wolf reboot, Malcolm in the Middle and the film Not Another Teen Movie.
Though East Highland is never officially spoken as the name of the town, it's not that far of a leap to make, and Euphoria creator Sam Levinson has neither confirmed nor denied this theory -- making it less of a theory and more something that's just accepted in the Euphoria canon. Is East Highland a real town in California? Short answer, no. However, there is a city in San Bernadino County named Highland that is divided into two parts: Highland and East Highland, though one quick search on Google Maps reveals it's more desert terrain than anything -- and definitely not the same location where Euphoria takes place.
Seasons 1 & 2 of Euphoria are available to stream on HBO Max.
