Euphoria Creator Sam Levinson Defends Horrific Nate Jacobs Death

For four years, fans of HBO's most divisive teen drama have wondered whether Euphoria would ever come back, and what it would feel like when it did. They got their answer this spring, and on Sunday night they got the moment that will define the season. In the penultimate episode of Euphoria's long-delayed third season, Jacob Elordi's Nate Jacobs, the swaggering antagonist who has loomed over the show since 2019, was buried alive in the California desert and bitten by a rattlesnake that crawled in through the air pipe. The next morning, creator Sam Levinson did what he rarely does. He explained himself.

Speaking to Esquire and a handful of other outlets after the episode aired, Levinson defended the sequence as a deliberate reckoning, not a stunt. "Consequences are real," he said, framing the death as the inevitable end of a character who had spent two seasons accumulating them. The interview, paired with a giddy HBO post-show conversation in which Elordi called his own onscreen demise "a cool way to go," capped one of the most watched and most argued-over weeks in recent prestige tv history.

The Scene That Shook the Penultimate Episode

The death arrives in episode seven, "Rain or Shine," the second-to-last installment of the season. According to The Hollywood Reporter and TheWrap, Nate is abducted by Naz, dragged into the desert, and lowered into a shallow grave with a breathing pipe running to the surface. He loses a finger and a toe before he goes in. He spends what feels like an eternity banging on the lid. Then the camera follows a rattlesnake gliding across the sand toward the pipe.

Levinson told Esquire he had the image of the snake first and worked backward. "I just had this image of a rattlesnake coming towards this pipe," he said. "He's banging and the snake can sense the movement in the ground. And I thought, what if the snake goes into the pipe and then he's stuck inside the coffin with this rattlesnake?" The creator originally considered killing Nate with suffocation or heat, inspired by the 1973 cult film The Candy Snatchers, before settling on the snake. For safety reasons, production used a boa constrictor fitted with a prosthetic rattle rather than a venomous animal.

Sam Levinson on Why the Show Had to Go There

Levinson's argument, repeated across his press for the episode, is that Euphoria has graduated. The first two seasons took place in the protective bubble of high school, where bad behavior produced bruises and broken families but rarely body bags. Season three jumps five years forward. Rue, played by Zendaya, is running drugs across the border for Laurie. Cassie is launching an OnlyFans while planning a wedding to Nate. Fezco's absence is felt throughout. The cushion is gone.

"They're in the real world and the consequences are real," Levinson said. "There's no safety net. There's a Wild West, frontier aspect to it where you can make something of yourself, but you're going to have to live with the consequences." He also gave a craftier answer about audience psychology, telling Esquire he wanted to give viewers the karmic ending they had been demanding for years while making it so brutal they would feel uneasy about having wanted it. "How can I give them what they want, but make it so horrific and anxiety-inducing that by the time it happens, the audience isn't so sure they wanted it?"

Jacob Elordi, Zendaya and the Cast Process the Loss

Elordi appeared on HBO's post-episode aftershow visibly relaxed about saying goodbye to the character that turned him into a movie star. He called the experience of filming inside the coffin "quite peaceful" and joked that the boa was "super cute, real cuddly." Asked whether he had pushed back on the script, the actor said he had not. He told The Hollywood Reporter that Nate's arc had only one logical ending and that he was grateful Levinson did not soften it.

Reactions from the rest of the ensemble have been more emotional. Zendaya, who picked up two Emmys for the role of Rue before the long hiatus, has spoken in promotional interviews about the season's heavier register and the way Angus Cloud's death in 2023 reshaped the writers' room. Hunter Schafer, returning as Jules, dedicated an Instagram post to the show's late cast members the night the premiere aired. The season opener carries a dedication card for Cloud and other crew lost during the gap between seasons.

An HBO Production Saga, Finally on Screen

The road to this episode has been famously rough. Euphoria's second season ended in February 2022. A third was confirmed almost immediately. Then came the 2023 writers' and actors' strikes, Cloud's death that same summer, a wave of cast scheduling conflicts as Zendaya, Sweeney and Elordi became film leads, and Levinson's detour into The Idol for HBO. Production on season three did not begin in earnest until early 2025. The premiere arrived on April 12, 2026, more than four years after the previous finale.

The wait paid off commercially. According to Variety and Deadline, the premiere drew 8.5 million U.S. viewers across linear and streaming in its first three days, a 44 percent jump over the season two debut. Within a week, the cumulative U.S. number climbed past 12.3 million, and the global figure topped 20 million. Episode two held the audience instead of shedding it, and "Rain or Shine" is expected to deliver another spike when its three-day data lands.

What Nate's Death Signals for the Finale

With one episode left, Euphoria has removed the character who has driven much of its plot since the pilot. Cassie's wedding has become a funeral. Maddy's revenge arc has lost its object. Laurie still has Rue under her thumb. And several characters, including Fezco's brother Ashtray and Lexi, are positioned for finales of their own. Levinson has hinted in interviews with The Hollywood Reporter and IndieWire that the season's last hour will be quieter than expected. He has also confirmed that a fourth season is already in the writers' room at HBO, with shooting tentatively scheduled for 2027.

What to Watch For Next Sunday

• Cassie's reckoning: Sweeney's character spent the season planning the wedding that produced this body. The finale is built around her.
• Rue and Laurie: The border-wall opening teased a debt that has not been paid. Levinson says it will be.
• Lexi's play, part two: Maude Apatow's character is reportedly staging a second production, and early reviewers describe it as the season's emotional core.
• An Emmy push: HBO is already positioning Elordi's final episodes and Zendaya's season-long work for the next Emmy ballot.

Whatever happens next Sunday, the show has made its argument. Euphoria is no longer a high school drama. It is a story about what young adults do with the freedom they have demanded, and what the world does back. Levinson, for once, is not hiding behind ambiguity. The Hollywood creator told Esquire he wrote the death from a calm place, not a dark one. "It's not nihilism," he said. "It's gravity."