The season 3 finale of Euphoria throws viewers right back into the chaos. Betrayals, deaths, DEA raids and long-delayed confrontations all collide in an oversized finale that tries to tie up one of the show’s most controversial seasons.
Episode 8 definitely delivers some shocking moments and a heartbreaking end for Rue but it also leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
Rue Survives Death and Brings Delivery
The finale picks up right where the last episode left off. But Wayne, Laurie’s men and even death itself are closing in around Rue.
Against all odds, she escapes and successfully returns the drugs to Alamo. Rue is battered and tired from the experience, and receives an unforeseen compliment from him. Alamo tells her that he is proud of what she has accomplished and finally seems to accept her into his inner circle.
Alamo believes that the disagreement with Laurie is capable of being resolved amicably, and offers a compromise, that would divide the future earnings equally and put an end to the war between each side forever.
Before sending Rue away to recover he gives her several pills for the pain and warns her not to take too many.
That’s a dangerous gift for someone with an addictive past.
DEA Moves Closer to Laurie
Rue tries to get back on her feet even as federal agents close in on Laurie’s operation.
As has happened before, Faye is the inadvertent source of disaster. She gives out enough information to convince Wayne that the whole thing is a set up. He sees trouble ahead and runs off with her before police can arrive.
Laurie knows something is wrong, but it is too late.
DEA agents surround the property, and enter. Laurie faces arrest and imprisonment, but refuses to give in. But she kills herself before the authorities can apprehend her.
It’s a dramatic end for one of the show’s most imposing presences.
Rue’s Last Temptation
Rue stays with Ali, she doesn’t go home.
Away from the violence and criminality, she spends a lot of the episode wrestling with a familiar battle: temptation. The pills Alamo gave her sit beside her as she listens to religious recordings and tries to keep her head screwed on right.
For much of the episode, viewers are left to wonder if she can avoid falling back into old habits.
The answer arrives in devastating fashion, unfortunately.
The Secret Betrayal Exposed
Another layer of deception is revealed as the story progresses.
Bishop secretly swaps out the DEA’s target car, sending authorities after a decoy while the real shipment goes elsewhere. At the same time it becomes clear that Eddy also has been operating as an informant.
The criminal empire that appeared untouchable all season long is quietly disintegrating from the inside.
But the greatest betrayal is still to come.
Does Rue Die in the Finale?
Yes. Rue dies in 8th episode.
She has an emotional dream before she dies where Fezco is finally free from jail. The sequence has a touching reunion and allows Rue to remember happier times in her past.
But it’s all false.
And when Ali comes to check on her, she is dead.
The pills Alamo supplied were secretly laced with fentanyl. What seemed to be a gesture of goodwill was a deliberate trap.
Ali is left with the heart-wrenching job of telling Leslie that her daughter is dead.
It’s one of the darkest moments that’s ever been handed in that series.
Where Do The Other Characters Go?
Ali’s Breaking Point
Months later, Ali is at another meeting for recovery.
But rather than offering hope, he admits, after years of trying to help addicted people in crisis, he’s emotionally spent. He’s back on the booze and doesn’t think the old ways are enough anymore.
Rue’s death changes him in a fundamental way.
Grief as well as anger motivates his final showdown with Alamo.
Jules lives in the past still
Jules gets little attention in the finale.
She keeps on painting and paints a disturbing portrait based on Rue. The art, meant to capture Rue’s moments of happiness, looks like someone who’s agonized.
After that brief scene, Jules is essentially out of the story.
Cassie, Maddy and Lexi Move Forward
Cassie goes home after Nate’s death and tries to put her life back together.
In the meantime, she and Maddy agree to stick by their friendship, no matter what they’ve been through. Lexi stays close to both women, contributing her voice to a conversation about faith, suffering and survival.
This is one of the more reflective moments of the episode.
The Club’s Final Battle
The biggest showdown of the season happens at Alamo’s club.
Maddy comes in with Alamo’s share of the money. During their discussion, Alamo indicates that he wishes to leave his life of crime and have a more traditional future.
He even suggests that he and Maddy get married and start a family together.
The timing couldn’t be any worse.
Ali soon turns up, looking for answers about Rue’s death.
Things come to a deadly stand off. Alamo agrees to take the matter outside and the tension is thick for a gunfight showdown.
But Bishop has already double-crossed him.
When Alamo tries to draw first, he finds his weapon empty. Ali then shoots him dead, and ends the conflict once and for all.
The season was spent with a man controlling everyone around him, and at the end Alamo dies powerless.
How does Euphoria Season 3 finish?
After the violence, the rest of the characters go about their lives.
Maddy goes with Bishop, Kitty follows.
Ali takes a different road.
He arrives at the same Christian household introduced earlier in the season, and introduces himself under a new identity. He joins the family in prayer as the series concludes with its final narration.
The last image is the house as the words “God bless us all” end the season.
It’s a spiritual ending that highlights the religious themes that dominated the second half of the season more and more.
Episode 8 Recap
The Euphoria Season 3 finale does a couple of important things right.
The episode smartly pays off a lot of foreshadowing. Bishop’s betrayal is well-earned, Laurie gets a suitably grim fate, and Alamo’s downfall is a reflection of the cowardice he showed time and time again throughout the season.
Rue’s death is especially effective because it seems tragically inevitable. Her journey has always been defined by her addiction and the finale uses that history to deliver an emotionally devastating ending.
The Ali vs. Alamo showdown also delivers some of the season’s biggest tension.
Unfortunately, it also reveals a lot of the season’s biggest weaknesses in the finale.
Many of the major story lines are left unresolved or open. We never really hear anything about Nate’s disappearance. His family never gets any meaningful resolution. Cal in particular is hardly a part of the ending and many of the supporting characters just disappear with no explanation.
Most surprisingly, the show never fully explores the emotional fallout of Rue’s death. There’s no funeral, there’s no long mourning period, and there’s very little notice paid to the people who were supposed to care about her the most.
The role Maddy played in the chain of events leading to the death of Rue is also largely ignored. The complex relationships between Maddy, Cassie and the rest of the group are ignored when they could have offered some of the strongest emotional material in the finale.
Jules, meanwhile, is one of the biggest disappointments of the season. She is one of the most important characters of the series in earlier seasons but has very little to add to the final story.
Bottom Line
Episode 8 is filled with shocking twists, great performances, and a heartbreaking ending for Rue, but it does not give satisfying closure to many of its characters. The finale has some memorable moments but if anything it is a reflection of the uneven storytelling that has been Season 3 in a nutshell.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
The finale has its moments of brilliance, especially in its handling of Rue and Ali, but far too many dropped threads and missed emotional beats prevent it from being the powerful send-off it deserved to be.