Euphoria finale shifts to religion and drug war after Rue’s death

The Euphoria series finale ran 88 minutes and opened with a western-style sequence in which Rue was lassoed by a man on horseback. Forty-five minutes in, Rue died of a fentanyl overdose after years of addiction. The show then shifted its focus to her sponsor, Ali, who became the narrator for the rest of the episode.

Laurie, the drug boss played by Martha Kelly, hanged herself by jumping from a building when federal agents arrived to arrest her. Later, Ali appeared at Alamo’s strip club in a military uniform to confront the rival dealer played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. The sequence included a prolonged shootout that occupied nearly 30 minutes of the remaining runtime.

Jules appeared only briefly, painting a portrait of Rue while her sugar daddy made coffee. Cassie, whose OnlyFans work had been central to the season, was shown planning to turn her former home into a content house for performers. Maddy received little screen time.

Ali delivered a monologue that listed government agencies, shipping companies, dockworkers, cartels, corrupt police, bureaucrats, nonprofits, lawyers and politicians as all complicit in Rue’s death. The episode closed with the words “May God bless us all” over an image of an American flag.

Creator Sam Levinson had previously centered the season on the characters’ online behavior and the pressures of algorithm-driven content. The finale instead emphasized a turf war between drug organizations, leaving several relationships among the young women unresolved.