Euphoria ended season 3’s penultimate episode with a major character death.
Despite Cassie (Sydney Sweeney)’s best efforts to save him, Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) died after being buried alive and bitten by a rattlesnake.
In a new interview, creator Sam Levinson breaks down his decision to kill Nate with such a “horrific and anxiety-inducing” scene.

This article contains spoilers for Euphoria season 3, episode 7, “Rain or Shine.”

As usual, Zendaya’s Rue Bennet is facing down some pretty immediate danger at the end of Euphoria‘s penultimate episode — but one of her former schoolmates is much worse off.

Get ready to feel a rush of emotions because Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) is finally dead.

On Sunday, the teen drama turned neo-Western crime thriller delivered justice to its controversial character in the most horrific manner possible. After being buried alive by loan sharks — who have spent the season hacking off his fingers and toes over a $1 million debt — Nate is bitten by a rattlesnake and dies alone in a coffin before his wife and high school ex can come to his rescue.

It’s a gruesome sendoff, but series creator Sam Levinson knew that fans would want some kind of retribution for all the horrors that Nate inflicted during the show’s first two seasons. Breaking down the episode ending to Esquire, Levinson explained, “There’s this kind of funny thing where I know what the audience wants in terms of justice or karma and with that in mind, I always think, ‘Well, how can I give it to them?’”

He continued, “‘How can I give them what they want, but make it so horrific and anxiety-inducing that by the time it happens, the audience isn’t so sure they wanted it?’”

Jacob Elordi on ‘Euphoria’.HBO 

Indeed, Nate’s death blends several phobias together, delivered in a suffocating sequence as he struggles in vain to escape the wrath of the rattlesnake that has slithered into his coffin.

It’s a fitting conclusion for the former high school psychopath. Throughout the third season, Nate — now a failed real estate developer — has been doing his damndest to avoid consequences to no avail. After failing to make payments, a group of loan sharks interrupted his wedding day, chopped off a toe, came back for a finger, and eventually opted to hold him hostage, seeking the money from his wife Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) on the heels of her OnlyFans success.

While she worked to gather the money, Nate was buried in a shallow grave with only a small vent to the outside world. Cassie only succeeds thanks to Maddy (Alexa Demie), who enlists crime kingpin Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) to help them at the drop site. But by the time they dig him up, Nate is purple, bloated and long dead thanks to the snake’s venom.

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It’s a far cry from their days in the halls of East Highland High, and that is no accident.

“It was what was exciting about the characters being out of high school,” Levinson said. “They’re in the real world and the consequences are real. There’s no safety net. I like this Wild West, frontier aspect to it where you can make something of yourself, but you’re going to have to live with the consequences.”

He shared that originally, the plan was simply to have Nate suffocate in the coffin only to reveal that Cassie’s mad dash was pointless. But while driving with his wife one day, the creator had a different idea.

Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi on ‘Euphoria’.HBO 

“It was one of those gorgeous L.A. days where it was perfect weather. We’re listening to Otis Redding. The windows are down and we’re driving to Warner Brothers and I’m looking out the window,” he recalled. “I just had this image of a rattlesnake coming towards this pipe. He’s banging and the snake can sense the movement in the ground. And I thought, What if the snake goes into the pipe and then he’s stuck inside the coffin with this rattlesnake?”

He continued, “It’s sort of a funny moment where you realize that not all dark scenes come from a dark place.”

He then turned to his wife to reveal Nate’s fatal rattlesnake encounter, to which she replied, “‘That’s what you’ve been thinking about?’”

As for Elordi’s feelings about his character’s fate, in an after the episode HBO interview with the star, he dubbed it a “cool” way to go out.

Jacob Elordi on ‘Euphoria’.HBO 

“Nate was someone who has made so many mistakes and made so many dark choices. It’s cool to see it all come to what it’s come to,” Elordi said.

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He joked that laying alone in the coffin was actually a “peaceful” experience for him and confirmed that he filmed it with a real snake — a “cuddly” boa constrictor with a fake rattle attached.

Along with Nate’s bitter end, the episode leaves its core characters in dire positions: Rue is seconds away from being caught by Laurie’s crew while Maddie and Cassie are now indebted to Alamo.

Euphoria season 3 is set to conclude on Sunday, May 31 on HBO.