Like a sneeze, the third (and potentially) final season of Euphoria has been all about build up. And after eight episodes of scandalous, headline-grabbing tomfoolery, Euphoria season three has ended with a bang.
Before we get into what went down, consider this your spoiler warning. And if you’d like to jump straight into the recap, click HERE.
Euphoria finale review: All sizzle, no steak
I have been an avid Euphoria fan since season one. When the series first landed on our screens in 2019, it was a breath of fresh air. Aside from rising star Zendaya, it had a cast of brilliant, relatively unknown actors and wrapped them in a dreamy, hyper-stylised world that still managed to feel emotionally raw. At its core, it was a ruthless portrayal of addiction and the chaos of adolescence.
Season one landed six Emmy nominations and won three, with Zendaya becoming the youngest actress to Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. The fanfare only increased for season two, with 16 nominations and nine wins, with Zendaya winning the Outstanding Lead Actress award yet again.
Naturally, when season three finally arrived more than four years after the season two finale, audiences were frothing at the mouth to see what Rue and her friends from East Highland High School were up to after a five year time jump.
But somewhere between the time jump and the long hiatus, Levinson seems to have lost the essence of what made the show so compelling. The characters had been flattened and by the time we meet them in the real world, it was like they hadn’t learnt anything in the five years since high school.
In the first two seasons, Rue’s addiction was a pivotal driving force which influenced her every decision. In season three, it felt discarded until she succumbed to it at the very end.
In previous seasons, sex and nudity felt like they (mostly) added to the story. In season three, it felt gratuitous, exploitative and like the were catering directly to the male gaze, only showing women suffering at the hands of men in these scenes, or making female characters act in a way that made them feel like sexy, unbelievable caricatures.
In other words, season three made it abundantly clear that the show was written by the singular voice of one man, and one man alone.
While part of me hoped the finale might salvage the season with something explosive, gripping, and poetic, I’m not surprised by what we got.
Just like the rest of the season, the finale relied on shock value.
After all, you can’t kill off a main character without a certain level of fanfare.
But like the scene which showed Sydney Sweeney become a busty giant whose breasts break through glass, or a blood-chilling scene where five men abuse a sex worker, the episode felt like it was setting out to conjure a headlines, rather than actually deliver a conclusion of substance. And when the goal is a splash rather than substance, it’s the audience left struggling to stay afloat.
What went down in the Euphoria season 3 finale?
In the final episode, Rue (Zendaya) narrowly escapes Laurie (Martha Kelly) and her drug operation, just before the DEA raids the house.
Moments before capture, Laurie takes her own life to avoid going to prison, while Faye (Chloe Cherry) and Wayne (Toby Wallace) run away together to avoid capture.
After returning to Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje)– who Rue is simultaneously ratting out to the police — Rue is praised for her good work and given some prescription pills to deal with the pain of her injuries. Later, as she crashes on her sponsor Ali’s (Coleman Domingo) couch, Rue takes some painkillers in the little orange container.
Unknown to Rue (but orchestrated by Alamo) the drugs were laced with fentanyl and she suffers from an lethal overdose. It’s a tragic ending for our leading lady, especially when she’d stayed sober but everyone in her life would assume she finally fell prey to her addiction. It’s one that feels especially rough for viewers who were rooting for her.
Meanwhile, Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) and Maddy (Alexia Demie) are forced to deal with the fall out of asking Alamo for a favour to get out from the debt Nate (Jacob Elordi) had found himself in with Naz (Jack Topalian). Working together, they teamed up to create an OnlyFans content house in order to pay Alamo back.
After Alamo takes a particular liking to Maddy, she’s left navigating how to stay in his good graces. And how she does that, well, it’s heavily implied that she uses her womanly wiles. It’s just another example of Levinson showcasing his male-gaze focused writing by showing that a clever woman like Maddy only has value to Alamo in a sexual context.
However, their ties with Alamo come to an end when Ali decides to get revenge on Alamo for his treatment of Rue. Dressed as a veteran, he visits the Silver Sipper Club and confronts Alamo with a gun. As the pair engage in a western-esque stand-off, Alamo discovers that his right-hand man Bishop (Darrell Britt-Gibson) hadn’t loaded his gun, leaving him defenceless to Ali who shoots him dead.
While it’s a shock to see Bishop be the orchestrator or Alamo’s demise, it feels fitting. After all, earlier on in the series Bishop uses a snake analogy to intimate to Maddy that he’s sizing Alamo up, waiting for his time to strike.
As a result, Maddy and Cassie are free from Alamo’s clutches. In the end, Ali revisits the places tied to Rue’s life while her school friends are left dealing with the emotional fallout of her death.
Up until the finale episode aired, there was no official confirmation from HBO or creator Sam Levinson that season three was the last Euphoria offering. So, the finale gave just the right amount of death, destruction and retribution to end the series. But it also leaves character arcs — namely Cassie, Maddy, Lexi and Jules — open just in case a season four is on the cards.
While I’d hoped Sam Levinson was planning to leave it there, my prayers were answered when HBO confirmed the series was ending just hours after the final episode premiered.
I’ve loved moments of Euphoria, but ultimately, I’m glad it’s over.
