Euphoria shocked viewers by killing off Zendaya‘s beloved character Rue — but how did she die?
On the Sunday, May 31, episode of the show, Rue escaped Laurie’s house and took what she stole from the safe back to Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). The drug lord offered Alamo some pain pills after seeing how injured she was — and Rue considered taking them.
The show then followed Rue to urgent care where she got treated for her wounds. She returned back to Ali’s (Colman Domingo) house and seemed to consider taking the pills before going to sleep.
Euphoria then showed a sequence where Rue woke up to find out that Fez (Angus Cloud) escaped prison with his parkour skills. She ran to reunite with him, stopped at her house to share a sweet moment with her mother and then the show confirmed it was all a dream.
Instead, Rue had died from an overdose on Ali’s couch. He discovered the pills, which he tested and found they were positive for fentanyl. This confirmed that Alamo intentionally gave Rue drugs that he knew she would relapse on — and that he planned to have kill her after he previously discovered she was working with the DEA to bring him down.
“The honest ending is that people like Rue don’t make it,” creator Sam Levinson said in a post-finale segment. “People relapse and they f*** up. They’re not ready to get clean. And they weren’t dying like they are now with the influx of fentanyl into this country.”
Levinson recalled his own struggles with addiction.
“I could say with absolute certainty that if I was going through what I went through when I was younger now then I wouldn’t be here either,” he added before referencing Cloud’s death from an accidental overdose. “There’s no reason to sugarcoat it. I wanted to tell the story for Angus and for people who weren’t granted a second chance.”
Levinson called the finale “an honest ending.” He previously mentioned his plan to dedicate the season to Cloud, who died at age 25 before filming on the final episodes started.
“Some people ask why it took so long between seasons 2 and 3. There were obvious factors — the strikes, trying to make a schedule work with our very in-demand cast, but the real time was in trying to figure out how to find a way to pay respect to those who we lost,” Levinson said at the April premiere event for season 3.
He added: “When Angus died, it was tough. I loved him deeply, and I fought hard to keep him clean. The year he died, in 2023, he was one of 73,000 people in America who died of a fentanyl overdose. I learned a whole lot that year, but what I realized more than anything is that death is what gives life meaning. You can’t be arrogant about existence. You’re forced to reckon with the fact that life itself is a wonder, a gift, a profound blessing.”
Before his death, Cloud was candid about his struggles with mental health and addiction. Levinson recalled making several attempts to help the actor during his journey to stay sober.
“I looked him in the eye and I knew that he wasn’t doing well,” Levinson told People in September 2023 about helping Angus enter a 30-day in-patient program. “At the same time, I’ve been in these situations before where you’re trying to get someone clean. And I just said to him, ‘I love working with you and we’ve got this amazing season planned and stuff, but I need you to be sober because I got to be able to rely on you.'”
Levinson was determined to support Cloud, noting, “I could always feel that he didn’t want [sobriety] as much as we all wanted it for him. That’s where it gets tricky because the whole world can want it for you. But he didn’t want it. It’s just the self-destructive side of addiction and it outweighs everything. But you can’t give up on people. I wasn’t going to let anyone give up on him.”
Euphoria is currently streaming on HBO Max.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
