Fans of the late Angus Cloud rushed to his still-active Instagram profile to again say good-bye after brief footage of him appeared on Sunday night’s season 3 finale of “Euphoria,” HBO’s acclaimed but divisive teen drama that made the Oakland actor a global star before he died in 2023 of an accidental drug overdose.
On Cloud’s Instagram, people filled the comments section of his last post, which was dated about two weeks before his July 31, 2023 death. It appeared that hundreds of people had left messages, expressing how much they miss him and how they still can’t believe he’s gone.
“We miss you,” many said, along with heart emojis and messages of “RIP.” These messages were still pouring in, almost by the minute, as of Tuesday afternoon.
“Glad we saw you in the last episode,” another person said. “It Was A Blessing To See You One Last Time Fez,” said another, while a third person said they “literally sobbed” upon seeing Cloud on “Euphoria” again. “I hope you found peace wherever you are,” a fourth said.
A mural in memory of “Euphoria” star Angus Cloud was recently painted by his friends on East 19th Street near Park Boulevard in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023. Angus, native of Oakland, died Monday at his parents house in Oakland. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
Cloud played the soft-hearted drug dealer Fezco O’Neill, or Fez, on the hit show before he died at age 25 at his mother’s Oakland home. His Fez became a standout part of “Euphoria’s” second season, which aired in early 2022, as he developed a close, big brother-like bond with the show’s protagonist, Rue Bennett. A teenage drug addict, Rue was played by Zendaya, another Oakland native who also attended the Oakland School for the Arts.
For season 3, which was filmed after Cloud’s death, it was explained that Fez was in prison. In the finale, Fez is in the news for using parkour to escape from prison, with Rue rushing to reunite with him. The scene that drove some of Cloud’s fans to tears shows Fez and Rue standing together in a grassy field, smiling and looking off at an unseen horizon. The scene made use of an archival test reel of the two actors that was filmed nearly seven years ago, according to Esquire.
“They seem impossibly young, with Zendaya looking especially baby faced,” Esquire writer Anthony Breznican said. “This is as close to a garden of Eden as Euphoria gets, before all the chaos and heartbreak that befall its characters.”
The scene was possibly part of a hallucination that Rue is having, shortly before she’s seen on the show, succumbing to a fatal fentanyl overdose. Having Rue die in this way no doubt struck many of Cloud’s fans as especially heartbreaking because the actor died on July 31, 2023 from a lethal combination of drugs, including cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl, according to the Alameda County coroner’s office.
US actors Angus Cloud and Zendaya attend the Los Angeles premiere of the new HBO series “Euphoria” at the Cinerama Dome Theatre in Hollywood, California, on June 4, 2019. (Photo by Chris Delmas / AFP) (Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images)
After Cloud’s death, friends and his former manager revealed that he had dealt with a serious drug addiction that in recent years led to at least one stint in rehab and multiple relapses and efforts to stay sober. In season 2, Cloud’s character, who became a moral compass for Rue, stopped supplying her with drugs out of the fear that she would overdose.
For Fez and Rue’s final scene together, “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson dug out the test reel, for which he used a rare type of Kodak film to see how it would make the actors and the environment look on camera, Esquire reported. Levinson weaved the footage into early portions of Sunday night’s episode, when Rue is remembering parts of her life and her younger self, including her friendship with Fez.
While Cloud may be gone, his Fez character has endured in the culture, as Levinson explained. “His arc this season is really kind of amazing, despite the fact that he’s in prison and we don’t see him,” Levinson told Esquire.
On Cloud’s Instagram, people said he would have been “absolutely amazing in this third season.” One also said, “glad we saw you in the last episode.” Another added, “wasn’t expecting seeing u. that last episode broke my heart. I love u fez.”
Cloud’s 2023 death sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry and his native Oakland. He was known as a multi-talented young performer, as well as an avid skater and a strong supporter of his hometown and its community of actors, musicians and artists.
Cloud’s mother, Lisa Cloud, said at the time that her son “gave and received so much love and support to and from his tribe.” She also said, “His work in ‘Euphoria’ became a lightning rod for his generation and opened up a conversation about compassion, loyalty, acceptance and love.”