‘Euphoria’ finale was rewritten for something Alamo felt

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje says Euphoria’s season three finale didn’t begin with the reflective ending audiences saw. In earlier script iterations, Alamo Brown’s death came while he was celebrating after toppling drug kingpin Laurie, defeating the DEA, and prepa

Sunday night’s Euphoria finale landed with the kind of finality that makes a room go quiet. Alamo Brown—strip club empresario and season three Big Bad—was finally gone, and it happened in a way that still sounds like it surprised even the people who wrote his ending.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. who plays Alamo. says the death scene audiences saw wasn’t the plan from the first versions of the script. In those earlier iterations. Alamo’s end came with him “on top of the world.” He’d just toppled drug kingpin Laurie. defeated the DEA. and was in the middle of celebrating after taking out another adversary—Zendaya’s Rue—before his final moment arrived.

Then, Akinnuoye-Agbaje and creator Sam Levinson talked. They both realized the show’s climactic beat needed to land differently—more poignantly, less triumphant. Akinnuoye-Agbaje describes the conversation in plain terms. “We asked ourselves, was his journey really just about chasing money and women?” he says. “We thought it would be more substantive to have a reflective moment where he realizes he has everything. and yet nothing. He should be thinking, ‘Is this really what it’s all about?’”.

Levinson wrote the scene audiences watched on Sunday night. In it, Alamo watches everyone celebrating at the strip club, feels too sick to eat his steak, and then turns to something he didn’t seem interested in for most of the season—professing a desire to find love and start a family.

It’s a sharp departure from the ruthlessness that dominated season three. and Akinnuoye-Agbaje says he’s pleased with the shift. When viewers first meet Alamo. he’s talking as if he’s “the king of pussy. ” confident he’s mastered a game built on exploiting women. By the end, Akinnuoye-Agbaje says Alamo has reached a different realization: he “wants to surrender to the power of women.”.

That transformation is tied to how the character thinks—and how the show has always written Alamo as someone who wants control. until control starts to fail. Akinnuoye-Agbaje breaks down the difference between the season’s earlier logic and the finale’s emotional turn. framing it as the character finally stepping back from his own obsession.

The same actor who’s built a career on careful. high-level role work says he treats characters like puzzles that deserve questions. Over the past 30 years. he’s appeared in projects including Lost. The Bourne Identity. His Dark Materials. and blockbusters like The Mummy Returns and Suicide Squad. But the role that made him a breakout—one he still points to as part of his professional habits—was Simon Adebisi on Oz. the HBO series about life inside a maximum security prison. That show. he notes. was also co-created by Barry Levinson. with the connection to Sam Levinson’s family echoing through years of creative overlap.

During his Oz audition, Akinnuoye-Agbaje told Levinson and co-creator Tom Fontana that the character—written as an American gang-banger—should be African. He says the pair liked the idea, and the character Simon Adebisi was born.

“They’d never written for an African character before. so they would write in American vernacular and then I would translate it and that’s where you get these wonderful nuances in him. ” he says. “You’ve got to read the room before you do something like I did. but both of the Levinsons create a space where an actor can really be creative and that’s why they get such brilliant performances.”.

Later, after he and the younger Levinson began working together, Sam revealed he was “so scared straight” by Simon Adebisi when he was younger, and Akinnuoye-Agbaje says that belief is what kept him out of prison.

For Euphoria. he says he was drawn to the scale and threat of Alamo as soon as he heard HBO was casting for season three’s prime antagonist and “was ‘casting a wide net’.” He’d admired how Levinson can bring big performances out of new actors. even non-actors. and he wanted the chance to play a “modern-day cowboy” he read about in the script—even though. he adds. it meant he’d need to learn how to ride a horse “and quickly.”.

His self-tape earned him a meeting with Levinson. and Akinnuoye-Agbaje says he walked in with a hunch that changed how Alamo makes sense on the page. “I had been trying to figure out why Alamo was in the strip club business,” he says. “And so I told Sam about my idea that Alamo has this theory that everything on two legs comes out of a woman and we spend the rest of our lives trying to go back in there.” He continued: “And if he could put a cash register next to that. it’s an eternal cycle of money.”.

Levinson loved the idea enough to give him the role and to fold the theory into the show. Akinnuoye-Agbaje points to it as Alamo’s viral episode one line: “ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-mother-fucking ching.”

Once on set. he says he noticed the young cast’s camaraderie right away—“they’re really tight. and you feel that.” He also chose to keep himself separated as a way to protect both his accent and Alamo’s darkness. describing it as a “method-lite approach.” He held to that even when Sam and elder Levinson visited with Sam’s mother. which he calls “a lovely full circle moment.”.

He also remembers the shooting schedule for one of the show’s most violent moments: Colman Domingo reported for work to film the scene in which Domingo killed Akinnuoye-Agbaje with a sawed-off shotgun. The shootout was constrained to two chances to film it. he says. because of the mess of fake blood and how long the reset would take.

“Our first introduction as actors and as people was cussing each other out,” he laughs. “We found that really funny, and when we broke, we got a chance to introduce ourselves. It was quite light, considering the gravity of the scene.”

Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s biggest on-set exception to staying in character came on Zendaya’s last day. He wasn’t on the call sheet—Zendaya’s final scene was with Hunter Schafer at Jules’ apartment—but he wanted to be part of her sendoff and to pay his respects. Filming ended at one in the morning. and Zendaya’s family and friends joined the cast and crew for champagne and cake.

That detail lands against the way Alamo and Rue’s storyline closes in the show itself. In the relatively anticlimactic final scene together. Akinnuoye-Agbaje says Alamo gives Rue a bottle of what the audience later learns is Fentanyl-laced Percocet. He describes how Alamo thinks about it, portraying the character’s sadism as both strategy and preference. “That’s exactly how Alamo moves,” he says. “He likes the Chess game. When he identifies that Rue is a snitch and a traitor. he’s already made up his mind that he’s going to deal with her in a way that best serves him productively. but also serves his sadistic nature. If he can force her to kill herself, it’s far more poetic. And, if were ever to come to bear, it’s an alibi.”.

After the finale. Akinnuoye-Agbaje says he feels more public attention than ever—especially from a younger fan base that. he jokes. doesn’t always know his wider history or that he is British. “This show is the voice of Gen Z. and most of them don’t know that I’ve been doing this for 30 years or that I’m British. ” he laughs. “He also knows that being the face of the man responsible for the death of the show’s protagonist — even if that man was brought to (very bloody) justice.”.

Zendaya’s Rue. he adds. is beloved by an entire generation. and that makes Alamo’s role feel personal to viewers. “Zendaya has created this character who is beloved by a generation, so it’s personal to them,” he says. “And the manner in which she goes, I think, is going to stir up a lot of dialogue. Alamo was an amazing character to play. but I was happy to bid him farewell. and now I’m happy to leave him with the voracious fans.”.

Euphoria season three finale Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Alamo Brown Sam Levinson Laurie DEA Rue Zendaya Fentanyl-laced Percocet Oz Simon Adebisi Barry Levinson Tom Fontana