Four years, or the equivalent of someone’s entire high school existence, have passed since HBO last checked in on the bad-behavioring teenagers in “Euphoria.”
A lot has happened since February 2022, so drug haze or not, it would be understandable if the exploits of Rue (Zendaya) and her friends, acquaintances and enemies have faded from memory. But as the series prepares for its long-awaited return on Sunday, it can’t hurt to brush up on where the dust settled on the drug-addled, scandal-ridden and love-blind teenagers of East Highland.
Here is everything you need to remember about “Euphoria” before strapping in for Season 3.
The play from high school hell
The Season 2 finale of “Euphoria” claimed lives and sent two people to prison, and yet the most remembered and memed part of the season (and maybe the entire show) remains the meta school play that chronicled the dating drama between Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), Maddy (Alexa Demie) and Nate (Jacob Elordi) — all rendered in autobiographical form by aspiring playwright and Cassie’s sister, Lexi (Maude Apatow). Maybe one of the most thrilling and completely unbelievable escalations of petty high school feuds in TV history, Cassie’s interruption of the play for an on-stage meltdown, followed by a physical fight with Maddy for the bloodthirsty audience, was exhilarating to watch. But the aftermath shattered most of Cassie’s relationships, most severely with her sister and her best friend — at least for the time being. After admitting Nate broke up with her while they nurse their battle wounds in the bathroom, Maddy’s premonition/threat that this is only the beginning of Cassie’s heartbreak rang through the halls like cannonfire.
Rue and Jules make up — kind of
While Cassie watched every one of her bad decisions play out in front of her and the entire school on stage, Rue and Jules (Hunter Schafer) relished the drama from the audience while trying to avoid their own issues. Like most of the people in her life, Rue’s relapse and continued drug-fueled decision-making pushed away Jules. But after being rejected by every rehab in the area and her own exhausted mother, Rue clings to this reality check like a life raft in the raging sea of her addictions. After the play, Jules tells Rue she misses her, and they settle some sort of affection as Rue informs viewers, through narration, that she managed to stay clean for the rest of the school year. TBD on the foreseeable future.
The Jacobs household implodes
Nate and his father Cal (the late Eric Dane) have spent the entire series drowning in a laundry list of their inherited family trauma, sexual repression and male toxicity. As father and son, they have simply shared way too many experiences for comfort. Cal slept with an underage Jules (whom he also filmed), and Nate fell in love with her while chatting behind fake names online. Season 2’s genuinely moving revelation of Cal’s relationship with his best friend as a young man (only for that to go south real quick) informs his sexual deviance in adulthood, which, in turn, informs Nate’s own confused handling of his masculinity and sexuality. Being confronted by this in Lexi’s play, through a homoerotic gym-set musical number set to “Holding Out for A Hero,” was the last straw for Nate and Cassie’s relationship. In the finale, Nate tipped the police off to Cal’s library of recorded sexual encounters with underaged partners. But before he is arrested, a remorseful Cal confesses his biggest regret is not protecting Nate like he should have — an apology a traumatized Nate rebuffs in favor of revenge. Dane filmed scenes for Season 3 before his death in February 2026, so Cal will get some sort of resolution to his story. But don’t hold your breath for a happy ending, for anyone really.
Gunfight at the O.K. corral (aka Fezco’s House)
One of the biggest burdens resting on Season 3’s shoulders is the death of another one of its cast members — Angus Cloud. The most tragic part of the Season 2 finale was the police raid on Fezco (Cloud) and Ashtray’s (Javon Walton) operation. The drug-dealing brothers from other mothers have been trying to outrun their problems since day one, but Ashtray’s bludgeoning of their supplier Mouse early in Season 2 was ultimately their undoing. Fez, who had been trying to clean up his act and make it to his crush Lexi’s play, was always at the mercy of his more volatile mini-me, and that’s where he found himself in the finale as well. Their house is raided after Ashtray kills their associate Custer, a police informant who was wearing a wire to catch their confession about Mouse. Despite Fez’s pleas to surrender, Ashtray opens fire on the police and is fatally shot, while Fez is wounded and arrested in the hail of bullets. Cloud’s death in 2023 makes this whole storyline even more heartbreaking, but Season 3 will hopefully address what happened to the gentle and least problematic drug dealer in a show overrun with them.
Deal with the soft-spoken devil
Speaking of drug dealers, the most menacing presence lingering over the show may be Laurie (Martha Kelly), the former schoolteacher turned supplier who Rue runs afoul of in Season 2. A frustratingly naive Rue accepts a suitcase of drugs worth $10,000 from Laurie with the insinuation that she will sell them to her classmates. But when the drugs go missing, Laurie’s monotone can’t hide her threat — Rue is to pay her back through any means necessary and force is one of them. By the end of Season 2, the debt remains uncollected and trailers for the new episodes haven’t been shy about revealing that Laurie hunted Rue down after high school to resurrect that threat. In other words, Rue and company can’t run from the problems forever.
“Euphoria” Season 3 premieres Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.
