How Euphoria Season 3 Foreshadowed *That* Death In Its Premiere

Spoiler alert: This post discusses major events from Euphoria Season 3, Episode 7.

After a ton of near-death experiences, the third season of Euphoria finally pulled the trigger on a main character in its penultimate episode. In Episode 7, Nate Jacobs met his end at long last — he’d already been slowly losing pieces of himself throughout the season due to a vindictive loan shark named Naz cutting off his appendages each time he failed to repay his $1 million debt. But this serial dismemberment wasn’t the only sign of Nate’s lethal fate. The very first episode of the season actually hid a small but significant piece of foreshadowing, although viewers didn’t realize it at the time.

At the end of Episode 7, Nate is buried alive by Naz, who is trying to use Nate’s suffering to coerce his wife Cassie into repaying his hefty debt. However, the plan goes very wrong. Before Cassie can rescue her estranged husband, a rattlesnake descends into his coffin and kills him with a venomous bite.

It’s a brutal and literally toxic end for a character who was defined by his toxic brutality, and it seems the show was hinting at this death as far back as Season 3’s opening scenes. Fans on TikTok pointed out that the rattlesnake responsible for Nate’s death was first shown in Episode 1 of Season 3. As Rue left Mexico on a bus to California in the premiere, the serpent was briefly shown slithering over the U.S.-Mexico border.

Although creator Sam Levinson hasn’t commented on this premiere moment, he did share his mindset into deciding how Nate had to die in Season 3.

“There's this kind of funny thing where I know what 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 Esquire on May 25. “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?”

“It’s like, ‘Oh, you wanted him to get his comeuppance…? OK,’” Levinson continued. “That feeling of complicity with the audience is always an interesting note to play inside of this sort of larger structure. You end up going, ‘Oh God, I don't know. Should he have had it better? Did he deserve it?’ Those kinds of questions are always exciting to pose to the audience.”