Does Zendaya's Rue Bennett Die In The Euphoria Season 3 Finale?

This article contains discussions of addiction.

Contains spoilers for "Euphoria" Season 3 Episode 8 — "In God We Trust"

The third season of "Euphoria" has been a wild ride, to say the least. After a five-year time jump, we catch up with our favorite gang of teenagers turned grownups Rue Bennett (Zendaya), Cassie and Lexi Howard (Sydney Sweeney and Maude Apatow), Maddy Perez (Alexia Demie), and Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer), especially after Jacob Elordi's Nate Jacobs dies in the season's penultimate episode "Rain or Shine." So what happens to Rue?

She dies, and sadly, it feels pre-ordained. After completing a job for her dangerous boss Alamo Brown (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), she's given a bottle of prescription painkillers, which happen to be the source of her long-standing addiction. Even though she hallucinates a reunion with her mother Leslie Bennett (Nika King) and a world where Fezco O'Neill (the late Angus Cloud) escaped from prison, Rue overdoses on those painkillers. Because Rue was staying with her sponsor and friend Ali (Colman Domingo), this happens on Ali's couch, and he wants vengeance for his fallen friend.

Ali achieves that by bringing a sawed-off shotgun to Alamo's club, killing Alamo's lieutenant G (Marshawn Lynch), and screaming that he just wants Alamo to pay for his crimes. He achieves that, largely because Alamo's lieutenant Bishop (Darrell Britt-Gibson) quietly emptied the bullets out of Alamo's gun, rendering him defenseless. Afterwards, he goes to the Texas homestead where Rue hoped to build her life alongside a religious family and prays with them, only to envision Rue at the head of the table. "God bless us all," she says off-camera, and the screen fades to black.

Throughout the Season 3 finale of "Euphoria," we watch as the story concludes for several of the characters we've been following since the first season premiered in 2019. Cassie, now an adult content creator for OnlyFans, recovers pretty swiftly after her husband's death and seems to decide to turn their mansion into a house for content creators — and though she asks Lexi to help her, Lexi seems more interested in perusing Rue's abandoned Bible. Maddy, who survives the massacre at Alamo's club, heads home with a purse full of cash thanks to Bishop. Jules remains a kept woman, thanks to her benefactor Ellis (Sam Trammell), and paints what seems to be a portrait of Rue in all her glory.

The end of "Euphoria" was bleak, dramatic, and frankly overwrought ... but for Zendaya's Rue Bennett and Jacob Elordi's Nate Jacobs, the story is definitively over. (As of this writing, we don't know if "Euphoria" will continue with a fourth season.) At the end of the day, it's too bad that showrunner Sam Levinson wasn't interested in Zendaya's pitch for Rue's storyline. At least Ali got to avenge her ... and give her some form of peace at the homestead where she hoped to spend the rest of her days. "Euphoria" is streaming on HBO Max now.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).