Euphoria Season 3 has spent the better part of its run putting its characters through the kind of suffering that would make even the most seasoned soap opera writer blush. Debt, betrayal, kidnappings, and severed body parts have all made an appearance, and the penultimate episode decided to raise the stakes even further by doing the unthinkable. Nate Jacobs, the brooding golden boy who once terrorised every hallway he walked through, has finally met a fate that not even his worst enemies could have scripted. The manner of his exit is as dramatic as the man himself.

From loan sharks to literal snakes, Nate's final chapter pulled in nearly every major player on the show, and the fallout is only just beginning.

Nate Jacobs is dead in Euphoria Episode 7, k***** by a rattlesnake bite while buried alive beneath a construction site, and somehow, that is not even the most unhinged thing that happened to him this season. The man who once ruled East Highland with an iron fist spent Season 3 drowning in a million-dollar debt to loan sharks who had zero patience for missed payments. His financial troubles were so severe that he lost a toe on his wedding night, had it reattached, and then lost it all over again.

The loan sharks made their position crystal clear by literally putting Nate underground. He was placed in a shallow grave fitted with a small vent to the outside world, which was generous of them in the most sinister way possible. Cassie was also kidnapped and handed a seventy-two-hour deadline to produce one million dollars if she wanted her husband back alive.

Jacob Elordi spoke candidly in the behind-the-scenes video released after the episode, revealing that his shoulders were pressed against the coffin sides so tightly that he could not move his arms. He described the experience as oddly peaceful, which is a sentence that has absolutely no business being said about being buried alive. That sense of calm evaporated the moment a snake was introduced into the equation, because nothing k**** a vibe quite like reptiles in an enclosed space.

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The rescue mission that everyone pulled off perfectly still somehow ended in tragedy, and the snake that sealed Nate's fate had a name that is frankly very funny given the circumstances.

Cassie did not take her husband's burial sitting down. She turned to Maddy for help, who in turn reached out to Alamo, because when you need fast cash in this universe, the options are limited and the company is always questionable. Alamo arrived at the site and s*** one of the loan sharks dead, effectively ending the standoff and clearing the way for Cassie to reunite with Nate. It was, by Euphoria standards, almost a success story.

The problem was that a rattlesnake had already found its way through the vent and done what rattlesnakes do. Cassie reached Nate only to find him in the advanced stages of envenomation, and the rescue that everyone had worked so hard to pull off turned out to be entirely pointless. She wept over his necrotising body, which is an image that the show made sure to linger on long enough to confirm there was no coming back from this one.

The snake itself was not entirely what it appeared to be on screen. Production used a boa constrictor with a fake rattle for the coffin scenes, while the actual rattlesnake, reportedly named Little B****, was only used for the exterior filming near the drain. Jacob Elordi, in a behind-the-scenes video, described the boa as sleepy and cuddly, which is not the energy one typically associates with a death scene, but is extremely on brand for this show.

Nate's death does not just close a chapter for one character; it blows the door off the hinges for several others, and the finale is already shaping up to be something completely unhinged.

Jacob Elordi reflected in the behind-the-scenes video, saying on Nate's ending with a warmth that suggested he had made peace with it long before audiences did. He noted that Nate had made so many dark choices over the course of the series that his fate felt like a natural, if grim, conclusion to everything the character had set in motion. The actor also acknowledged that Euphoria has been a defining part of not just his career but his life, and that being part of the show has been a source of genuine pride.

Nate's death reshapes the emotional landscape heading into the finale in ways that are impossible to ignore. Cassie went from dissatisfied wife to grieving widow within the span of a single episode, and that shift opens up an entirely new set of possibilities for where her story ends. Meanwhile, the revelation that Alamo is now aware of Rue's DEA involvement, tipped off by Maddy during her plea for help, means the finale has enough powder kegs lined up to keep viewers pinned to their seats.

The season finale, titled In God We Trust, is set to air on May 31 and has already been confirmed to break HBO records for episode runtime. Considering that Episode 7 ended with Faye screaming to wake up the entire cartel while Rue stood frozen in front of a safe full of stolen identities, the show clearly has no intention of going out quietly.

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What are your thoughts on Nate Jacobs' death in Euphoria Season 3? Let us know in the comments.