Warning: This story contains spoilers for Euphoria Season 3, Episode 1
After a four-plus-year absence, Euphoria made its much-anticipated return to HBO April 12 for a third and likely final season of watching Zendaya’s Rue Bennett make horrifying decisions. Reviews haven’t exactly been warm and fuzzy for the nine-time Emmy winning drama. Though creator Sam Levinson managed to lure back most of his mega-wattage cast that includes Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, Colman Domingo and Hunter Schafer, critics have been mostly frustrated with the series’ inability to share anything entertaining or insightful. In other words, it may have lost that buzzy feeling.
Once considered a revelation for its raw depiction of teenage sexuality and drug use, the latest iteration asks us to vibe with Rue as she returns from an off-the-grid odyssey in Mexico to finally pay the piper. She’s still on the hook for $100,000 to Martha Kelly’s Laurie, the lethargic drug dealer from season 2, so she tries to reduce the debt by working as an Uber driver and smuggling narcotics across the border. Spoiler alert: it involves swallowing golf ball-sized bags of fentanyl and discharging them later in Laurie’s bathtub. Hashtag gross.
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Now sober but not opposed to the casual cocktail or joint, Rue thinks divine intervention has led her to Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s Alamo, a cowboy hat-wearing strip club owner who shoots an apple off Rue’s head with a gold-plated revolver when he doubts her motive for delivering what ends up being some deadly drugs. She survives the bizarre, western-themed stunt, still seeming to want to find new employment with Alamo.
In the meantime, we catchup with her former classmates. Lexi (a prim Maude Apatow) works as a glorified assistant for a nighttime soap producer played by Sharon Stone – one of several high-profile celebs that include Rosalía, Natasha Lyonne, Kadeem Hardison, Super Bowl champ Marshawn Lynch and Trisha Paytas who are joining this season. Domingo is back, too, as Rue’s ever-patient sponsor Ali, though he’s skeptical about her quest to find God.
Lexi is not the only one trying to make it in La-La Land. Now freed from her toxic relationship with Elordi’s Nate, Maddy (Alexa Demie) toils as a Hollywood manager representing influencers and “heartthrobs of L.A. nights” while her ex prepares to marry (seriously?) Sweeney’s Cassie. His dream is to build a coastal retirement facility for aging boomers (6,000 of whom die off each day, he says) while Cassie’s wish is to fund their nuptial’s $50,000 flower bill by creating “pretty” pictures for All Fans. Nate’s not happy about her flirting with porn, but he resigns himself to Cassie’s entrepreneurial spirit.
Sadly, the third season will be missing a few familiar faces. Barbie Ferreira, who played the adventuresome Kat in the first two seasons, announced via Instagram that she won’t be donning her signature feline mask. “After four years of getting to embody the most special and enigmatic character Kat, I’m having to say a very teary-eyed goodbye,” wrote Ferreira. “I hope many of you could see yourself in her like I did and that she brought you joy to see her journey into the character she is today. I put all my care and love into her and I hope you guys could feel it. Love you, Katherine Hernandez.”
Also missing is Rue’s sister Gia (Storm Reid), Kat’s former boyfriend Ethan (Austin Abrams), and the soulful Fezco, masterfully played by the 25-year-old Angus Cloud who died of an accidental overdose in 2023. At the drama’s Los Angeles premiere, however, Levinson promised that Fez’s presence will be felt in the new episodes.
“I think when he passed away, it made me sort of step back and go, what is the story I want to tell, what is it I want to say? What matters in life?” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I couldn’t keep him alive in real life but I could keep his character alive in the show. I kept him alive and the character has got a great arc. I think he’d be very proud of it.”
The late Eric Dane, however, will appear as Cal Jacobs in the final season. Levinson said Dane “showed up every day with such grace and dignity,” despite his fatal diagnosis of ALS. The actor died in February at the age of 53.
“Eric called me before we started shooting and told me that he had been diagnosed with ALS,” the showrunner recalled to Extra earlier this month. “We had a lot of conversations about just life and what that meant. I loved him very deeply, and I said, ‘Eric, whatever shape you show up in, we’re gonna make it work. I have faith that it’s all gonna work. He showed up and I could tell he had a slight slur in his voice and he told me that. I said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll just put, like, five beer bottles in front of you and you’ve been drinking all night.’ He was like, ‘Perfect, perfect.’ And his character, it was such a gift.”
At the L.A. premiere, Levinson told the crowd he is dedicating the season to “those who we lost” (including producer Kevin Turen, who died in 2023) and said he hopes the next eight episodes will offer “the meaning beyond the absurdity.”
Kookiness is fine as long as it’s not a big yawn.
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