[This story contains spoilers from Euphoria season three, episode seven.]
Sunday night’s penultimate episode of Euphoria season three revealed a brutal death for one of its main castmembers.
After having his wedding night ruined, a finger and toe cut off and being buried alive, Jacob Elordi‘s Nate Jacobs faced his fate when a venomous rattlesnake slithered its way into the hole he was buried in and bit him. All of this was the result of Nate’s business arrangement with Naz (Jack Topalian), which left him in debt. Naz later went to Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) and said she had 72 hours to deliver the money Nate owed him. Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) then killed Naz to help Cassie and Maddie (Alexa Demie) free Nate, but when the coffin he was buried in gets dug up, his lifeless body is shown.
In an exclusive interview with Esquire, the creator of the hit HBO series, Sam Levinson, unpacked what went into killing off Nate, a core character of the series since the show’s debut in 2019 who was known for being controlling and abusive.
“There’s this kind of funny thing where Iknowwhat 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 told the publication. “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?”
The article goes on to report that Levinson “knew from the get-go that Nate was finished this season.” Nate, who endured grief, trauma and violence throughout the first two seasons, showed glimpses of humanity in season three because Levinson “muddied the moral waters.” The outlet notes that the shift was a setup for what unfolded in episode seven, “Rain or Shine.”
“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?Didhe deserve it?’ Those kinds of questions are always exciting to pose to the audience.”
He continued, “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 that his original idea was for Nate to die from either suffocation or heat as he’s buried alive.
“I always loved the movieThe Candy Snatcherswhere the girl gets buried alive with a pipe as an air hole. So I had imagined that Nate would get buried alive,” he said.
However, he explained that he changed his mind about how to kill Nate 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 added, “It’s sort of a funny moment where you realize that not all dark scenes come from a dark place. I turned to Ash and I said, ‘I think I got it.’ And I explained how Nate dies in this sequence. She goes, ‘That’swhat you’ve been thinking about?’”
Following the episode’s premiere, Elordi said in an HBO post-show segment that it was “a cool way to go” and “quite peaceful” filming inside the coffin. He also shared what it was like working with a real snake for the scene.
“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.”
But the Wuthering Heights star went on to call the snake “super cute.”
“He was real cuddly, so he just saddled up next to me and it was nice,” he said. “But he was real sleepy. I had to kind of nudge him to get him to come up.”
Overall, Elordi was pleased with how his character was sent off.
“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. Check out all of The Hollywood Reporter’s coverage here.