The penultimate episode of Euphoria’s third season centers on the brutal disappearance of one of its main characters. In the wake of the audience’s collective shock, showrunner Sam Levinson spoke out to justify this ending that could have come straight from a horror movie.
After two seasons of wildly intense drama, season 3 of Euphoria sadly disappointed a sizable portion of its fanbase. It’s safe to say the behind-the-scenes production of this new batch of episodes went through an actual hell, with the show contending with both forced and voluntary exits of Storm Reid and Barbie Ferreira, amid a mountain of other scheduling headaches.
On the casting front, season 3 kept the same fiery core and relaunched the collective spiral into darkness, but with a few more years’ worth of traumas on the clock. Rue (Zendaya) returned bearing a heavy sack of trouble alongside Ali, Jules, and Lexi. Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) pivoted to a career on OnlyFans. And one of the other characters (whom everyone hates) met a tragic end in episode 7 of season 3.
Euphoria, a Horror-Style Take
The brutal seventh episode of this season 3, titled Rain or Shine, slammed a crushing blow into the audience. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the creator of the series, Sam Levinson, spoke at length about Nate Jacobs’s abrupt disappearance, portrayed by Jacob Elordi. Despite Cassie’s desperate attempts to pull him from danger, the toxic tyrant of the high school ultimately drew his last breath. Should we mourn him? No.
Make no mistake—his tormentors did not go easy on him: after amputating several fingers and toes over a debt of a million dollars, loan sharks simply buried him alive. Nate ultimately expired alone at the bottom of his coffin, bitten by a rattlesnake, just as his ex and his wife arrived to try to save him. A brutal death that, in the end, feels somewhat earned given his rap sheet.
Asked about this bout of pure sadism, Levinson owned his choice with a certain therapeutic cynicism on an American outlet:
“It’s a funny thing: I know what the audience wants in terms of justice or karma, and keeping that in mind, I always wonder how to give it to them. How to offer them what they want, while making the thing so horrifying and anxiety-inducing that, when it happens, the viewers aren’t entirely sure they actually wanted it?”
Interrogé sur cet accès de sadisme pur, le créateur a assumé son choix avec un certain cynisme thérapeutique au micro du média américain :
“That was what was exciting about seeing the characters outside the high school. They’re now facing the real world and the consequences are real; there is no safety net. I love that Western frontier vibe, that line where you can accomplish something in life, but where you must necessarily own and live with your choices.”
Le showrunner a également insisté sur le fait que la sortie du cadre scolaire a permis d’accentuer la violence des enjeux économiques et physiques pour sa bande de cobayes :
“That was what was exciting about seeing the characters outside the high school. They’re now facing the real world and the consequences are very real; there is no safety net. I love that Far West edge, that boundary where you can accomplish something in life, but you must inevitably own and live with your choices.”
Reste à voir comment ce carnage sera digéré par les survivants dans l’ultime chapitre de la série. The grand finale de cette troisième salve d’épisodes d’Euphoria sera diffusé dans la nuit du 31 mai au 1er juin 2026 sur HBO en France.
