In Euphoria season three, episode seven, Nate Jacobs is killed in a sequence Levinson calls “horrific” and “anxiety-inducing.” The creator says he wanted the audience to feel uncertain about whether Nate deserved it, while Jacob Elordi describes filming a real
Sunday night’s penultimate episode of Euphoria season three didn’t just land a brutal ending—it forced the audience to sit with it.
In “Rain or Shine. ” Jacob Elordi’s Nate Jacobs. already battered by escalating cruelty. meets his final fate when a venomous rattlesnake slithers into the hole where he is buried alive and bites him. The moment is framed as the end result of a business arrangement: Nate’s deal with Naz (Jack Topalian) left him in debt. and Naz later told Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) she had 72 hours to deliver the money Nate owed him.
Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) then kills Naz in an effort to help Cassie and Maddie (Alexa Demie) free Nate. But when the coffin Nate is buried in gets dug up, his lifeless body is shown.
In an exclusive interview with Esquire. Euphoria creator Sam Levinson unpacked how that death was designed—less as a simple reward for the audience. and more as a deliberate effort to make them question themselves. He described knowing what viewers want in terms of “justice or karma. ” then wrestling with how to give it to them while keeping the outcome “horrific and anxiety-inducing.”.
“There’s this kind of funny thing where I know what the audience wants in terms of justice or karma and with that in mind. I always think. ‘Well. how can I give it to them?’” Levinson said. “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?”.
Levinson also said he “knew from the get-go that Nate was finished this season.” He pointed to the way Nate—after grief. trauma and violence across the first two seasons—showed glimpses of humanity in season three. saying Levinson “muddied the moral waters.” The outlet reports that this shift was a setup for what unfolded in episode seven.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, you wanted him to get his comeuppance…?. OK. That feeling of complicity with the audience is always an interesting note to play inside of this sort of larger structure. ” Levinson said. “You end up going, ‘Oh God, I don’t know. Should he have had it better?. Did he deserve it?’ Those kinds of questions are always exciting to pose to the audience.”.
He tied the stakes to the show’s move beyond high school. saying. “It was what was exciting about the characters being out of high school. They’re in the real world and the consequences are real. There’s no safety net. I like this Wild West. frontier aspect to it where you can make something of yourself. but you’re going to have to live with the consequences.”.
Levinson said his original idea was for Nate to die from either suffocation or heat as he’s buried alive. He said he loved the movie The Candy Snatchers. where the girl is buried alive with a pipe as an air hole. and that he initially imagined Nate being buried alive. Then, he changed his mind one day while driving to work with his wife, Ashley Levinson.
“It was one of those gorgeous L.A. days where it was perfect weather. We’re listening to Otis Redding. The windows are down and we’re driving to Warner Brothers and I’m looking out the window,” Levinson said. “I just had this image of a rattlesnake coming towards this pipe. 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?’”.
He said he told Ashley Levinson, “I think I got it,” and explained how Nate dies in the sequence. He recalled her response: “That’s what you’ve been thinking about?”
Filming the scene brought its own kind of tension. After the episode’s premiere, Jacob Elordi described the ending in an HBO post-show segment, calling it “a cool way to go” and saying it was “quite peaceful” to film inside the coffin. He also described working with a real snake.
“They had a boa constrictor that they put a fake rattler on the end of, and Sam was like, ‘We’re just gonna drop a snake on you,’” Elordi said. “The snakes were rattling, which is really alarming when you’re locked in a box.”
Still, Elordi didn’t frame the experience as pure terror. He said the snake was “super cute.”
“He was real cuddly, so he just saddled up next to me and it was nice,” Elordi said. “But he was real sleepy. I had to kind of nudge him to get him to come up.”
Overall, Elordi said he was satisfied with how Nate’s story was brought to an end. “Nate was someone who has made so many mistakes and made so many dark choices. It’s cool to see it all come to what it’s come to. This show is a massive part of, not just my career, but my life. It’s been amazing, and I’m so proud, being a part of this.”.
Euphoria season three finale premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO.
Euphoria season 3 Nate Jacobs Sam Levinson Jacob Elordi Rain or Shine HBO rattlesnake Alamo Cassie Maddie Naz Ashley Levinson