Caution: Spoilers Ahead for Euphoria Season 2 Episode 6
Euphoria's standout characters in season 1 thanks to her journey from One Direction fan-fiction writer to confident cam girl. As Kat explored the more outgoing side of her personality, she transformed throughout the first batch of Euphoria episodes, becoming more sure of herself both on her own and within her group of friends. Kat even capped off the season in a relationship with Ethan (Austin Abrams) and she seemed prime for another interesting storyline when the show returned.
Unfortunately, Euphoria season 2 has given Kat a reduced role. From her bumbling dinner with Ethan's parents where she itted that she doesn't know who she is or what she wants to her secondary nature in nearly every group scene she's in, Kat seems to be both the victim of stagnant character development and quite possibly other outside factors. At first glance, it seems like Kat is being Euphoria season 1, but rumors have persisted that Ferreira and creator Sam Levinson had a following out over Kat's storyline, prompting the writer-director to give the actress less to do this season.
This culminated in one of the worst scenes for Kat to date. In Euphoria season 2 episode 6, Kat and Ethan go out for dinner and it's clear that she is going to break up with him in this moment. How she goes about it, though, completely undermines everything we've known about Kat as a character thus far. Instead of just cutting things off, Kat pretends to have a "terminal brain disorder" and then redirects the heat onto Ethan when he calls her on it. From lying about having a brain disease to gaslighting Ethan into breaking up with her, the scene with Kat is antithetical to her journey as a character in the show.
Kat's journey has seen her become more confident overall and while season 2 certainly acknowledges that confidence is a double-edged sword for young women in a world that's meant to chip away at it at every turn, Kat ending up here seems like a regression. Season 1 Kat could almost be described as a maneater as she worked her way through online communities and even other guys in and around East Highland. Her breaking up with Ethan in this manner, though, completely forgoes any of that for a scene that is played for laughs and doesn't feel thought out in a way that is beneficial to Ferreira's character.
Where Kat goes from here remains unclear, but with her being out of the picture for most of season 2, and with only two episodes of Euphoria left, there's not much that can be done to salvage her character. Additionally, Kat's characterization is indicative of a larger problem Euphoria has had this season with balancing its character arcs. Characters like Rue, Jules, and Kat have been absent for large stretches of time in favor of exploring Nate, Cal, and the Jacobs family—a story that has been confounding, to say the least. How Euphoria plans to rectify this in the future, if at all, remains to be seen, but Ferreira's Kat is a character worth keeping around, and hopefully, she ends up with more to do in the next batch of episodes.
New episodes of Euphoria drop Sundays on HBO Max