There’s A Reason The ‘Euphoria’ Ending Is The Way That It Is

So was this ending for Rue on Euphoria inevitable?

There’s a reason that the Euphoria ending, or at least Rue’s fate in the Euphoria series finale, has been a fan theory since the very beginning of the show. The tragic reveal midway through the last episode has ties to the HBO series’ origin.

Spoilers for the Euphoria series finale. What reveal am I talking about, exactly? Buckle up. In the final episode of the third and final season, Rue (Zendaya) experienced a fatal overdose after Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) left her with a bottle of Percocet laced with fentanyl. The narrator has, for all intents and purposes, been her ghost. She dies on Ali’s (Colman Domingo) couch, and when he finds her he goes on a revenge streak. It was a gutting end to the already emotionally torturous season.

However, if you look at the series’ source material it isn’t all that surprising that Rue died the way she did. Euphoria is based on an Israeli television series from 2012 by the same name, created by Ron Leshem–who also served as a writer and producer on the HBO series. As fate or the act of adaptation would have it, Leshem’s original Euphoria also ends with the death of its protagonist in a similar fashion. Hofit (Roni Daloomi) the narrator has been, for all intents and purposes, dead the whole time.

The ending actually could have been much darker than the one we get, if you believe it. According to CBR and Cracked and Buzzfeed, Leshem’s Euphoria also ends with a character similar to Ashtray character killing Hofit’s bullying ex-boyfriend on a livestream, the Kat character contracting HIV, the Fez character raping the Rue character and also potentially overdosing. (I believe that, according to this Reddit thread, there are a versions of the Israeli Euphoria online that cut off before Hofit’s death. That may explain some conflicting reports about what actually happens.)

Maybe, from a fate perspective, but not exactly. According to creator Sam Levinson, one big reason the finale went in the direction it did was actor Angus Cloud’s death. Not just because his character would have had a significant role to play, but because he had a fatal fentanyl overdose and Levinson wanted to honor his death with a warning and a storyline that, in a way, avenged him. So, Levinson initially wasn’t going to do Leshem’s ending and then went back to it? That’s what it seems like. Either way, the theory came true.