Cassie Howard is the secondary antagonist of the second season of Euphoria. She was at first introduced as the best friend of Maddy Perez and sister of Lexi Howard. While she was a hero in the first season, she ends up letting out her more merciless and cruel sociopathic side after she begins to date Maddy's abusive ex-boyfriend Nate Jacobs.
Season 2[]
Cassie stopped by a bodega after she argued with Lexi on their way to the New Years eve party. Nate later picked her up and took her there and they made out in the bathroom. However it gets stopped in between when Maddy tries to get in the same bathroom to pee, which frightens Cassie out of guilt and she proceeds to hide in the bathtub while Nate escapes from the window.
Later, she greets Maddy for New Years and as they celebrate, she witnesses Nate get beaten up by Fez for what he did to Rue, Jules and everyone else. Cassie gets distressed and decides to see him in the hospital.
She slowly becomes fascinated with him and decides to do everything to impress him, including copy what Maddy does. She tries to act confident but ends up cracking through the facade sometimes. But she is shown to be slowly letting go of her guilt of betraying her best friend by dating an abusive Nate.
Her more vile true colours are shown to be slowly coming out starting from "Standing Still Like A Hummingbird", where she pretends to care for Rue going through a drug withdrawal before the latter confronts her about sleeping with Nate, then Cassie proceeds to insult Rue calling her a drug addict before Maddy chases her up the stairs and Cassie locks herself up in her bathroom. Maddy begins to tear up and ask how could Cassie betray her like this to a monster and begins to beg to show some mercy, but Cassie on the other side looks angry and satisfied at tormenting her ex-best friend and decides to let jealousy get the better of her.
She then proceeds to play the victim and degrade both Lexi and their mom Suze and blame Maddy for the affair. She gives up on all her family and friends and moves in with Nate.
She decides to continue dating him and allowing him to control and abuse her just to torture Maddy and make her weak and wields her newfound power. While watching Lexi's play, she feels indifferent and callous especially towards the scenes that show her ill-treatment of both Lexi and Maddy. But after Nate breaks up with her after the locker room scene, Cassie finally decides to show her true colours and meddles in Lexi's play to emotionally abuse both her and Maddy, revealing that she has always hated them and is tired of being stepped on by them and wanted them to feel what she felt for years, having gotten drunk on her newfound power she got from dating Nate. She then proceeds to assault everyone around her before Maddy goes to stop her rampage and subdue her all the while Cassie taunts her and tries to mess with her head.
Unfortunately, Cassie still managed to get away with all of her misdeeds at the end and still has no remorse for abusing both Maddy and Lexi and tormenting them as it's shown that she still hates both of them. It's implied that she will plan something more sinister for them and torture them more out of vengeance.
By the end, dating a domestic abuser like Nate Jacobs, Cassie herself became a domestic abuser.