The final season of Euphoria has been a battle not between good and evil or black hats and white hats, but an ongoing struggle between a Western-infused crime story and servicing the characters who made the high school drama a hit. In the end, it is the former that wins out in a 93-minute finale that kills off its lead character just before the halfway mark and a revenge plot that pulls focus for the remainder of the runtime. How the pistols-at-dawn sequence plays out is satisfying, yet “In God We Trust” barely captures the highs of the two previous Euphoria finales. Religion and addiction bring both halves together in what is now confirmed to be the series finale, which continues the season-long trend of flashes of brilliance amid uneven pacing, fleeting appearances by original cast members, and a tendency to try too hard to be edgy. The ambition Sam Levinson demonstrates in his exploration of how fentanyl has damaged the American landscape is admirable. Yet the tendency to pair that exploration with Quentin Tarantino-esque flourishes of stylized violence drowns out the quieter reflections at the heart of the finale.
What becomes clear quite quickly is that Rue’s death leaves a gaping hole, a testament to Zendaya’s performance and how she anchored the entire series. Without her, the action becomes untethered, even though the revenge plot is directly tied to her demise. The absence of voiceover at the start should have been the first clue that Rue wasn’t going to make it. However, there were previous signs that Rue’s days of dodging the Grim Reaper were at an end, so her death isn’t unexpected. This was her last run.
It’s the timing that’s shocking, even if the method isn’t. Her lucky streak continues at the start of “In God We Trust,” as she dodges bullets and frees herself from a lasso. It’s an exhilarating escape sequence that once again highlights how season three has utilized the expansive vistas that replaced the often claustrophobic suburban spaces that Rue previously traversed. That we return to the latter one last time in a fantasy sequence hammers home how much the visual landscape has changed, while also illustrating that Rue could not outrun her past.
Presenting Rue with a bottle of Percocet brings her story full circle. Zendaya’s delivery of “I used to love these”—as if it were a lifetime ago—speaks to how far Rue has come, while underscoring the threat of painkillers to her sobriety. For the most part, she hasn’t done anything harder than weed or alcohol in the present-day timeline, and my concern here was that Alamo was going to undermine her by having her fall back into this old habit. However, he makes it impossible for addiction to spiral, because the fentanyl-laced pills are intended to kill. That Rue’s overdose occurs while she is at Ali’s sets Alamo’s downfall in motion. The penultimate episode laid the groundwork, so Ali’s methods don’t come across as extreme or out of character. The increasing toll that comes from the growing list of names in his book of the dead ensures his turn away from the Muslim faith is not out of the blue. Ali has hit his breaking point. He is also fulfilling a promise. He told Rue he would do anything for her, and he meant it.
Seeking Ali out for a place to crash speaks to their history, and how few trusted options Rue has left—after all, her last conversations with Lexi and Jules ended in arguments. Ali has been crucial in keeping Rue grounded, while also giving her space to explore faith. Concepts of good and evil recur throughout their conversations this season, including Rue’s desire to undo everything her misdeeds by putting the people pushing fentanyl in jail. It is what makes her conclusion all the more tragic, further underscored by the inclusion of previously unseen footage of the late Angus Cloud (whose accidental overdose was caused in part by fentanyl) and Zendaya.
Cloud is part of the dream sequence that kicks off with a news report that Fezco has escaped from prison using parkour (as he told Rue he would earlier this season). Whereas the first two seasons would frequently cut between fantasy and reality, the only time Levinson went that route in the final season was when Cassie turned into the 50-foot woman. Pulling back on this device means that while there is some doubt about Fez’s prison break, I wasn’t as certain that this was all imagined (or that Rue was dying). It was actually a piece of clothing that set those alarm bells off: Rue is back in her father’s burgundy hoodie, which was a core part of her wardrobe in high school. The other alarm bells: how extreme the fantasy gets as she evades the police and ends up back in her childhood home. Footage of Cloud and shots of a younger Rue and her sister, Gia, in the car when they saw Jules on her bike add another layer of poignancy to this emotional tableau.
The absence of a Labrinth score doesn’t undermine the sequence, per se, yet I can’t help but imagine how this would hit even harder if he hadn’t pulled all of his contributions to the final season. Labrinth’s music was so impactful during the first two seasons, and while Hans Zimmer’s score is stirring during the Western-leaning scenes, it doesn’t have the same impact during Rue’s return to East Highland. The different pieces of this season just don’t quite align, and the cowboy elements are foregrounded even at the end. With 50 minutes left to go, the two-month time jump gives little space to the grief of Rue’s friends (beyond Ali). Most egregiously, Jules remains an afterthought in the wake of Rue’s death; Hunter Schafer once again does what she can with what little material she’s given, registering the pain of Jules’ loss without any dialogue. Bringing Schafer back just to stick Jules in this sugar baby plotline is such a wasted opportunity.
The finale does a little better by Lexi. After scoffing at Christianity at the start of the season, her response to the Bible that Rue left behind digs a little deeper into Lexi’s response to tragedy and her own anxieties. Having this conversation with Cassie ties back to their childhood and their father’s addiction. Cassie swings between being oblivious with her comments about the Bible and insightful in how she frames final conversations with people. The comments she makes about Rue’s smile could sound vapid, but the sentiment is sweet, and I can’t help but wish there had been more interactions between the original cast in season three—this one has the air of too little, too late. Cassie wants Lexi to write storylines for the suburban OnlyFans house she’s setting up now that Nate is gone. (Not that anyone knows he’s dead other than Cassie and Maddy who contend that he left Cassie in the lurch.) Lexi politely declines, saying she has things to work out, and that’s a wrap for a character who existed on the periphery this season, just as she feared she did in high school.
Considering how integral Cassie was to season three, the short shrift Sydney Sweeny receives in the wake of Nate’s death is a surprise. The scene of Cassie and Maddy trying to keep it together in a diner offers a quick flash of how the shared traumatic experience of trying and failing to save Nate puts the former BFFs back on solid ground, but we only get one brief interaction between them afterward. In a finale this long, that illustrates where Levinson’s priorities lie. Maddy might follow Cassie’s advice to pretend to like Alamo, but Cassie is still left alone in this giant mansion, looking like the saddest Barbie in the Dream House. The stunning, diorama-like shot by cinematographer Marcell Rév bookends her season-three arc in bleak fashion. Cassie began the season lit by a ring light and goes out the same way. Except now she has to keep the secret of her husband’s terrible death.
And yet for the majority of the finale, the sprawling web of Alamo’s business enterprise gets the most attention. It begins at Laurie’s farm, and the DEA getting bested after the ambulance full of drugs is switched out. That is wrapped up in the first 30 minutes, and even with Laurie’s refusal to go to prison (she hangs herself instead), it is anticlimactic. The events in the last act at the Silver Slipper are also uneven, losing momentum when Alamo tells Maddy about his American Dream (involving having four kids with her). The face-off between Ali and Alamo throws some much-needed kindling on the fire; Bishop stabbing Alamo in the back is unexpected, even though Bishop told Maddy he “likes to surprise people.” The shot of Bishop looking at the already loaded revolver before he passes it to Alamo is a misdirect. Bishop was the one to tell the story of the snake sizing up its victim, which he has been doing all along. I have to give it to Levinson: I didn’t see this move coming.
After Ali has found a way to make the world a better place by killing Alamo, he completes Rue’s mission to make it to the promised land. In this case, visiting the homestead in Texas, where Rue took shelter in the premiere. Given how grim “In God We Trust” is for many of the characters, it ends on the hopeful note of Rue’s final voiceover (“May God bless at all”). Maybe the note isn’t hopeful, but it’s at least not one of crushing despair. Rue is not magically resurrected, but she is sitting at the table, and her memory is a blessing. At the conclusion of a season that was both frustrating and contained some high highs, Euphoria asks for grace. Zendaya’s capacity to show Rue’s desire to change and evolve has been enlightening, even when everything else on the show was not.
Stray observations
- • Not everyone in Laurie’s crew ends up dead or imprisoned: Faye and Wayne escape and are last seen about to pull a gun on an unsuspecting driver who has pulled over to give the hitchhiking Faye a ride. Chloe Cherry has been excellent throughout, but this resolution is neither here nor there.
- • Good on Big Eddy for quitting Alamo’s crew and pulling off the ambulance switcharoo (even if he almost got undone by the missing Coca-Cola bottle).
- • Ali introduces himself with his given name, Martin McQueen, at the homestead, further suggesting he has turned away from the Muslim faith after Rue’s death.
- • Rue returns to the start of the Bible when she goes to sleep on Ali’s couch, and it seems like she never made it to Jesus. As Rue is dying, she sees her mother, Leslie, reading Psalm 115, which centers on putting your trust in God. Nika King has only had a couple of scenes this season, but she has been a force of love and compassion in both.
- • While I am wondering what could’ve been with Labrinth in the finale (and if we would’ve got another “All For Us”), the use of “Ave Maria” during Rue’s death scene offers a reminder of why that piece of music is a go-to for sequences like this.
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