Warning: This article contains spoilers for season three of Euphoria.
Rue swallows drug-laced pellets and smuggles them between America and Mexico. Cassie creates erotic content on OnlyFans to pay for wedding flowers. Nate loses fingers and toes in bloody revenge scenes, and Jules gives up her performing career to find sponsorship.
If Euphoria was once perceived as a hyperbolic yet emotionally charged portrait of Gen Z adolescence, the latest season takes that chaos to almost surreal extremes.
After seven weeks of mixed reactions from critics and social media users, the series concludes on Monday. Some viewers are suggesting this will be a relief for the main characters, who they say have "outgrown" the show. In fact, many fans who were teenagers when the series premiered in 2019 say they, too, are ready to move on.
Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and Jacob Elordi, all now established actors, play a group of young adults grappling with issues of sex, drug addiction, friendship, love, and trauma. The third season takes place half a decade after high school, and the characters find themselves in a much darker and more complex version of adulthood.
When Euphoria first aired, it quickly became one of the defining series of its generation, but after a five-year hiatus marked by strikes, rewrites, and cast departures, its return has been markedly more controversial. .
Some viewers say previous seasons of the show were much more relatable and multifaceted - this episode featured Jacob Elordi and Alexa Demie [HBO].
In December, before the launch of the third season, showrunner Sam Levinson declared, "This is our best season to date." Critical response may not have confirmed this (the average score on review aggregator Metacritic is 56%), but the show's viewing figures are currently the highest in its history.
According to Warner Bros. Discovery, the first episode attracted an audience of more than 12.3 million in the U.S., and the total worldwide viewership exceeded 20 million—68% more than the season two premiere during the same period.
Euphoria has always thrived on viral moments, but some viewers feel that certain scenes in season three were specifically crafted with memes and social media in mind—to the detriment of the characters and story.
Weeks after the episodes aired, my news feeds are still filled with edited clips and jokes about Cassie dressing up as a baby and Nate telling her, "You were a very bad dog.".
«"Bait for Anger"»
Journalist and writer Jess Bacon argues that the show has "almost become rage bait" and that its apparent pursuit of viral moments has resulted in a "one-dimensional story" unworthy of its serious subject matter and stellar cast.
This season, she adds, "everything feels almost unrecognizable" compared to the "relatable and thought-provoking teenage experiences" depicted in the early episodes of Euphoria.
23-year-old fan Eva Rigby agrees: "I remember my friends really liked Euphoria because the characters seemed like a more stylised version of us 17-year-olds, but season three feels less emotional.".
Rue finds herself forced to work for a drug dealer at a strip club while simultaneously reporting his activities to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) [Eddie Chen/HBO]
Eva says the show's visual concept—"neon LED strips, jewel-toned eye makeup, and not-so-family-friendly outfits worn to small-town urban events"—reflected the aesthetics that young people embraced, and, beneath all the glittery visuals, also reflected issues that many young women recognized in their own lives.
«"Cassie's objectification, Maddie's domestic abuse, Kat's body image issues, Jules's relationships with older men, and Rue's addiction were all mirroring what the girls in our circle were experiencing or witnessing.".
According to Eva, compared to the previous season, the latest season is noticeably detached from reality.
«"Surprisingly, most of us aren't OnlyFans content creators or being kidnapped by the mafia. Even Lexi's "normal" life—working 9 to 5 at Warner Bros., living alone in an apartment in Los Angeles—would be a great option for friends who say they're watching season three through TikTok clips instead of paying for another subscription.".
Some fans have found the new storylines more intense, with Bacon saying the show's violence makes it "almost unwatchable" at times.
She adds that while the show still tackles tough topics like sex work, misogyny, and traditional femme culture, it no longer approaches them with the same emotional depth and "now lacks the subtlety the show was known for.".
In an article for Vogue, journalist Daisy Jones criticized what she called the show's "bizarre and obsessive obsession with sex work," arguing that the topic is treated in a way that now feels "dated and one-dimensional.".
«"It's always been like this"»
In the penultimate episode of season three, Nate is buried alive for failing to pay his debts [Eddie Chen/HBO].
However, on the Chicks in the Office podcast, Noah Ives says he's been enjoying the season more and more, and the last few episodes, which feature Rue secretly working for the DEA, Nate getting buried alive, and Cassie's growing quest for OnlyFans recognition, have been "much more enjoyable.".
«"Having the whole group back together makes the show a lot more interesting and feels a bit like Euphoria," he says, though he adds that the plot is still "ridiculous.".
Another fan said the ridiculous storylines were "as usual" with the show.
«"That the creators were able to make such a huge leap from the school years to where they are now without slowing down is fantastic," they added.
Many fans also praised the acting in the series, especially Sydney Sweeney and Zendaya.
Other viewers believe Euphoria's emotional depth is still alive and well, particularly in its depiction of addiction.
Addiction psychologist Gonzalo Sanchez says that in the early seasons, drug use was "portrayed in a very stylized and dynamic manner," but as the series progressed, "there was a clear shift toward showing the deeper emotional and psychological realities of addiction.".
«"The series increasingly explores themes familiar in therapeutic work, such as shame, unresolved trauma, and the complex nature of the recovery process.".
Cassie and Nate's wedding became one of the most talked-about moments of the series [Patrick Wymore/HBO]
Many of the criticisms leveled at the series—accusations of favoring style over substance, romanticizing trauma, and prioritizing spectacle—were heard from the very beginning. But in 2019, these shocking moments perhaps felt fresher.
When the series premiered, The Guardian said it made Skins look "perfectly Victorian," while Time called it "the first teen drama to fully exploit the Gen Z, Xanax-inspired aesthetic.".
In an interview with Vogue, Jones noted that the first season's storylines, such as the leak of nude photos of Barbie Ferreira's character Kat, felt "relevant and meaningful" because it was before platforms like OnlyFans exploded into popular culture.
«"Levinson's continued interest in these topics now seems not just belated but also slightly awkward," she adds.
«"The real reason is a four-year break from studies."»
James Kirkham, a branding strategist and cultural commentator, agrees that the themes that once made Euphoria culturally defining are now more pervasive.
«"The cultural dialogue they had in 2019 about identity, queerness, and mental health is now being had by everyone everywhere, so the show no longer feels new or out of the ordinary.".
He believes the rapid pace of online culture has fundamentally changed the way audiences interact with youth television.
«"The four-year gap is to blame because on social media and streaming platforms, four years is like a seismic or geological shift, so viewers who fell in love with the first season as high school students are now graduates.".
Kirkham also says that internet culture itself has fragmented since the early seasons of Euphoria, making it difficult for any one TV show to dominate, and "the social media community now barely exists in any meaningful collective sense.".
Comparisons are often made between Euphoria and Skins, the teen series that made a huge impact in the 2000s, but subsequent seasons struggled to maintain the same cultural relevance.
Kirkham says it's almost inevitable that modern teen shows will lose their relevance over time, and "the miracle is when a teen show ever becomes truly popular.".
«"It's always hard to expect something to happen twice, in a different cultural setting, with the same authors.".
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