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| “ | Well that makes me a villain, then so f--kin' be it. I can play the f--kin' villain. | „ |
| ~ Cassie after revealing she slept with her best friend's boyfriend. |
Cassandra “Cassie” Howard is the secondary antagonist of the HBO series Euphoria.
She is the sister of Lexi Howard, the eldest daughter of Suze and Gus Howard, and the former best friend of Maddy Perez. She is a teenager known for having a sexual history because of the sex tapes many of her ex-boyfriends leaked to the internet.
Throughout the first season, she is shown as a nice and sweet girl currently dating Chris McKay while having difficulties in their relationship because of her infamous sexual past. Following her break-up with McKay and having an abortion, the second season shows her darker, wrathful side when she gets together with Maddy's abusive ex-boyfriend Nate Jacobs.
She was portrayed by Sydney Sweeney, who also portrayed Juliet Lowe in Nocturne, while Kyra Adler portrayed her as a child.
Appearance[]
Cassie is 5’5” and she is a young white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes.
Personality[]
In Season 1, Cassie used to be a very sweet and nice girl. Because she is mentally insecure, she constantly makes bad decisions. In Season 2, during her relationship with Nate, Cassie becomes self-destructive, sadistic, and vengeful. She also showed no care for Maddy because she got together with Nate, despite knowing he abused her best friend. She also justifies her actions despite them being wrong.
Throughout Season 2, at first, it seemed like she was worried about her friendship with Maddy, and it seemed like she was genuinely manipulated by Nate.
But later, we see that she has some similar traits to Nate as, like him, she also suffered a trauma related to her father and ended up developing dangerous anger issues as a result. Cassie is also shown to be very good at manipulation, deception, gaslighting, and intimidation against her enemies. She is capable of manipulating and breaking the will of characters like Maddy and Lexi, whether it's by psychological manipulation or verbal abuse, which results in them doubting themselves and their place.
It is also shown that despite knowing that her actions as a result of getting together with Nate are completely wrong and brutal, namely flaunting her relationship with Nate to Maddy and abusing and humiliating Lexi for her play, she still does them anyway simply for the sick kicks and amusement she gets from it and the enjoyment and satisfaction she gets from making others suffer in despair like she did in the past.
Biography[]
Cassie is a young woman who was constantly sexualized and degraded by people around her due to her body reaching puberty too early, because of which she attracted a lot of attention and had low self-esteem as a result. It worsened after her dad ran away due to his drug addiction and when he came back, he used "love" in order to manipulate Cassie and stole money from them for more drugs, which left her heartbroken.
Throughout the series, we see her go through a lot of trauma, where she gets used to sex by everyone around her, her boyfriend McKay going through prejudices for being with someone like her, and eventually accidentally getting pregnant and getting an abortion. By the end of Season 1, Cassie decided to focus on herself, a decision that ended up going down the drain when Season 2 began.
Season 2[]
Cassie ended up at a bodega after an argument with Lexi, where she was found by Nate and was taken by him to the New Year's Eve Party, from there and then she was slowly smitten and in love with him after a night with him and did everything to make him notice her and like her more.
However, due to her obsession with completing her idealistic life with Nate, Cassie ended up slowly developing a demonic personality due to years of trauma where she showed no mercy to anyone around her and would wield her hatred and resentment against those who wound her ego, which was clearly exposed when Cassie gloated to Nate about being crazier than Maddy. It's clear that over time she has developed complete anger and hatred and after everything that happened to her in the past, she wants revenge and retribution for everything that happened, starting with her willingly stealing Nate.
Her darker side got worse when Rue exposed her affair with Nate, which eventually caused Cassie to finally free her sociopathic personality where she was willing to abuse, bully and torture her former friends and family in order to get what she wanted. Her merciless side was shown when she cut off ties with Maddy after the latter broke down about what Nate did to her and when she emotionally and mentally abused Lexi, especially when she ruined her play due to Nate breaking up with her.
Maddy does eventually fight her although the majority of it is down off-screen, after the fight it’s unknown if Cassie will get back with Nate or if the relationship is over for good.
It's unknown if Cassie feels genuine remorse for her actions, or if her anger and resentment towards others will get worse and she will wreak more havoc against her enemies and continue to seek vengeance for her trauma.
Relationships[]
Family[]
- Gus Howard- Father
- Suze Howard - Mother
- Lexi Howard - Sister
Allies[]
- Nate Jacobs - Ex-Boyfriend, situational ally
- Christopher "Chris" McKay - Ex-Boyfriend
Enemies[]
- Lexi Howard - Abusee
- Maddy Perez - Former Best Friend and Love Rival turned Archenemy
- Fezco - Nate's Attempted Killer
- Rue Bennett - Former Friend, snitched on to Maddy (though mostly as a diversion) about her affair with Nate
- Jules Vaughn - Former Friend
- Kat Hernandez - Former Friend
- BB - Former Friend
- Suze Howard
- Leslie Bennett
- Daniel - Former Hook-Up
Trivia[]
- In Season 2, Cassie shares some similarities with characters such as Tomie Kawamaki from Tomie and Kanako Fujishima from The World of Kanako. Like those two, Cassie is shown to be very beautiful but also has really manipulative and sociopathic tendencies where she enjoys making her friends and family suffer and exploiting them due to Nate's influence and doesn't take rejection well, especially from Nate and is willing to manipulate him to get what she wants. And especially like Tomie and Yuri from Girl From Nowhere, she was also bullied and abused her whole life until an incident in her life causes her to go from a docile and broken victim to a wrathful and sadistic psychopath who seeks vengeance for her trauma, which makes her no different than her tormentors.
- Her heinous and abusive actions in Season 2, especially her unpredictable and sadistic nature made her one of the most terrifying and dangerous antagonists of Euphoria alongside Nate Jacobs, his father, and Laurie.
- Cassie even shares similarities with Joon-Woo Jang from Vincenzo:
- Both are characters who are introduced as meek, kind, and shy individuals but later end up revealing their manipulative, sadistic, and psychopathic side and are willing to hurt and torment anyone who comes in the way of their goals, especially their own close ones.
- Both of them even have tumultuous pasts related to their fathers leaving them. The only difference is that while Cassie loved her father dearly and was broken by her abandonment due to his drug addiction, part of which also shaped her to become a ruthless and callous young woman she became from Season 2 onwards, Joon-Woo was already a psychopath whose crimes were covered up by his father and eventually Joon-Woo killed him for his affair with a younger secretary. Both even cut off their bonds with their family and lose their affection for them.
- Both also have younger siblings (Lexi Howard and Jang Han-Seo) who are friends with the edgy main protagonists (Rue Bennet and Vincenzo Cassano) and are loyal to them.
- Both individuals sadistically abuse and traumatize their said siblings for no reason other than their own amusement and jealousy. Both Cassie and Joon-Woo lack the true value of family, friendships and humanity (which is also what made Cassie comfortable and remorseless in betraying and bullying Maddy, Lexi, and others without hesitation and enjoy tormenting them).