{"id":633896,"date":"2026-04-27T10:54:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T10:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633896\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T10:54:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T10:54:17","slug":"what-happens-at-nate-and-cassies-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633896\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens at Nate and Cassie’s Wedding?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated7 min read<\/p>\n

Spoilers below.<\/p>\n

The spring of 2026 has already treated us to a couple of absolutely disastrous weddings on-screen<\/a>. The ceremony that concludes the Netflix series Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen<\/a> does indeed involve a number of extremely bad things happening. I\u2019m not going to \u201cspoil\u201d The Drama by having the audacity to tell you what the movie is actually about, but I will say that the reception celebrating the marriage of Zendaya\u2019s Emma<\/a> and Robert Pattinson\u2019s Charlie is a catastrophe.<\/p>\n

Yet somehow, neither of these disastrous nuptial events is as blatantly, stupefyingly terrible as the union of Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) and Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney), as depicted in season 3, episode 3 of Euphoria. The wedding itself ticks all the boxes on the ostentatious wedding-requirement list: huge arrangements of flowers (which we can assume were paid for, at least in part, by Cassie\u2019s work on OnlyFans); mobster-style threats in the middle of the reception; and drunken toasts from relatives who also happen to be social pariahs. Not to brag, but I had all of this on my Nate-and-Cassie Wedding Bingo Card.<\/p>\n

What I did not have on that card is the simultaneous nadir and high point of this doomed celebration: the first dance that Nate and Cassie perform at their reception. Personally, I found their routine\u2014and I use that term extremely loosely\u2014more horrifying to watch than every surgery scene in The Pitt<\/a> seasons 1 and 2 combined. This first wedding dance includes the groom air-guitar-ing the butt of his new wife, which I don\u2019t think even the members of M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce stooped to doing at their respective, various weddings (though, by all means, correct me if I am wrong). It also incorporates the increasingly lost art of air lasso-ing, which is yet another Euphoria allusion to the Western genre, a running thread that\u2019s beginning to feel increasingly frayed.<\/p>\n

The extent to which Nate and Cassie are going through the performative motions with this dance reflects the performative nature of their entire relationship. The illusion of a happy couple is briefly shattered when Cassie and Nate get into a fight at the reception, during which she pops a champagne bottle and the cork hits him in the head.<\/p>\n

\"sydneyHBO<\/p>\n

Sydney Sweeney and Alanna Ubach in Euphoria season 3, episode 3.<\/p>\n

But it turns out that minor injury is mere foreshadowing for the major injuries that await the newlyweds when they cross the threshold of their mega-mansion to discover Naz (Jack Topalian), the shady investor whom Nate owes more than $500,000, is waiting for them\u2014and brought some goons with him. This is when Euphoria creator Sam Levinson goes full Quentin Tarantino, and these guys start roughing up Nate and spilling blood all over the place. All the while, Cassie sits in the middle of the chaos, sobbing about how her wedding night is completely ruined. (Babe, it might already have been ruined when your husband used your body to play Guitar Hero in front of all your friends and loved ones.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so unfair,\u201d Cassie wails, sobbing in such cartoonish fashion that I practically expected animated tears to start squirting out of her eyeballs. In seasons 1 and 2, I would have said\u2014and often did say\u2014that Sweeney gave strong performances as Cassie. Watch her in this beauty of a scene from season 2<\/a>, when Cassie tries to act like she\u2019s not sleeping with Nate. Yes, Cassie is vapid and a drama queen, but Sweeney also makes her believably fragile and human.<\/p>\n

At this point in the third season, that same authenticity is hauntingly absent, to the point that it seems Levinson wants Cassie to come off as a caricature, perhaps to make a larger point about the soullessness of suburban strivers in L.A. Even if that is his intention, Sweeney deserves better as an actress.<\/p>\n

But does Nate deserve better than having his toe cut off? That\u2019s a trickier question. This is indeed what happens to him, because Naz wants to make sure Nate knows there are serious consequences for his debts. (Weirdly, in the aforementioned Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, a character also has their toe cut off on their wedding day. One more and we\u2019ve got ourselves a trend piece!)<\/p>\n

Aside from some minor revulsion over the sight of watching those pliers go to work on Nate\u2019s digit, I can\u2019t say I felt that bad for him\u2014even though I think the show wants me to. An earlier scene between Nate and Jules (Hunter Schaefer), in which she thanks him for not giving the video of her and Cal to the police, seems designed to remind us that Nate has some redeeming qualities. But at the current moment, Nate is so self-involved and fixated on money that, like his new bride, he doesn\u2019t have enough substance to make me fully invested in his well-being.<\/p>\n

\"jacobHBO<\/p>\n

Jacob Elordi in Euphoria season 3, episode 3.<\/p>\n

This whole Grand Guignol sequence stands in sharp contrast to the scenes that open this episode, which focus on Jules and her new life as an artist and sugar baby. If the post-wedding blood fest is a nod to Tarantino, then the official reintroduction to Jules leans more Steven Soderbergh, specifically The Girlfriend Experience. Jules is wined and dined and dressed to the nines in a glossy version of Manhattan where the money comes to you and you don\u2019t even have to give up an appendage for it. Sex might be required, sure\u2014but at least you get to keep all 10 toes.<\/p>\n

While Jules\u2019s arrangement with her benefactor\/lover Ellis (Sam Trammell from True Blood, among many other things) might be complicated\u2014and Rue (Zendaya) herself is initially skeptical\u2014it\u2019s easy to understand why she enters this relationship. She gets a gorgeous place to live where she can focus on making art and not have to worry about money. She also seems to like Ellis, perhaps because he is so respectful of her transition. Where Nate and Cassie are irrationally obsessed with money and status, Jules addresses her economic concerns with cool practicality. As Rue\u2019s voiceover narration early in this episode implies\u2014\u201cThroughout the history of America, there have always been windows where people could strike it rich,\u201d she says\u2014Jules is simply taking advantage of an opportunity presented by the marketplace, just like people did during \u201cprohibition\u201d or with \u201ccrypto,\u201d Rue cites. The world makes it impossible to have total integrity in both your work and your personal life, Euphoria tells us. So Jules has opted to let Ellis mummify her in Saran Wrap so she can make art that feels pure.<\/p>\n

The series does not take the obvious opportunity to interrogate the connection between Jules\u2019s relationship with Ellis and the one she had with Cal (Eric Dane, once again eking some charm from this man), even though Jules and Cal actually interact for the first time in years at Nate\u2019s wedding. \u201cHow could I forget?\u201d Cal says after Jules suggests he might not remember her. \u201cIt\u2019s not every day you fuck one of your son\u2019s high school classmates.\u201d Yeah, that\u2019s the line every girl dreams of one day hearing at a wedding.<\/p>\n

Their conversation is warm, considering that Jules seems very aware that her relationship with Cal was inappropriate. (A refresher: Jules lied about her age on the app that led to her hook-up with Cal, so he didn\u2019t technically know she was underage when they had sex. Not that that absolves him, of course.) \u201cI just wish that everybody didn\u2019t think I was a pedo,\u201d Cal says in a moment seemingly destined to become a meme.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do like \u2018em young,\u201d Jules responds.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut legal,\u201d Cal insists.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cut it a little close,\u201d she says back, not letting him off the hook\u2014but also not particularly scandalized, either. Her casualness about Cal feels consistent with her ease regarding her relationship with Ellis. She seems to present herself as neither moralistic nor immoral, so much as amoral. Perhaps. Either way, I hope future episodes examine that further.<\/p>\n

\"hunter<\/p>\n

HBO<\/p>\n

Rue, on the other hand, has decided she does have morals\u2014Christian ones, at least according to her newfound faith\u2014and is choosing to violate them. In addition to running drugs and using drugs, now she\u2019s also selling AR-27s out of suitcases. \u201cI know a lot of Americans have strong feelings about guns,\u201d she says via voiceover. \u201cIf it\u2019s any consolation, most of the guns I was selling were headed to Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rue still seems to think she can eventually back out of breaking bad, something she makes the mistake of telling Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who questions why she doesn\u2019t think what she\u2019s already doing is legitimate. Standards about such things exist on a sliding scale, he insists: \u201cWhat was once illegal is now legit.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems that Rue might be stuck forever as a pawn in the ongoing war between Laurie (Martha Kelly) and Alamo, which in this episode involves Laurie\u2019s crew releasing a retaliatory pig into the Silver Slipper, prompting Bishop (Darrell Britt Gibson) to poison Laurie\u2019s beloved pet parrot, Paladin, with fentanyl, retribution for the fentanyl that caused Tish to overdose earlier this season. Paladin is named after the hero of the old TV show Have Gun\u2014Will Travel, which was also, of course, a Western. Bishop recognizes the reference, which surprises Laurie. \u201cI did not know Blacks liked Westerns,\u201d she says, once again raising the question: Why are she and her business associates so completely racist?<\/p>\n

Bishop, who brought Rue along for the ride, assures her he is, in fact, a \u201cmotherfucking cowboy.\u201d But maybe he won\u2019t be for long. At the end of the episode, Rue gets pulled over by the district attorney, suggesting she\u2019s about to be arrested\u2014or at least questioned about the crimes she\u2019s committed (or witnessed). If Rue really wants to go \u201clegit,\u201d this might be her opportunity. She\u2019s obviously in a tough spot, but let\u2019s try to look at that on the bright side: At least Rue had to leave the wedding early because of her work responsibilities, which means she missed Nate and Cassie\u2019s wedding dance. Honestly, that counts as a win.<\/p>\n

Read Last Episode\u2019s Recap<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"7 min read Spoilers below. The spring of 2026 has already treated us to a couple of absolutely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,20253,307046,430,134,307045,2387,301601,307044,307047],"class_list":["post-633896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-content-type-news-explainer","tag-contentid-883be3da-38ee-454e-a685-9a316058a62f","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-episode-3-recap","tag-locale-us","tag-read_time-8","tag-shorttitle-euphoria-season-3","tag-subsection-movies-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}