The ‘Euphoria’ Storylines Season 3 Can’t Afford to Ignore

Capella GonzalezFri, April 10, 2026 at 10:00 PM UTC

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What Euphoria Must Address in Season 3HBO

Spoilers below for seasons 1 and 2 of Euphoria.

Four years have passed since the tumultuous finale of Euphoria’s second season, where we last left the ever-chaotic teens of East Highland High reeling from the fallout of Lexi’s (Maude Apatow) infamous school play. Since then, the conversation surrounding the show’s long-awaited return has mostly focused on what’s happened behind the scenes: The show has been beleaguered with shifting production timelines, and the cast and crew have suffered multiple tragic losses, including the deaths of actors Angus Cloud and Eric Dane, as well as producer Kevin Turen. But now that Sam Levinson’s acclaimed drama is finally ready to return to HBO, perhaps for the last time, it’s worth re-upping the question: What needs to happen next? Where did season 2 end, and where must season 3 go in order to pull off a satisfying conclusion?

The season 2 finale left many fates unclear, as storylines stopped short of resolution. Rue (Zendaya) might have made a tentative step toward sobriety, but the threat of schoolteacher-turned-drug dealer Laurie (Martha Kelly) still lingers. Rue’s relationship with her ex, Jules (Hunter Schafer), remains uncertain, while the fallout between Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) and Maddy (Alexa Demie) is far from settled after Maddy discovers Cassie’s romance with Maddy’s ex, Nate (Jacob Elordi). And Nate has his own problems to contend with, having turned his father into the police, while Fez (Angus Cloud)’s future remains unclear after a S.W.A.T team raids his home.

As Euphoria is set to make its return this weekend, these lingering plot threads will determine whether the show’s next chapter feels like a true culmination…or simply a detour. Ahead, these are the storylines you need to remember from Euphoria season 2—and a few reasons why season 3 must handle them with care.

HBORue’s Fragile Sobriety

In the final moments of season 2, Rue gives audiences a quiet sense of resolution, telling us she stayed sober for the rest of her senior year. (Still, it's unclear how long that sobriety will have lasted by the time season 3’s five-year time jump rolls around.) Rue reflects from the future with a voiceover: “I stayed clean for the rest of the school year. I wish I could say that was a decision I made. In some ways, it was just easier. I don’t know if this feeling will last forever…but I am trying.” It’s a rare moment of calm after a season filled with chaos, but in true Euphoria fashion, it doesn’t feel like a neat ending wrapped in a bow so much as a temporary reprieve before looming disaster.

If Levinson’s series has attempted to make anything clear so far, it’s that sobriety is never a linear path. Rue’s journey has always been messy—and deeply tied to the people and pressures around her. One period of staying clean doesn’t erase all the heartbreak that preceded it, nor does it guarantee what comes next. Can she maintain her sobriety in the mundane moments post-high school? Or will she be pulled deeper into the world of addiction?

Euphoria season 3 has already made it clear that Rue hasn’t escaped her addiction, even if she manages to stay clean. The season 3 trailer depicts her in Mexico, running drugs for an unknown dealer. Who is it? Laurie? Or someone else? And if she’s become a drug dealer herself, can she stay sober in the process? (Also in the trailer, Lexi says, “It’s clear you’ve been using again.” It seems likely she’s talking to Rue—but is she?)

Regardless of how Rue’s experience in the drug trade plays out, her own intimate struggle with sobriety should not take a passenger seat to the more dramatic chaos enveloping her. Levinson’s ambitions for season 3’s scale might be significant, but Euphoria is at its best when zooming in on its characters’ complicated emotions. The real question isn’t whether Rue stays clean; it’s how she lives with herself if she does…or doesn’t. “In the end,” Zendaya’s voiceover tells us in the season 3 trailer, “no matter who you are or what you want, we all answer to God.”

HBOLaurie’s Threat

In season 2, Rue’s journey took a dark turn when she got involved with Laurie, a hauntingly calm drug dealer who trusted her with a suitcase that contained $10,000 worth of drugs (along with the expectation that the money would be paid back). In season 2, episode 5, Rue’s mom, Leslie (Nika King), was told about the drugs by Jules and Elliot (Dominic Fike), and she proceeded to flush them down the toilet. This leaves Rue in an obviously difficult situation. She’s now in serious debt to Laurie, who made it clear that repayment could take many forms. (As Laurie puts it, “It’s one of the good parts about being a woman: Even if you don’t have money, you’ve still got something people want.”)

Rue’s situation isn’t only about emotional stakes; it carries life-or-death consequences. Laurie’s looming presence reminds us that Rue is juggling literal debts alongside her emotional ones, repercussions of her own past choices. And, as Levinson has already made clear ahead of season 3, Laurie is coming back to collect. As he told viewers during HBO Max’s global programming presentation in late 2025, “[Season 3] basically pick[s] up [with] Rue south of the border in Mexico, in debt to Laurie, trying to come up with some very innovative ways to pay it off.”

The trailers for season 3 give us a hint of what’s to come: Laurie shows up at Rue’s workplace and states, simply, “Hello, Rue. You owe me money.” As a result, Rue attempts to pay off her debt by working for Laurie as a drug runner. That certainly places Rue in unfamiliar, dangerous territory, but for Laurie’s threats to feel appropriately significant, Rue will need to fear her new boss—and perhaps become even more deeply entangled with the business that got her into this trouble in the first place.

HBORue and Jules’s Independence

Rue and Jules just couldn’t catch a break in season 2. Elliott’s presence complicated their relationship from the start: He was an enabler to Rue’s drug addiction, and…well, he hooked up with Jules behind her back. Still, the final breaking point for Rue and Jules’s relationship arrived during a painful intervention later in the season, when Rue discovered Jules and Elliott sitting in her living room. She realized they told her mom about her drug problem, and as a result Rue tells Jules their relationship is over—and that meeting her is one of her life’s biggest regrets.

Later, in the season 2 finale, Jules confesses her love to Rue after Lexi’s play, Our Life. But this admission was met with nothing but silence and a forehead kiss as Rue walked away. Rue’s closing narration, which spoke of Jules in the past tense as her “first love,” suggested the door had finally closed on their romance: “Jules was my first love,” Rue says. “I’d like to remember it that way. I don’t know if that’s actually true. I think I was high for too much of it.”

The five-year jump in season 3 presents a necessary opportunity for fans to see who these two are to each other when they aren’t acting as everything to each other. For perhaps the first time since the show’s premiere, Rue really has the distance to focus on herself and who she is outside of her all-consuming relationship with Jules. And the same is true for Jules: As we learned from Levinson’s pre-release comments and HBO’s trailers, the Jules of season 3 is in art school, but she’s also working as a sugar baby. What does that mean for her individual autonomy? Who is she away from Rue?

Season 3 doesn’t necessarily require a romantic reunion between the pair. Instead, their relationship needs to address the fallout of codependency. Season 3 must show us whether there’s a version of Rue and Jules that can exist in the same room without the gravitational pull of their shared trauma.

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HBOCassie and Maddy’s Restored Relationship

The falling out between the queen bees of East Highland High didn’t just feel dramatic; it felt inevitable. Cassie and Nate’s relationship was rooted in secrecy and insecurity, and it ultimately turned Maddy and Cassie’s friendship into collateral damage. By the end of season 2, the fallout had already landed, but the emotional aftermath? That’s still very much unresolved.

After exchanging brutally insulting words (and a full-on brawl in front of their whole school), Cassie revealed to Maddy that Nate broke up with her as they were nursing their injuries in the bathroom. Maddy then replied with a cryptic “Don’t worry, this is just the beginning,” leaving it unclear what this means for their friendship.

The season 3 trailers reveal that, five years later, Cassie and Nate are getting married, while Maddy is working for a Hollywood talent agency. The former friends/“soulmates” collide again when Cassie decides to enlist Maddy’s help building up her burgeoning platform as an influencer. But why would Maddy say yes? What has changed between them in the years since high school?

One of the season’s most compelling storylines now centers what reconnection for Cassie and Maddy will actually look like. Has time created the space for forgiveness, or does their friendship still hold resentment? Are they the same people they’ve always been, or have they evolved? And if not, what will Levinson have to say about their stasis?

Female friendships have always been one of Euphoria’s most compelling undercurrents, and reducing this to just another dramatic beat would feel like a missed opportunity. Season 3 should treat Maddy and Cassie’s fracture with the same intensity it gives its romances. Friendships between women can be just as transformative and complicated as romantic relationships, and a fallout can produce a heartbreak every bit as devastating.

HBONate’s Motivations After Cal’s Arrest

During a tense confrontation in the season 2 finale, Nate turns his father (Dane) into the police and gives the force a flash drive containing “everything,” which we infer includes videos of Cal’s many sexual encounters with minors. This forces Cal to face the damage he’s inflicted on both these minors and his own family. In a last-minute effort, attempting unsuccessfully to reach an understanding with his son, he takes accountability for his poor parenting and expresses regret for the way he raised Nate. But the moment is cut short as the police arrive to take him away. It’s a moment that might look like closure, but for Nate, it’s anything but.

Nate’s identity has been shaped by Cal’s influence throughout his entire life. His ideas of masculinity, power, and even intimacy are all tangled up in his father’s shadow. Removing Cal from the equation doesn’t automatically set Nate free; if anything, it leaves him unmoored. Without Cal’s looming figure to push against or emulate, who will Nate become?

Season 3 now has to grapple with what independence from his father actually means for Nate. Losing Cal could destabilize him completely, forcing him to confront the parts of himself he’s spent years avoiding. But there’s also a darker possibility: that without his father’s presence, Nate doesn’t soften, he sharpens. Might he become even more controlled, more calculated, and somehow even more dangerous?

The season 3 trailer presents Nate living in the suburbs with Cassie, to whom he’s now engaged. He appears to be stepping into a future that mirrors his father’s, as he is seen taking over Cal’s construction business. Flashes of Nate bloodied—and objects being shattered around him—also hint that he might be headed down a path as dark as the one Cal walked.

HBOFez’s Uncertain Future

Fezco’s fate was left unclear when his story came to a violent halt in the season 2 finale. His apartment was raided by a S.W.A.T. team after Custer (Tyler Chase) was killed by Ashtray (Javon Walton) once Ash realized that Custer was a police informant. Fez and Ash are caught up in a gunfight with the intruders; ultimately, Fez is injured and Ash seemingly killed. (Or was he? His body is never shown.) The last we see of Fez is him being led out of his apartment in zip ties by the S.W.A.T. officers. In this same scene, we also see the officers step over a card that Fez had written for Lexi.

What happens next remains one of the show’s most pressing unanswered questions. Is Fez in prison? Is he facing serious charges? Is Ashtray actually dead? And what did that letter to Lexi say?

Season 3 faces a unique challenge here, following the loss of actor Cloud back in 2023, many months before production ultimately began on the third season. His portrayal of Fez made him one of Euphoria’s most beloved and quietly magnetic characters. His performance brought a rare softness to the show, particularly in his relationship with Lexi, which felt refreshing amongst the drama’s chaos. That unopened letter now carries even more emotional weight, standing in as a symbol of everything left unsaid between them.

Fez’s storyline raises real stakes about accountability and survival, but with Cloud’s death, the show now faces the challenge of handling his character with care. How season 3 chooses to address Fez’s fate is important because his absence will reverberate beyond his storyline, impacting characters and the emotional fabric of the series itself. Glossing over the loss too quickly would risk diminishing the emotional impact and the relationships that made him such a vital part of the series.

If season 3 hopes to deliver a satisfying continuation, it won’t just need new drama. It will need to confront the unfinished stories already in motion, and see them through in a way that feels fulfilling to its audience. Based on the trailers, as well as early interviews and reviews, we already have some insight into where most of the characters begin season 3. But it's vital that these new chapters feel like natural extensions of the journeys the viewers have already invested time in. Multiple years down the line, Euphoria needs to still feel like Euphoria. If Levinson neglects the stories that made the drama’s first two seasons so successful (or does not address them carefully) then the tension and heartbreak that fueled season 2 are in danger of losing their meaning—and their staying power.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”