When the teen drama “Euphoria” premièred, on HBO, in the summer of 2019, it was a cultural event. Its themes of drug abuse, mental health, and ecstasy, and its packaging and presentation of queer aesthetics, came Instagram-ready. No matter how bleak things got at East Highland High, you still wanted to dress like Rue and Jules, characters who, given the show’s interest in appearances, were necessarily fetish princesses of the genre. Later that summer, another teen drama, “David Makes Man,” débuted, on OWN. It is the metabolic opposite of “Euphoria.” The remarkably humane melodrama is not trying to influence you, or make you buy something; nor is it trying to ride on pop-cultural rhythms. “David Makes Man” is the rare successful portrait of a teen life that privileges narrative over contemporary critique….
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