creator Sam Levinson has ruled out the idea of continuing the show past season three.
Showbiz
Euphoria Finale: Creator Reveals Fate, Cloud Appears
Euphoria creator Sam Levinson has ruled out the idea of continuing the show past season three.Following the third season's incredible ratings and nonstop press ...
Advertisement
Following the third season's incredible ratings and nonstop press coverage, fans have been wondering if the show will be back for a fourth season. The rumor mill was further fueled after listed episode 8 as the 'season' finale instead of the 'series' finale.
But the 41-year-old filmmaker shut down speculation about a potential new season in a new interview on Popcast, which was released after the finale aired.
'In terms of the story that we set out to tell, which is a story about addiction and its consequences, this feels like the end to me,' he said.
Advertisement
'I'm just immensely proud of the work we did, the story we told, and you know, it's a tragic one in the end. But it's also, it's the truth,' Levinson added.
He also said the episode, titled In God We Trust, was a way of honoring the late Angus Cloud, who made a posthumous appearance in the finale, following his death from an accidental drug overdose in 2023 at the age of 25.
Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, 41, ruled out the idea of continuing the show past season three in a new interview on Popcast, which was released after the finale aired; He is seen in April
The finale, titled In God We Trust, featured a posthumous appearance from the late Angus Cloud, following his death from an accidental drug overdose in 2023 at the age of 25
Advertisement
'I think it was a way of honoring Angus and saying a prayer for the future,' he said.
An HBO insider also told the Daily Mail that, 'the third season was planned as the final and that has not changed.'
's character Rue Bennett was killed off in the action-packed last episode. She died from a drug overdose.
'In terms of the story that we set out to tell, which is a story about addiction and its consequences, this feels like the end to me,' he said; Pictured with Sydney Sweeney in April
Levinson has faced fierce criticism over the controversial storylines in the third season, which saw Sweeney's character Cassie engage in fetish work for her OnlyFans page
He also said the episode was a way of 'honoring' the late Cloud and 'saying a prayer for the future'
Cloud (pictured with Zendaya) starred on the teen drama as the drug dealer Fezco aka Fez
Zendaya's character Rue Bennett was killed off in the action-packed episode. She died from a drug overdose during which she hallucinated that Fez had broken out of prison
But in the finale, he appears in a throwback sequence during a drug-fueled hallucination Rue has while she's dying.
She begins seeing things after being poisoned with fentanyl-laced pills by her drug dealer boss who discovered that she has working with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to take him down.
Rue believes that Fez escaped from prison and rushes to pick him up.
'I have to go get him,' she tells her Narcotics Anonymous sponsor and mentor Ali Muhammad (Colman Domingo), adding, 'I promised him that if he ever got out, I would go pick him up. I have to go.'
In a callback to the first season, she drives to his convenience store, which is now boarded up and abandoned. In another throwback scene Rue and Fez are seen looking happy.
She later runs into a police blockade, before breaking into her childhood home. There, she encounters her mother Leslie (Nika King), who is seen reaching for her hand.
The viewers are then shown that in reality, Rue is on the floor after taking too many pills, and is reaching out her hand into the air. Ali finds her dead on his couch in the morning.
Meanwhile, Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney) unravelled after her husband Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) was killed off in a gruesome sequence amid a botched attempt to collect a debt he owed in the previous episode.
The show ended after seven years and merely three seasons, having first premiered on HBO in the summer of 2019.
The actor died of a combined overdose of fentanyl, meth, cocaine and benzodiazepines; Seen in 2022
Levinson has faced fierce criticism over the controversial storylines in the third season, which saw Sweeney's character Cassie engage in fetish work for her OnlyFans page, and Zendaya's Rue acting as a drug mule and swallowing bags of fentanyl.
Earlier this month he was also called out for the 'unnecessary use' of Nazi symbols in the show.
Viewers have been most appalled by how far Sweeney's character, Cassie, has been willing to go, with her most X-rated scenes yet. While shooting content for her OnlyFans, Cassie has dressed as an 'adult baby' as well as going fully nude for scenes.
Fans were also disturbed by Cassie's 'puppy play' exploits when she dressed up as a lingerie-clad dog, which led to Levinson having to defend the scenes.
Levinson told The Hollywood Reporter: '[Cassie] has got her dog house and her little dog ears and the nose, and that has its own humor, but what makes the scene is the fact that her housekeeper is the one filming it.'
'What we wanted to always find is the other layer of absurdity that we're able to tie into it so that we're not too inside of her fantasy or illusion - the gag is to jump out, to break the wall.'
Meanwhile, Sweeney told Entertainment Tonight: 'I mean, Cassie's a crazy character. She will do anything and at all costs to be famous this season, and she makes a lot of very wild and interesting choices.'
She also told The Independent in 2022 that she never felt pushed into doing naked scenes, and said Levinson welcomed feedback.
Levinson has been under scrutiny thanks to Sweeney's 'degrading' OnlyFans storyline which has been described as a 'humiliation ritual'
Yet viewers claimed that Levinson's 'disturbing' and 'misogynistic' storylines for the new season 'lost the plot'.
Levinson previously defended the explicit nature of his work, noting during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival: 'We live in a very sexualized world. The influence of pornography is really strong in terms of the psyche of young people.'
The new season premiered under the cloud of the tragic untimely deaths of two major players in the cast, Eric Dane and Cloud.
Dane filmed his scenes for Euphoria season three before he died in February at age 53 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Advertisement
Advertisement