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Just when Euphoria looked like it had run out of ways to unsettle its audience, the penultimate episode of Season 3 goes for the throat. Sam Levinson throws every ongoing feud into the same pressure cooker—drug money, betrayal, old grudges, bad decisions—and the result is one of the series’ most brutal turns yet: Nate Jacobs is dead.
It begins with Naz showing up at Cassie’s door, demanding the money he’s owed. From there, the episode moves with the kind of panic that makes Euphoria so hard to shake. Nate ends up buried beneath a construction site, trapped in a coffin-like space with no way out and a deadline on his life. Naz gives Cassie 72 hours to come up with the missing $1 million, but that ticking clock becomes irrelevant fast. Before thirst can finish the job, a rattlesnake does.
The death scene is as nasty and claustrophobic as it sounds, and the show clearly leans into that suffocating terror. In behind-the-scenes footage, editor Julio Perez explained that the goal was to trap viewers in the space with Nate, forcing them to feel every inch of the confinement. Jacob Elordi, reflecting on the moment, called it “a cool way to go,” adding that Nate’s end feels tied to the darkness and damage the character has carried for years.
There is something grimly fitting about it. Nate has spent the series manipulating, hurting, and spiraling, and his final moments are stripped of all control. Elordi also shared that filming the sequence was oddly calm at first, with his shoulders pressed tightly against the sides of the coffin set. Then came the snake. The production used a boa constrictor fitted with a fake rattle for the close interaction, while the shots of the actual rattlesnake were filmed separately. Even that detail feels very Euphoria: terrifying on screen, strangely surreal once the camera pulls back.
Nate’s body is eventually found by Cassie, who scrambles for help by turning to Maddy. Maddy, in turn, goes to Alamo looking for fast cash, but that decision detonates almost immediately. Alamo kills Naz on the spot, wiping out one problem while exposing another. In trying to fix the situation, Maddy accidentally gives Alamo a reason to suspect Rue’s connection to federal agents, especially after mentioning the growing chaos around Rue and Lexie.
That thread may end up being the one that matters most when the finale arrives. Rue is now in deeper than ever, playing a dangerous double game between Laurie, Alamo, and the DEA. She wants out, but she also wants to do something that resembles redemption. After the spiritual shift hinted at earlier in the season, she finally starts telling the truth—at least to the people she believes might help her. Lexie doesn’t offer much comfort, or much belief, so Rue turns to Ali.
The episode gives Ali a layer the show has only talked around until now. An opening flashback drops viewers into his life before sobriety, showing the wreckage of addiction rather than merely describing it. Colman Domingo’s performance gains even more gravity here, because Ali is no longer just the wise voice trying to keep Rue from collapsing. He becomes living proof of how far someone can fall and still claw their way back. Domingo said the flashback was important because it lets the audience finally see the darkness Ali has spoken about for so long.
The sequence also features Natasha Lyonne as a fellow addict and sex worker Ali seeks out while high, and it adds a raw, bruised energy to the episode’s opening stretch. It is messy, sad, and very human. That matters, because Ali’s conversation with Rue in the present lands harder once the audience understands what he survived to get here. He begs her not to go any further with the plan, knowing full well that a person can convince themselves they are taking one last risk right before everything collapses.
Rue doesn’t seem ready to stop. Her mission is still in motion: get close to Alamo, circle back to Laurie, and lead both straight into a federal trap. The problem is obvious now. Both sides may already know she is playing them. In a show where paranoia is usually earned, that kind of setup rarely ends with anyone walking away clean.
The final minutes sharpen that dread even more. Faye, after one too many threats from Wayne—including one aimed at Rue—appears to have a sudden change of heart. She offers to help Rue steal the money from Wayne’s safe and disappear before morning. It sounds like a lifeline. It isn’t. When they open the safe, they do not find cash. They find stacks of identification cards belonging to young women Rue does not recognize. It is the kind of reveal that changes the temperature of the whole room in seconds.
Faye panics and tells Rue to put everything back and forget she ever saw it. Rue, of course, does the opposite. Then Faye screams to wake Wayne up, and the episode cuts out on one more vicious cliffhanger. So yes, Nate Jacobs is gone, but the bigger shock may be how much worse things can still get from here. With the Euphoria Season 3 finale looming, the show has left nearly every major player standing on a trapdoor.
Source: deadline
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