Ahead of the series finale, I didn’t think there was much more that Euphoria could do to shock me. Since season three of the HBO drama picked up its story five years after the group of teens graduated high school, Sam Levinson’s brainchild has made jaw-dropping scenes its raison d’etre. From Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) cosplaying as a dog and making mega bucks on OnlyFans, to Nate (Jacob Elordi) getting his fingers and toes chopped off before being buried alive, and Jules (Hunter Schafer) being mummified in plastic by her sugar daddy, the last eight episodes have demanded our attention in a media landscape where that very thing is valued above all else.
But as I watched the final episode, it once again delivered something unexpected. The 88-minute finale felt like a standalone feature film, with no shortage of biblical references. It even ended with the final words: “May God bless us all.” The sudden pivot into a nostalgic, star-spangled morality is indicative of a confused show that, right up until the last moment, hasn’t been sure what it’s trying to tell us. As a lesson in ethics, it falls flat. Yet looking more deeply, there is something more complicated going on.
