Sam Levinson

Bruce Robinson for CBS News, Lake Tahoe.

Well-known humorist and writer Sam Levinson died in New York City Wednesday night.

He was 68.

Levinson suffered a cardiac arrest and died three hours after being hospitalized.

jarring in a great way um yes i am a fan of euphoria um We talked about it a little before, so we said we would talk about it up top.

Fan of Euphoria, not a fan of Sam Levinson.

Have a few questions about why he loves seeing teenage girls tortured in so many ways.

Or even Young Women.

So I watched it and I was like, this is so good.

It's terrifying.

And I didn't know, still don't really know that much about Sam Levinson.

So I was watching it completely in a vacuum with all of that.

It is definitely a show that is unafraid to punish its characters for better or worse.

And I think, you know, a lot of people push back on that tendency in Sam Levinson's work.

And I understand the reasons why, but I do think that it elicits a lot of really interesting stuff and particularly a lot of really interesting performances.

Sometimes I feel like this show is almost better as, like...

And this brings me to a much more recent controversy.

Because Sam Levinson has essentially been accused of the exact same thing, portraying King without understanding King.

And in this particular case, I think that criticism is essentially wrong.

First and foremost, Euphoria creator Sam Levinson is not a stranger to portraying King and BDSM in his work in general and in this series in particular.

Even in the very first season, we saw a teenage girl cat essentially becoming an online femdom.

I'm not going to analyze that storyline as an example of BDSM practice because her age makes the entire situation ethically and potentially even legally problematic.

There is separate criticism about whether some of the content shown would even be allowed under OnlyFans rules, and that is a valid platform-specific point.

But that is different from saying that Casey's ignorance about kink is unrealistic.

I also want to bust out into Labyrinth right now.

And I want Sam Levinson on the phone.

So I just kind of emptied the clip of all the things that rushed to my mind when Peyton said you look like you're in a Euphoria episode.

You missed one and I just thought about it.

Everything she did was weird.

Sam Levinson, the creator, I swear to this day, the reason why he kept Sidney Sweeney's character is just because he just wanted to objectify her.

I feel like I've heard him defend all of his choices with, I've heard him say that she was behind him and maybe she was, I don't know.

I mean, you know, Sidney Sweeney's her own person.

Every time.

That was his answer.

The guy's Sam Levinson's answer every freaking time.

We get it.

Yeah.

You know, the, the, the whole like produ- the whole production staff, not Sam Levinson, but of Euphoria, they're all Israeli.

And then, um, they bought the show, brought it, and then obviously Sam, they're pretty, pretty big Israeli supporters, but um, they, uh, brought it over and did their LA twist on it.

But, um, yeah.

Kris Masino, who's my DP on Our Hero Balthazar, worked on Heaven Knows What, he worked on Good Time.

So the New York film community, which is an extension of everything that I got from, from Casey and Van, and then working with Josh and Benny and Sam Levinson and Greta, like that is something that's very important to me.

And, and a movie is an opportunity to Um, collaborate and, uh-

I, I, I vibe with that more.

There were scandalised reports of behind-the-scenes issues and various problems with the story, as well as the time-honoured creative differences.

Tensions may have grown between The Weeknd and his one-time mentor Drake, but it seemed as if The Weeknd was keen for a piece of the success Drake had enjoyed producing the HBO hit Euphoria, and it was eventually Euphoria showrunner Sam Levinson who came on board to try and piece together the idle story.

I have to admit, I quite liked The Idol at the start, its first couple of episodes suggesting a lurid noir thriller with echoes of Brian De Palma and Brad Easton Oz.

But as time went on, the series became more and more indefensible until it eventually collapsed amid absurd plot twists and scenes where Tesfaye seemed to be acting in a different show than the rest of the cast.