Warning: Spoilers ahead. Do not proceed if you have not watched Euphoria Season 3, Episode 7.
Sam Levinson gave “Euphoria” audiences “what they wanted” on Sunday night by killing off Nate Jacobs, played by Jacob Elordi, in a “horrific” scene.
After Season 3’s penultimate episode aired over the weekend, the showrunner spoke to Esquire about the pressure from viewers to deliver “justice or karma.”
The 41-year-old filmmaker recalled asking himself: “How do you give[the fans]what they want, but make it so scary and anxiety-provoking that by the time it happens, you’re not sure if the audience wanted it?”
“I’m like, ‘Oh, I wanted him to come back…? Okay,'” Levinson told the magazine with a laugh. “The sense of collusion with the audience is an interesting sound to play within this kind of larger structure.”
Jacobs, in particular, was buried alive and killed by a rattlesnake bite in episode 7.
His body was later exhumed in Yumbo.
Levinson hopes the audience is left with “provocative” questions like, “Oh, I don’t know. Should he have done better? Was he worth it?”
The director initially told the outlet that he wanted Jacobs to die in a different manner.
“I loved the movie ‘Candy Snatchers,’ where a girl was buried alive using a pipe as an air hole, so I imagined Nate being buried alive,” he explained, “but then I had this image of a rattlesnake coming towards this pipe.”
Levinson wanted Jacobs to be “swatting” while the snake was “sensing movement on the ground.”
At the time, the Emmy nominee said he was “driving to Warner Bros.,” “windows down,” and “listening to Otis Redding,” on “one of those beautiful days in Los Angeles, perfect weather.”
He said, “It’s kind of a funny moment when you realize that not all dark scenes come from a dark place.”
In an interview with HBO that aired after the show, Elordi described his death scene as a “cool way to do it.”
The 28-year-old, who has been with the series since Euphoria premiered in 2019, added: “Nate was someone who made so many mistakes and made so many dark choices. It’s cool to see it all come to this in the end.”
The 28-year-old actor said it was a “peaceful” scene to film, and that the boa constrictor, which has a fake rattle on the end of it, was a “cute” and “cuddly” co-star.
The Season 3 “Euphoria” finale will premiere on Sunday, May 31st at 9pm ET on HBO.
