EUPHORIA delivered one of its most shocking episodes in years with Season 3 Episode 7, “Rain or Shine,” detonating multiple storylines just one week before the finale. HBO’s chaotic drama has spent the season pushing its characters deeper into emotional collapse, but this episode crossed a major line with the shocking death of Jacob Elordi’s Nate Jacobs, a moment that instantly changes the emotional landscape of the series. Add in Sydney Sweeney’s increasingly disturbing Cassie arc, Zendaya’s Rue continuing her unstable fight for survival, and a finale now loaded with fallout, and “Rain or Shine” becomes the kind of penultimate episode fans will be debating for a long time.
If EUPHORIA wanted viewers emotionally wrecked heading into the finale, mission accomplished.
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EUPHORIA airs Sundays on HBO and streams on HBO Max.
Episode 6 Recap & Ending Explained
What Happened In EUPHORIA Season 3 Episode 7?
“Rain or Shine” is less about gradual emotional unraveling and more about full-scale collapse.
The episode pushes nearly every major character into darker territory, but the biggest shock comes with Nate’s storyline reaching a brutal end. For a character who has spent years functioning as one of Euphoria’s most volatile and toxic forces, killing Nate off in such a bizarre, darkly theatrical way feels exactly like the kind of unhinged swing only EUPHORIA would attempt..
And it works because Euphoria doesn’t treat it like a gimmick.
Whether viewers see Nate’s ending as tragic, deserved, or long overdue, it lands with enormous weight simply because of how much damage he’s inflicted across the series.
This is not a subtle episode.
It’s Euphoria at full chaos.
Nate’s Story Ends In Brutal Fashion
For years, Nate Jacobs has been one of the show’s most dangerous emotional weapons.
Manipulative.
Explosive.
Emotionally abusive.
Deeply damaged.
And Episode 7 finally ends that arc.
Jacob Elordi has always played Nate with a disturbing mix of control and instability, which made him one of the series’ most compelling antagonists even at his worst. Killing him off gives the episode genuine consequence because it removes one of the show’s central pressure points just as the finale approaches.
That creates a huge question:
What does Euphoria even look like without Nate?
Cassie’s Story Gets Even Darker
Cassie continues making increasingly destructive choices in pursuit of validation, turning her storyline into one of the episode’s most unsettling slow-motion collapses.
Sydney Sweeney fully commits.
Cassie has always been emotionally messy.
Now she feels dangerous in a completely different way.
Rue Remains The Emotional Core
Even in an episode dominated by chaos, Zendaya’s Rue remains the emotional soul of the series.
Her journey this season has balanced spiritual searching, self-destruction, trauma, and survival, and Episode 7 keeps her in deeply unstable territory heading into the finale.
What makes Rue compelling is that Euphoria never pretends recovery is linear.
She may be trying.
She may be changing.
But safety still feels very far away.
EUPHORIA Ending Explained
The ending doesn’t simply set up a finale.
It completely reshapes it.
By the end of Episode 7:
- Nate is dead
- Cassie feels closer than ever to emotional collapse
- Rue remains in immediate danger, with the criminal world around her closing in just as the finale approaches.
- Maddy’s world is still loaded with unresolved tension
- the entire emotional power structure of the show has shifted
That’s what makes this such an effective penultimate hour.
Not because it answers questions.
Because it detonates them.
Review
This is messy, chaotic, occasionally outrageous EUPHORIA—which, depending on your tolerance for Sam Levinson’s wildest instincts, is either exactly what you want or completely exhausting.
The Nate twist lands.
Cassie’s storyline gets darker.
Zendaya remains essential.
And the finale setup feels genuinely massive.
Not every storyline lands with equal emotional precision, but as a penultimate episode designed to leave viewers stunned?
Mission accomplished.
Editor-in-Chief | Seat42F, a leading source of entertainment news, information, television and movie resources.
