Rue Bennett is at the center of Euphoria. While the audience likes and sympathizes with her often, they've also disliked her at many points.
The entire basis of Euphoria is centered around Rue Bennett. Whether she's the actual protagonist of the HBO series or not, she is the narrator and it's through her eyes that everything is explained to the audience. However, unlike most narrators in a movie or a TV show, Rue is not reliable due to her history with lying, as has been proven on the show a few times.
Those things also help make Rue a complex character. At times, the audience sympathizes with her and feels bad for the things that happen to her. In other episodes, she does things that make it so the viewers question whether or not they actually like her.
Rue places a lot of importance on her relationship with Jules. In fact, Jules even feels too much pressure by it, thinking that Rue's sobriety might rely on her availability. Although Rue remained sober, when Jules left town to visit an old friend, it wasn't a good time for her.
Rue fell into a depression where she just laid in bed watching reality television for hours on end. It got so bad that she couldn't even get up to use the bathroom, injuring herself in the process. Although she did figure out most of the Jules/Nate drama during this time, it was certainly hard to watch.
The series begins with Rue's return from a stint in rehab. She overdosed and was found by her little sister Gia, who is traumatized by the event. When Rue returns, she is meant to go to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, where she immediately lies to everyone.
From the fellow people in the group to her friends to her mother, Rue says she's sober, but she's still doing drugs at the time. It makes the fans who root for her upset because they want to see her get better. Thankfully, Ali catches on to her lies and ultimately helps her.
Eventually, Rue does get sober and remains that way for most of the show. A lot of it is tied to the bond she shares with Jules and the fact that she has Ali by her side for the moments where she might do something she regrets. That all changes when the finale arrives.
After Rue changes her mind and stays behind, leaving Jules to escape town on her own, she is heartbroken. Rue returns home and does drugs again, relapsing. The scene is breathtaking but certainly a sad one, especially given how Rue thinks back to when her father was alive and life was better.
The relapse made it seem like Rue might be back on the wrong path in season two. However, the special episode "Trouble Don't Always Last" reveals that she contacted Ali about it. That shows that she wants to stay clean. She talks to him about her addiction and several other things.
During their conversation, a lot is revealed. One of them is that she holds Jules responsible for her relapse and for hurting her. Ali wisely points out that their relationship was never officially defined and that it doesn't all fall on Jules. It's unfair of Rue to put the blame on Jules for her life.
Again, this comes from the conversation Rue has with Ali in the diner. Among the many things they discuss, Rue mentions that she doesn't feel like she'll be alive for very long. A major part of it is just simply that she doesn't think she deserves to have that kind of life.
Rue opens up about the horrible things that she has done, including putting her mother through hell. Along with what her addiction has done to her family, she also got violent with her mom at one point, which she doesn't forgive herself for.
The friendship between Rue and Fezco really gets established in the show's second episode. The first installment sees him as a drug dealer she has a past with but not much more. She comes to him for drugs again in the follow-up but he urges her to leave.
Desperate for drugs, Rue ignores his constant warnings. Things get immediately serious when Fezco's supplier Mouse shows up. He threatens to do terrible things until Fezco pays him to leave. Rue could've avoided this situation had she just listened.
As noted, the first episode deals with Rue's return to her regular life following rehab. That includes coming back from summer break and the first day of a new school year. Rue is almost immediately forced to go on stage in front of everyone and talk about her time away from school.
For starters, a lot of people don't do well with public speaking, so that's awkward. However, it really becomes a situation where the audience feels bad for Rue when you consider that the teachers are likely aware of her time in rehab. Making her talk about it to everyone is an awful thing to do.
To be fair, this one is only actually seen in the midst of a montage but it's harrowing nonetheless. While Rue was on drugs, she had a volatile relationship with her mom. The two argued, fought, and nearly came to blows. The worst of it happened when Rue grabbed a weapon.
After a picture in a frame breaks during one of their arguments, Rue picks up a shard of glass and holds it to her mother's face, threatening to hurt her. This is the main moment that Rue calls back to with Ali when discussing how she feels about the treatment of her family.
The aforementioned situation where Rue doesn't take Fezco's advice nearly goes as poorly as it could have. For starters, she is indeed put in the crosshairs of a dangerous gangster nicknamed Mouse. He begins by forcing her to take fentanyl, which proves to be a huge problem.
This is not something she has taken before and it leads to Jules being called in to help her get through the night. Fezco also had to pay off Mouse to get him to leave, since Mouse was starting to caress Rue in very uncomfortable ways.
After the events where Rue failed to listen to what Fezco warned her about, he made the choice to cut her off. She returns to him the following episode in "Made You Look" for drugs after she kisses Jules and doesn't get the exact response she was hoping for.
Fezco refuses to open the door for her, not wanting to indulge her in her addiction again. Rue breaks down outside, banging on the door and screaming at him. She ridicules him and blames him for her overdose in an emotional scene that earned Zendaya an Emmy Award.
