‘Euphoria’ Says Goodbye to Rue Bennett With 25 Million Viewers Watching
Few television dramas in recent memory have burned as brightly or as controversially as ‘Euphoria’. Sam Levinson’s unflinching portrait of addiction, trauma, and teen identity captivated audiences from the moment it premiered on HBO, turning its cast into cultural phenomena and sparking fierce debates with every new season. After a years-long wait for its third and final chapter, the show returned with an audience larger than ever, setting the stage for what would become one of the most talked-about series endings in recent HBO history.
After seven years, three seasons, and 26 episodes, the show has officially reached the end of the road. Creator Sam Levinson made the announcement on the New York Times’ Popcast podcast, and HBO subsequently confirmed to Variety that the Season 3 closer, titled “In God We Trust,” was not simply a season finale but the definitive series finale. It was a confirmation that many had expected, but one that still landed with weight for a fanbase deeply invested in these characters.
The final episode drew 8.7 million viewers across HBO and HBO Max within its first three days, a slight increase from the Season 3 premiere, which had pulled in 8.5 million viewers in the same window and already marked a 44% jump over the Season 2 premiere. The most-watched episode of the season was actually the third, which reached 8.9 million viewers over three days, but the finale’s ability to hold close to that peak speaks to just how strongly the show maintained its grip on audiences through its conclusion.
Zooming out, the full picture is even more impressive: Season 3 is averaging 25 million global viewers, marking a 17% increase over the previous season’s audience of 21.5 million viewers. That number is expected to continue rising, as HBO measures total audience performance across a 90-day window following each episode’s release. Beyond the raw viewership, the finale was also the season’s most-discussed episode across social platforms, generating roughly 140% more conversation than the season premiere.
The response to the finale was shaped largely by a major creative choice: Sam Levinson killed off Zendaya’s Rue Bennett in the closing episode. In a post-show segment on HBO, Levinson defended the decision by saying “it felt like an honest ending,” adding that “the honest ending is people like Rue don’t make it.” Speaking to New York Times’ Popcast after the finale, he elaborated that “in terms of the story that we set out to tell, which is a story about addiction and its consequences, this feels like the end.”
Not everyone walked away satisfied. The season currently holds a critics’ score of 37% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the finale itself drew divided reactions from both press and viewers. Variety described the episode as “protracted,” while some fans expressed frustration that Rue’s death felt like a betrayal of the show’s message of hope for those struggling with addiction. Some viewers drew comparisons to the divisive final seasons of ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Stranger Things’, with one posting that “‘Euphoria’ now joins the list of one of the worst final seasons ever in a show.” Others, however, pushed back strongly on that reading, arguing the ending was exactly right.
Zendaya had reportedly already hinted in previous interviews that she believed the show was ending after Season 3, and Levinson himself had long written every season as though it could be the last. Whether the finale landed as a fitting farewell or a frustrating conclusion may depend entirely on how you felt about Rue’s journey from the very beginning. So where do you land: was Rue’s ending the honest, tragic close that ‘Euphoria’ always deserved, or did the show leave too much unresolved for a satisfying goodbye?
