Warning: Spoilers ahead! Do not proceed unless you\u2019ve watched the Season 3 finale of Euphoria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Move over, \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d and \u201cStranger Things,\u201d there\u2019s a new worst finale in town. <\/p>\n
\u201cEuphoria\u201d Season 3 ended the way it began: tawdry, tasteless, and squandering its all-star cast with ludicrous writing. <\/p>\n
In the Sam Levinson drama\u2019s supersized, 93-minute long finale that aired Sunday, Rue (played by Zendaya) dies halfway through the episode.<\/a> It\u2019s grim and anticlimactic.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zendaya\u2019s Rue (pictured in \u201cEuphoria\u201d) had a rough time in Season 3. Patrick Wymore\/HBO<\/p>\n Sydney Sweeney\u2019s Cassie (pictured in Season 3) turned to OnlyFans to make money. HBO MAX<\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t even go out in the gang war between Season 3 drug kingpins Laurie (Martha Kelly) and Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje)\u00a0<\/p>\n Rue swipes pills from Alamo, and overdoses on fentanyl. Her distraught mentor, Ali (Colman Domingo) finds her unresponsive on his couch.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ali later gets revenge. He puts on his old military uniform, shows up at Alamo\u2019s strip club with a gun, and fatally shoots Alamo.<\/p>\n Rue (portrayed by Zendaya, seen above) was stuck between various gangster factions. HBO MAX<\/p>\n This takes up the majority of the finale\u2019s screen time \u2013 along with some unnecessary action from Laurie and her redneck gang, who get apprehended by the DEA and cops (Laurie ties a noose around her neck and throws herself off a building, rather than get arrested).\u00a0<\/p>\n So, even if you were enjoying Season 3\u2019s dubious focus on Cassie\u2019s OnlyFans career<\/a>, you barely even get that. Cassie\u2019s (Sydney Sweeney) screen time is surprisingly minimal. <\/p>\n The finale spends more time zooming in on Kitty\u2019s (Anna Van Patten)\u2019s derriere than it spends on some original \u201cEuphoria\u201d characters, like Jules (Hunter Schafer).\u00a0That sounds like an exaggeration; it\u2019s not. <\/p>\n Alexa Demie\u2019s Maddy (pictured in Season 3) was also in hot water. HBO MAX<\/p>\n Alamo (pictured in Season 3), the villain, ended his story. HBO MAX<\/p>\n The show ends with Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) seemingly now living in her and Nate\u2019s tacky mansion with Maddy (Alexa Demie) and her sister Lexi (Maude Apatow).\u00a0<\/p>\n To the extend that anybody gets a \u201chappy ending,\u201d it seems to be these three women living together in a weird large house with yellow decor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nate (Jacob Elordi) doesn\u2019t even get a funeral. Cassie lied to Lexi about what happened to Nate<\/a>. Lexi thinks he mysteriously vanished, and may turn up someday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cassie (pictured in Season 3) is now a widow. HBO MAX<\/p>\n Cassie (pictured in Season 3) had a lot of ups and downs. HBO MAX<\/p>\n It\u2019s telling that Zendaya and Jacob Elordi were the standout stars of Seasons 1 and 2, shining so brightly that the show helped them become two of the biggest global superstars today, and they\u2019re barely in the finale. He only appears via a photo, and she\u2019s only in about twenty minutes of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n That says everything about what Season 3 turned into: a completely different (and much worse) show. <\/p>\n It\u2019s been merely an excuse for Levinson to do a Tarantino pastiche, with all the writing depth of a stoned college freshman.\u00a0<\/p>\n Maddy (pictured in Season 3) and Cassie worked together. HBO MAX<\/p>\n Season 3 of the HBO drama has been rightfully blasted by critics and fans<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cEuphoria\u201d began in 2019, as a sex and drug filled story about high schoolers.\u00a0Sure, it was wild and unrealistic at times, but the first two seasons were character-driven.\u00a0<\/p>\n There was a reason \u201cEuphoria\u201d catapulted Elordi, Sweeney, and Zendaya into stardom<\/a>. They all got to show off their acting chops with nuanced characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zendaya (pictured in Season 3) got to show off her acting chops, the first two seasons. HBO MAX<\/p>\n \u201cEuphoria\u201d launched Jacob Elordi (pictured at the Season 3 premiere) into stardom. Getty Images<\/p>\n Season 3, however, erased all of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n After a five-year time jump, the third installment became a cartoonish, wannabe gangster drama.\u00a0<\/p>\n Formerly complex characters got reduced to one-dimensional roles<\/a>, existing only as vehicles for absurd plot spectacle \u2013 mostly involving brutalizing Elordi, or the camera leering at Sweeney.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nate (pictured in Season 3) got killed off after a ridiculous torture porn plot, which squandered one of TV\u2019s best villains. HBO<\/p>\n Zendaya (pictured at the \u201cEuphoria\u201d Season 3 premiere) got stuck in tedious gangster plots. Getty Images<\/p>\n Nate got thrown into a ridiculous torture porn story that wasted the use<\/a> of an Oscar nominated actor. Season 3 turned him into an out-of-character buffoon, and axed him in the penultimate episode<\/a> \u2014without addressing any of his formerly interesting character threads\u00a0\u2014 arguably squandering one of TV\u2019s best villains.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Cassie turned into a money-hungry bimbo. She was never the smartest character, but this season exaggerated that quality to a degree that made her unbelievable. Her controversial OnlyFans plot was little more than an excuse to trot Sweeney out in fetish outfits.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rue got bogged down in tedious gangster politics, with a half-assed interest in the Bible, before her bleak death. <\/p>\n Jules (played by Hunter Schafer, pictured in Season 3) barely got a plot. HBO MAX<\/p>\n Maude Apatow\u2019s Lexi (pictured in Season 3) didn\u2019t get much to do, this season. HBO Max<\/p>\n As for Lexi and Jules, they were pushed to the sidelines.\u00a0<\/p>\n The latter didn\u2019t even get a plot. She spent the entire season painting in an apartment. Yawn.\u00a0<\/p>\n Season 3 tried so hard to be edgy, but after the third or fourth gross-out scene involving literal crap, Cassie\u2019s fetish content or cutting off Nate\u2019s body parts, it all got boring.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing more tedious than a show that tries to be \u201cprovocative\u201d without having anything to say.\u00a0<\/p>\n The only thing to feel euphoric about is that this ordeal with Elordi, Zendaya, and Sweeney (pictured at the \u201cEuphoria\u201d Season 3 premiere) is finally over. FilmMagic<\/p>\n Pour one out for the better show that \u201cEuphoria\u201d (pictured with Maude Apatow) used to be. HBO MAX<\/p>\n The only thing to feel euphoric about is that this ordeal is finally over.\u00a0<\/p>\n HBO has not officially confirmed that this episode is the series finale, thought it\u2019s listed as \u201cseason finale.\u201d<\/p>\n The show is highly unlikely to return for a Season 4, however, as Zendaya and Sweeney are now among the world\u2019s most in-demand actors, along with Elordi, who was killed off.<\/p>\n