How do you eulogize a character like Rue Bennett?
It’s been seven years since the gritty but glitter-filled teen drama Euphoria premiered on HBO Max, starring former child star Zendaya as a scrappy teen desperately trying and failing to claw her way out of drug addiction. From the moment Rue’s bloodshot eyes and dark circles appeared onscreen, viewers watched, enraptured, as her battle with drugs collided in damaging ways with everyone from her struggling mother Leslie (Nika King) and sister Gia (Storm Reid) to the high-school classmates who had waited for her to return to their crowded halls.
There was girl-next-door Jules (Hunter Schafer), violent and vaguely homesexually repressed jock Nate (Jacob Elordi), spineless bimbo cheerleader Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), take-no-shit It girl Maddie (Alexa Demie), storyteller Lexi (Maude Apatow), failed dominatrix Kat (Barbie Ferrera), and the drug dealer with a heart of gold, Fezco (Angus Cloud). Friendship is too simple of a word to describe their intertwined chaos. And throughout the show’s three seasons, the group’s troubles escalated from stylised adolescent drama to out-and-out criminal behaviour — drug running, human trafficking, sexualised violence against women, and vigilante justice.
Despite the show’s absurdities, Euphoria dominated the cultural conversation and made stars of its main cast. There were moments of artistic brilliance in its unevenness, and the characters were people we rooted for (well, maybe except for poor Cassie). Then Sunday night’s series finale brought it all to an abrupt, patchwork, and brutally callous end. It was unsatisfying for viewers, yet it was the ending Euphoria had earned — a finale as jumbled as its run had been, and as the legacy it leaves.
Season Three of Euphoria left the show’s signature tear-streaked glitter behind for a Western gothic air. Gone were the days of embarrassing public orgasms on fair rides and rowdy tell-all school plays, replaced with Rue repeatedly crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, entangling herself in a drug-smuggling battle between dealer Laurie (Martha Kelly), mob kingpin Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). And despite the five-year time jump between Season Two and Season Three, Euphoria’s tentpole characters remained mired in the same troubles and destructive instincts that marred their high school days.
The finale saw Rue die from a fentanyl-laced pill given to her by Alamo, spending her last moments hallucinating a daring run from the police to find Fezco and a tearful reunion with her estranged mother. She’s found the next morning clad in her signature maroon hoodie, lifeless and grey on her sponsor Ali’s (Colman Domingo) couch. Ali subsequently quits recovery treatment, donning military dress to have a fatal strip-club standoff with Alamo.
Following the finale, series creator Sam Levinson defended his decision to end the series with Rue succumbing to her addiction, noting that he changed the series’ planned ending after trying to reckon with the real-life 2023 overdose death of Cloud. “People relapse. They fuck up. They’re not ready to get clean, and [in the past] they weren’t dying like they are now, with the influx of fentanyl into this country,” Levinson told Deadline of the finale. He added, of his own experience with addiction, “I could say with absolute certainty that if I was going through what I went through when I was younger now, then I wouldn’t be here, either. There’s no reason to sugarcoat that. I wanted to tell the story for Angus and for people who aren’t granted a second chance.”
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But there’s hardly a second chance for any of Euphoria’s beloved characters. With Nate dead from a rattlesnake bite in the penultimate episode, Cassie is left with a newly liberated Maddie in an empty mansion, with tentative plans to transform it into an OnlyFans HypeHouse. Lexi is adrift in the ruthless world of Hollywood. A tearful Jules remains a beautiful fixture in her sugar daddy’s apartment, painting a Rue in motion while her own life remains stagnant. There is no mention of the stripper Magick (Rosalía), no callbacks to friends Kat or the late Ashtray (Javon Walton) or even the missing Elliot (Dominic Fike).
It’s a frustrating end for characters viewers have worried about for over seven years, but it’s apt for a show that has always trafficked in volatility — both onscreen and behind the scenes. Over its run, the series saw the sudden departure of several notable creative collaborators, including photographer Petra Collins, whose aesthetic informed the first season, and Labrinth, whose music channelled the show’s emotional throughlines for two seasons.
Euphoria wasn’t a well thought-out show. At times, it wasn’t even particularly watchable. Still, there were many moments where the series succeeded in spite of its writing, storylines, and direction. Its messiness allowed for sparkling instances of pure talent to emerge from its cast. There was something singular about the wide-eyed craziness of Sweeney, or Cloud’s aura of kindness. Schafer’s stripped-down solo episode, “Fuck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” captured a genuine snapshot of the inner workings of a trans woman wrestling with her place in the world. Eric Dane’s last onscreen performance was raw heartbreak.
When fans stop reeling from the finale, what will be left for them to mourn is a show so disjointed that rewatches might leave them even more at a loss. Those standout moments will be what people remember, so compelling in a way the series as a whole never was. It’ll be easier — and more satisfying — for anyone to pull up compilations on YouTube than to watch the series in its entirety. And what’s more fitting for a show made for and about the clipping generation than a series strung together from a handful of viral clips and memorable one liners?
One of the most frustrating aspects of the Euphoria series finale is that there is no funeral for Rue. Ali goes off screen to tell Rue’s mother of her death. She’s only mentioned in an offhand conversation between Lexi and Cassie. A homesteading teen who met Rue for less than 24 hours is one of the only people the audience is allowed to see mourn her. It’s a surprising choice, especially considering the lyrics of Labrinth’s “All For Us,” which plays during Euphoria’s Season One finale and Rue’s relapse — and is often repeated as a theme throughout the second season: “When it all comes down to it/I hope one of you come back to remind me of who I was,” Labrinth and Zendaya sing. “When I go disappearing/Into that good night.”
Rue cared about how people remembered her. So here is my best attempt:
Here lies Rue Bennet. She was not a good sister, a good daughter, a good friend. But she tried. And in the case of Euphoria, with all of its scattered, pockmarked attempts to say anything at all, maybe the best goodbye is no goodbye at all.
From Rolling Stone US
