Spoiler alert: The following story contains plot details from the season 3 premiere of ‘Euphoria’, currently streaming on HBO Max.
It’s been four years since the last new episode of “Euphoria” aired, and five years in the world of HBO shows, but Season 3 begins in a familiar place. It begins with Rue (Zendaya) in a dangerous and chaotic position.
The premiere begins with a group of men helping Mexican Lou push her car out of a ditch in a desert landscape. She thanked them in Spanish and stormed off. They ended up using a makeshift ramp to scale the border wall, leaving the car teetering precariously on top of the wall because they couldn’t figure out how to get the car down safely onto Texas soil. On foot, carrying a duffel bag full of drugs, she stops to rest at the home of a conservative Christian family who she believes has come to write an article for her university newspaper about “pure evil pouring across our borders.” Eventually, Lou returns to California and takes the duffel bag to Laurie (Martha Kelly), but is reprimanded for leaving her car behind and told she’ll add it to her tab.
In a voiceover, Lou explains that a few years after graduating from high school, he confronted Laurie at the smoke shop where she worked and forced her to become a drug mule. Laurie claimed that the $10,000 that Lou owed Laurie for drugs that her mother (Nica King) flushed down the toilet in Season 2 had ballooned to $43 million, including interest. So she moves into Laurie’s house with Faye (Chloe Cherry), and the two embark on the brutal task of acquiring illegal drugs on Laurie’s behalf and delivering them to her various shady clients. In one scene, Lou and Faye gag violently as they force a drug-filled balloon down their throats so Border Patrol agents can’t see them, then painfully defecate and retrieve the balloon.
Maud Apatow as Lexi
Next, Lou is seen visiting Lexi (Maude Apatow) at her Los Angeles apartment. Lexi is currently working in Hollywood as an assistant to a showrunner played by Sharon Stone. When she catches up with Lou, who lied about driving full-time for Uber, Lexi lectures her that she needs to find a better career path. Lou, in turn, scolds Lexi for not contacting Fezco (Angus Cloud), but it turns out that Fezco is still alive but serving a 30-year sentence. (Cloud died in 2023 from a fentanyl overdose. Series creator Sam Levinson said his death inspired much of Season 3, and the first episode ends with a tribute to Cloud, the late actor Eric Dane, and executive producer Kevin Turen.)
Five years after graduating high school, Cassie (Sidney Sweeney) is engaged to Nate (Jacob Elordi) and on the verge of TikTok fame. Casey is first shown wearing a skimpy dog costume and recording with Nate’s housekeeper, Juana (Minerva Garcia), until Nate returns home and angrily interrupts Cassie’s side job. The couple argue about money, and Nate assures Cassie that everything is going well financially and that she doesn’t need to get cash online. However, the next scene reveals that Nate is secretly struggling after taking over his father’s (Dane) business. Cassie tells her friend Heather (Jessica Blair Herman) that she’s considering opening an OnlyFans account.
Jacob Elordi as Nate
Back at the apartment, Lexi says that Lou’s ex-girlfriend Jules (Hunter Shaffer) has become a sugar baby. She hears it from Maddie (Alexa Demme), who now works for a talent management company in Hollywood.
Lou then catches up with his sponsor Ali (Colman Domingo). They discuss the third stage of the 12-step addiction recovery process. “How do I submit my life and will to God’s care?” she asked, even though she had never been a believer, remembering how happy that family in Texas was. As they talked and joked about what the Bible says about homosexuals, Ali told her to leave it all out and decide if she was a believer. she decided to do so.
Colman Domingo as Ali and Zendaya as Lou
Lou drives to his owner’s house in the middle of nowhere to drop off Laurie. In the home’s garage, she hands the bag to Bishop (Darrell Britt-Gibson), an employee of Laurie’s customer. When she enters the house to go to the bathroom, Bishop warns her not to touch anything she shouldn’t. Inside, she finds a party full of strippers drinking, dancing, and swimming. In the bathroom, she helps a stripper named Tish (Emma Kotos) change, and then ends up joining the party. Bishop intervenes and takes her to her boss, Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who is in a bathtub wearing a cowboy hat and surrounded by several women.
“You come into my house and you dance with my daughters and you don’t introduce yourself. That’s very rude, young lady,” Alamo says. However, Lou apologizes and the two get to know each other. She learns that Alamo is a strip club mogul and tells him that her dream job is to work for him, not as a stripper, i.e. “troubleshooting”.
The episode cuts to Nate and Kathy having dinner at home and getting into a new financial argument. Kathy is determined to pay $50,000 for flowers for her wedding, but Nate refuses to pay, but says he can start an OnlyFans account and pay for it himself. Nate is upset, but eventually agrees that he can start an account as long as his face and chest don’t appear in the same photo.
When they returned to the Alamo home, the woman screamed and found Tish dead on the bedroom floor, foaming at the mouth. It turns out that the drugs Lou brought from Laurie contained fentanyl. Alamo interrogates Lou, but Lou declares that he did not know. “If so, why on earth would I stay here?” she says. “Please tell me,” Alamo replies. “It may sound crazy now, but as we were talking, I thought maybe God was bringing us together. I didn’t want to work for Laurie. He made me swallow a golf ball-sized balloon, stuff my intestines, and cross the border. This is hell on earth.” She explained what she owed Laurie, and said, “When you started talking about how we could reinvent ourselves in America, I thought, “This could be God.”
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Alamo
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“So, do you believe in God? Let’s see if God believes in you,” Alamo says. They go outside and put an apple on Lou’s head, but Alamo stands a few yards away and points a gun at her. When he fired, the bullet penetrated Ringo instead of killing Lou. She is grateful to be alive, laughs hard, and begins to sob.
