‘Euphoria’ Sub-Reddit Mods Address the Show’s Final Season (original) (raw)

The r/Euphoria Mods Don’t Need a Happy Ending

Need more? Sign up for Euphoria Club, a newsletter overanalyzing season three of Sam Levinson’s HBO fever dream, for subscribers only.

No one knows Euphoriabetter than its fans. For years as the show took a break, the sub-Reddit r/Euphoria persisted despite not knowing whether Zendaya’s Rue, Sydney Sweeney’s Cassie, or even Jacob Elordi’s Nate would finish out the story lines seasons one and two explored with a visceral visual language. For a while, head moderator @your_mind_aches tells us, he changed the page’s icon and header to images from Madame Web as a joke — “By that point, we were so deep into the hiatus that many users were so convinced that there was never going to be a third season.” Despite the uncertainty, not only did they keep blind faith, but new fans kept joining, too, pulled in by the storytelling, aesthetics, and unflinching portrayal of addiction. With three years to build up anticipation, can Sam Levinson’s conclusion of the series meet expectations?

Vulture reached out to the dedicated moderators of one of Reddit’s biggest television forums (currently earning over 1.1 million weekly visitors) to get their takes on the final season. Subscribers can read the rest of the interview on Monday, May 4, in our exclusive TV Club newsletter — sign up here if you haven’t already. Until then, the mods share their hopes and dreams for the end of Euphoria below.

What do you want to see at the end of Rue’s journey? What does a happy ending even look like for these characters?

Saftey_Scissors: Rue in active recovery and thriving. Ali moving on and finding a partner or something he’s passionate about. Jules finding her self-worth and success. Maddy being a badass and owning her own company with a man that deserves her. Cassie overcoming her daddy issues, leaving Nate, and being successful. Lexi being a successful writer and, since they kept Fez alive, I kinda want her to have a prison marriage.

I never understood the Zendaya hype because I didn’t grow up with her. My era of Disney was Hilary Duff, but I saw her in Euphoria and was blown away. I loved how it portrayed addiction and how it doesn’t only hurt the addict but everyone around them as well. It makes me think about the difficult situation of loving an addict and always wondering when, what if, and is it going to stick.

Inc0gnitaa: I was drawn to Euphoria due to seeing some clips online during season one of Rue’s struggles with addiction and mental illness. I started watching with my mother, and it brought us closer together as it helped her understand what I had been going through during my teen years and why I acted in ways that weren’t necessarily “normal” for others.

For me, a happy ending would be Rue finally being free of all of her past mistakes that have led to her current situation. It’d be great to see Nate in therapy genuinely putting the work in to change and grow as well as moving past generational trauma. I’d like to see Cassie come to the realization that she doesn’t have to seek validation to be happy in life and that she can be loved for who she is, Jules doing something great with her artistic flair like she always wanted, and Maddy and Lexi excelling in their careers in the entertainment industry.

your_mind_aches: A good final season should be tying up the loose ends and providing a coherent ending for the characters’ emotional and moral journeys, bringing back old actors where needed. Most of all, giving Rue and Jules a satisfying final arc as a duo and reexploring that dynamic is important to me. Assembling a writers’ room of people who understand these characters is a major step to accomplishing this.

But I don’t want a happy ending; I want one that fits the characters and challenges the audience. Shows like House, Barry, and Succession found ways to provide well-needed catharsis where needed while trapping some characters in a hell of their own making and launching new arcs that leave it up to the audience. I always want to know everything, but my favorite shows always leave me wanting more, not wishing they had less.

fvckuufvckingfvck: I had worked as a background actor during season one, so I got to see firsthand how meticulous and intentional the whole production was before the show came out. Even from that perspective, it was clear they were making something special visually and tonally.

The biggest thing I’d want out of a final season is for the characters to land somewhere that feels honest to who they are. For Rue, that can mean a version of stability or recovery that feels realistic but not necessarily magically fixed. Not really a fairy-tale ending, but one that shows her growth and accountability. For the rest of the characters, it’s less about everyone being happy and more about closure. I would like arcs that actually go somewhere, with consequences, as well as relationships that resolve in a way that feels intentional instead of abrupt or purely for shock value.

It’s Euphoria we’re talking about, so I don’t think the ideal “happy ending” will really be happy in the traditional sense. I’m hoping for something more bittersweet and grounded that in the end feels complete, like these characters could keep living beyond the screen when it all ends, just with a little more clarity than when we met them.

soft_core666: I first discovered Euphoria during the pandemic. From the pilot, I was hooked. I could relate to a lot of the characters and their story lines. I felt the stories were told so beautifully and the aesthetic of the show was something I hadn’t seen before. I liked how the show wasn’t shy about pushing the boundaries with the storytelling. I loved the cinematography, and the soundtrack was on another level.

A happy ending would be Rue wanting to be sober and being free of the drug world. All I want is for the characters to grow and, at the end, be happy. I know that’s wishful thinking.

comedyganggang: I first watched Euphoria because of some crowdwork at a comedy show I was hosting. One of the comics glanced at the front row, saw eight people all wearing purple who could have passed for models, and said, “I feel like I’m in an episode of Euphoria.” That weirdly specific observation stuck with me, so I went home and watched it. I had Shazam open the whole time; I was looking up the DPs, directors, editors, and music supervisors, falling down a rabbit hole that led me straight to Labrinth’s score. Euphoria was doing for purple what Dune would do with sepia. It was a master class in how to hook someone from the first frame and keep them hooked.

I’m a fan and a fascinated observer, especially when it comes to the visual language of the show and the evolution of the aesthetic (digital, 35 mm., 65 mm.). The way it is addiction, jealousy, fantasy, shame, and longing felt unusually alive to me, like it was letting you look directly at the parts of people’s personalities that usually get hidden, but under better lighting and cleaner language. I actually started making frame-by-frame color-analysis prints for Euphoria mapping the ten-color palette of every frame in chronological order, which is probably either devotion or a cry for help.

A good ending for Euphoria wouldn’t be perfect healing in my honest opinion — just the quiet, hard-won proof that no one is doomed to remain the worst thing they’ve ever been and that reinvention is never off the table.

The r/Euphoria Mods Don’t Need a Happy Ending Your product is saved! You’ll receive emails when your saved products go on sale. Manage preferences.