‘Euphoria’ Season 3 Finale Just Killed Four Major Characters and Left an Entire Fandom in Pieces
Sam Levinson’s ‘Euphoria‘ spent seven years building a reputation for going exactly where other shows refuse to go, dragging its audience through cycles of addiction, violence, and the slow collapse of young people who never really stood a chance. Since its debut, the series made Zendaya a two-time Primetime Emmy Award winner for her performance as the troubled and devastatingly human Rue Bennett, turning a raw HBO drama into a genuine cultural institution.
Season 3 launched with a five-year time jump, picking up Rue deep in debt to drug dealer Laurie and navigating a dangerous criminal operation between rival dealers. The season premiered on April 12, 2026, pushing the East Highland cast into their early twenties with heavier consequences and a plot that made it increasingly clear not everyone would make it out.
The killing began one week before the finale. Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) died in Episode 7 after being buried alive by a loan shark over a million-dollar debt, killed when a rattlesnake entered his only breathing hole before the coffin could be pulled from the ground. Reflecting on the exit in an interview with E! Online, Elordi called it “a cool way to go,” adding that Nate had made so many dark choices that the violent end felt like a fair reckoning for where the character had always been heading.
The 93-minute series finale, titled “In God We Trust,” aired on May 31 and claimed four lives in swift, merciless succession. Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), after discovering Rue had cooperated with the DEA, gave her fentanyl-laced painkillers she believed were for pain relief, and she overdosed, while Laurie (Martha Kelly) chose to hang herself at her compound rather than be arrested during the DEA raid closing in around her. Ali (Colman Domingo), finding Rue dead on his couch, took a shotgun to Alamo’s strip club and shot G (Marshawn Lynch) after G refused to tell him where Rue had obtained the fentanyl, then cornered Alamo himself and killed the man responsible for Rue’s death in a final confrontation.
Social media collapsed into grief almost immediately. Fans flooded platforms with reactions including “Nahhhh Rueeeee not like that” and “My god this Euphoria sequence on Ali’s couch… I am weeping,” while one viewer wrote that Levinson would personally be paying for their therapy session the following morning. The general tenor was less disappointment and more complete, undeniable devastation.
In a post-finale featurette, Levinson described the conclusion as the only honest ending available, calling Rue a character who was fundamentally good-hearted despite being deeply flawed, and crediting Zendaya’s performance as something the entire creative team fell in love with across the run of the show.
Zendaya had already hinted at the show’s finality earlier this year during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, saying she believed closure was on its way and that the series had fundamentally reshaped how she understands empathy and redemption.
The finale also wove in a quiet tribute to the late Angus Cloud, with Rue dreaming of his character Fezco escaping the correctional facility where he had been held. HBO drama chief Francesca Orsi had previously stated that ending the show with Season 3 had been a genuine conversation at the network, and with four major deaths now confirmed, ‘Euphoria’ went out the way it always lived, without softening a single blow. Which of the four losses hit you the deepest, and do you think Rue’s story ended the way it was always meant to?
