Just when you thought Euphoria couldn’t get any more cooked, the HBO drama has gone and killed off one of its biggest characters in an absolutely nightmare-inducing scene ahead of next week’s finale.
This season we’ve had characters kidnapped, relapsing, dressing up in kinky outfits, covering up crimes, spiralling into full psychological breakdowns and screaming at each other in designer outfits, but somehow the show still managed to outdo itself with a literal underground snake death.
Read on for the shocking death that occurred in the penultimate episode.
Who dies in Euphoria?
In the latest episode, which drops on HBO Max today, Nate Jacobs (played by Aussie darling Jacob Elordi) finally came face-to-face with the consequences of the dangerous life he’s been spiralling into all season. After racking up massive debts with some very shady people, Nate was kidnapped and locked underground inside a coffin-like box for 72 hours while his wife Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) desperately tried to come up with the money to free him.
While Nate was trapped underground, a rattlesnake somehow slithered into the box with him, leading to one of the series’ most horrifying sequences yet. By the time Cassie and Maddy (Alexa Demie) convinced Alamo to help dig him out, Nate was already dead after suffering multiple snake bites.
Yep. Nate Jacobs is officially gone.
Prior to the shocking death scene, Cassie was grappling with a conniption of a different kind.
After losing access to her OnlyFans account, she was forced to rebuild her subscriber base from scratch. In a move that was peak Euphoria chaos, she teamed up with Maddy to seduce actor Dylan (Homer Gere), before secretly uploading a post-hookup photo of the pair to his social media account to drive traffic back to her sex work page.
The moment marked yet another nude scene for Cassie this season, with viewers repeatedly commenting on just how often Sydney Sweeney has appeared topless throughout the show’s final run.
Nate’s shocking death comes just one episode before what’s expected to be the show’s series finale, and fans are already losing it online over the sheer chaos of it all. While Euphoria has never exactly been known for restraint, this season has pushed things into full fever-dream territory.
Created by Sam Levinson and based on the Israeli series of the same name, Euphoria first premiered back in 2019 and quickly became one of HBO’s biggest cultural phenomena. The series follows Rue as she navigates addiction, mental illness, toxic relationships and the general horrors of being a teenager in the social media age.
The road to season three, however, was anything but smooth. After season two wrapped in 2022, production faced multiple delays due to Levinson’s involvement with The Idol, the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes, and scheduling conflicts among the increasingly A-list cast.
Now, with only one episode left, fans are expecting the finale to go fully nuclear. The biggest question hanging over the series is whether Rue will finally get a hopeful ending or if the show plans to lean all the way into tragedy. There’s also the fallout from Nate’s death still looming large, especially given Cassie and Maddy were the last people to see him alive.
Some viewers are also convinced the finale will include a major time jump, while others think the show could leave things intentionally ambiguous in case HBO decides to revisit the franchise down the line.
Honestly, at this point, absolutely nothing feels off the table.
Peep what viewers have had to say about the latest ep:
so they give nate no storyline this season, disregard his sexuality, his family, his plot with jules, and decide to just kill him off! lazy boring yawning sloppy #Euphoria pic.twitter.com/WKhLkTkyL0
— a (@mr_tashiduncan) May 25, 2026
spoilers // if they were going to kill nate off it should have been in a way that felt earned after all the torture he caused to these girls in the first two seasons. him being bitten by a rattlesnake after having ten minutes of screentime was so lame #euphoria
— erinspresso (@riverindaIe) May 25, 2026
and if i say sam levinson didn’t know what to do with nate’s character this season, made him a bum who fraudulently loses money he can’t pay back then cuts of his limbs and kills him off? was this some redemption arc to make us feel sorry for him because it’s dumb. #euphoria pic.twitter.com/S6ZmtIpuop
— mo (@filled_popcorn) May 25, 2026
rest in peace nate jacobs, i’m sorry the writers ruined your character #euphoria pic.twitter.com/iUlnadzVxW
— 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢 | ꕤ (@fantasizemafia) May 25, 2026
#euphoria Taking the most complex character changing his entire personality to a broke loser who just cries about his problems is crazy. Nate used to hurt any woman or poc within a 5 mile radius to solve his problems. Now he lost all his limbs & died?? pic.twitter.com/e3U8MtFzoY
— . (@galindasbleach) May 25, 2026
nate jacobs dying before talking to jules or maddy about their relationships, his storyline having nothing to do with common sense or him being closeted, jacob elordi just being to lazy to work… yeah this is a shitshow #euphoria pic.twitter.com/fmCHp5B1CV
— khia general (@khiageneral) May 25, 2026
The snake eating Nate#euphoria
— Kenny (@kennysroys) May 25, 2026
pic.twitter.com/dviAACrLlE
Nate dead, Rue about to die, Maddie about to die, Cassie still alive, Lexi still a virgin, Cassie a widow, one episode left #Euphoria pic.twitter.com/12ZSCJS3OK
— 🧘🏽♂️ (@heretixcs) May 25, 2026
Jacob Elordi breaks silence on Nate’s death
After the penultimate episode aired, a segment was shown in which Elordi discusses his character’s death.
“That was a cool way to go. Nate was someone who has made so many mistakes and made so many dark choices,” he said. “It’s cool to see it all come to what it’s come to.”
He then recalled having to film in a coffin, adding, “My shoulders were touching the side and they couldn’t move my arms. Then they would drill the lid on it and it would get dark. It was really nice, actually. It was quite peaceful in there.”
The stunt team praised Elordi for agreeing to spend “minimal time in the coffin”.
Apparently Sam Levinson “wanted to shoot it with a real snake” so a rattlesnake and a boa constrictor were both featured on screen.
“Snakes were rattling, which was really alarming when you are locked in a box,” Elordi noted. “They had a boa constrictor that they put a fake rattler on the end of it.”
He continued: “He was super cute. He was really cuddly. So he kind of just sidled up next to me and it was nice. But he was really sleepy. He was a sleepy snake. I had to kind of nudge him to get him to come up. And that was it.”
The segment concluded with Elordi reflecting on his time portraying Nate Jacobs on Euphoria.
“It’s a bittersweet thing,” he said. “This show is a massive part of — not just my career — but my life. It’s been amazing and I’m so proud of being a part of this.”
The Euphoria finale airs next week — buckle up!
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