Euphoria Gives [Spoiler] A Gruesome Death In Second-To-Last Season 3 Episode — Read Recap

This week's "Euphoria" really keeps to Season 3's biblical motif: An eye for an eye, an asp for an ass.

Yep, high school psychopath-turned-failed real estate developer Nate Jacobs (played by Jacob Elordi) dies in Episode 7 in highly dramatic and pretty ridiculous fashion. It's a fitting end for a character who was terrifying in the beginning but pathetic as of late, and if this season had to kill someone, I'm so happy it was him.

It feels, though, like we're barreling toward Rue's demise, as well. And that particular ending, I do not champion in the slightest. Read on to see why I'm very worried for our wayward girl in "Rain or Shine."

"If there's a beginning, there must be an end," Rue's voiceover tells us as we watch a flashback to Ali's pre-sobriety days. He's smoking crack in a motel room with a sex worker (played by "Poker Face" star Natasha Lyonne) and wreaking havoc on his life with his wife and two young daughters. Eventually, he wakes up in a hospital with a nasty incision down his sternum. From there, he goes to 12-step meetings with the idea of turning his mistakes into blessings. "It became his mission in life," Rue says. "And even though he lost some battles, Ali knew he was doing good in this world."

We see him during the pandemic, checking in with the people he's sponsoring every day. But because COVID meant there was no place to gather safely, it was rough. Several people died. "Every time he lost someone, he'd write down their name and the date," Rue says as we watch an anguished Ali inscribing a notebook of the dead, "a reminder of how the story of addiction often ends." (If you're keeping track, this is THING No. 1 THAT MAKES ME FEAR RUE'S IMPENDING DEATH)

Rue goes to Ali's, where she finally tells him what's really going on with her. He promises to hurt anyone "if someone's forcing you to do something against your will," and lists all the ways he's willing to help her. He also flat-out tells her he loves her and would do anything for her, which is incredibly sweet.

He wants her to say no to the Texas job. She says Alamo will kill her mom if she doesn't go. She promises it's one more run, to make sure the DEA has what it needs, then she's out. "You wanna undo the evil you've done?" he wonders, and she nods tearily. He tells her that she needs to fix herself first, and they make a deal that they'll go in the morning to pick up her mom. "Even if it doesn't feel like it, right now is a blessing," he tells her. That said, he reminds her that Moses — with whom she has heavily identified this season, especially since the Joshua tree thing — didn't make it to the promised land. (THING No. 2 THAT MAKES ME FEAR RUE'S IMPENDING DEATH)

The next morning, Ali wakes to find Rue gone. A Post-It note is stuck to the TV. "Forgive me," it asks. 

Full transparency: This episode jumps around in time a bit, and until Rue hits herself in the face later and has a bruise to mark it, I find it hard to pinpoint when her scenes are taking place in relation to others. Feel free to commiserate/correct me in the comments. OK, so a post-burning-Joshua-tree Rue is at Lexi's, waxing about how God has revealed Himself to her, but Lex doesn't have time for it: She's got a script to write. "I've done a lot of evil," Rue muses to herself as she reads the Bible, which leads her to confess that she's been working with Nazis who led her to a Black cowboy on whom she is informing for the Drug Enforcement Agency. "It's clear you've been using again," Lexi says, and doesn't believe Rue when she says she's not. They argue. "No wonder your mom doesn't talk to you anymore," Lexi says, which is HARSH. "We speak," Rue insists, and I think of that heartbreaking scene last week as she stomps outside and heads up to Cassie's apartment.

Cassie doesn't answer when Rue knocks. We see someone with a gun on the other side of the door, and then we flashback to a few days earlier. Mrs. Jacobs is very understandably upset after receiving her husband's finger in the mail. When Naz calls her, he's pleased to hear that she hasn't contacted the cops. He assures her that Nate is OK, but that he needs money to ensure that that fact doesn't change.

Two problems, though: Cassie can't un-delete her OnlyFans, and the network behind "LA Nights" doesn't want an actual OF star playing one on the show. So Patty praises Lexi's writing, then asks her to fire her sister. (Lexi happily agrees.) All of a sudden, Cassie's revenue streams have dried up. Meanwhile, Maddy's boss learns that she sent Cassie in for the audition and fires her on the spot.

Maddy finds out Cassie deleted her OF account, slaps her around a little bit, then demands that Cassie do exactly as told. Mads engineers a date with the "LA Nights" star, Dylan, and makes sure the paparazzi are there to capture it. Cassie takes him back to her place, strokes his ego, serves him lots of vodka, and has loud sex with him... then posts a photo of them together to his Instagram.

"I stole his passcode, I f**ked him, and when he left the room, I uploaded it," she proudly announces to Maddy when the newly indie manager maven shows up the next morning, while Dylan is still sleeping off his drunken state in the bedroom. Thanks to the post, Cassie's subscribers are back in droves. But when Maddy sees Nate's unfrozen finger — which Dylan scooped out of the ice drawer (but didn't notice) while grabbing a post-coital glass of water — she wants to know exactly what's going on.

Back at Naz's, his thug measures Nate for a coffin and Naz taunts Nate that his wife enjoys her freedom too much, and that's why they haven't received payment from her yet. Still, though: Dude wants his money. So the henchman goes to her place, knocks her out, ties her up, and tells her she has 72 hours to get Naz the cash. Why 72 hours? Because Naz has buried Nate alive on the property he was trying to develop, mere feet from those pesky white flowers, and 72 hours is how long it'll take Nate to die of dehydration.

Or... maybe not that long! Because as Nate is screaming and banging on the lid of his coffin, a curious snake slithers down the air pipe Naz left for him. Nate goes from thinking someone's coming to help him to realizing he's about to die. As he screams, the snake rears back and goes for his neck.

Thing is, Cassie doesn't know any of that, and she still hasn't come up with Naz's money. So she calls Maddy, and Naz tells her he needs $1 million, pronto, or bad things are going to start happening to Cassie.

Maddy goes to Alamo for the money. He makes her put on a bathing suit and get in the hot tub with him, then he asks her about Rue. She offhandedly says that Rue is out of her mind, mentioning a phone call Maddy had with Lexi in which Lexi said Rue was babbling about Nazis and the DEA. That last bit catches the kingpin's attention real quick, though he doesn't let on. (THING No. 3 THAT MAKES ME FEAR RUE'S IMPENDING DEATH) In the end, he agrees to help Maddy, because Cassie is "a money tree" for both of them, and they drive together to meet the Armenians and turn in the cash at Nate's construction site.

Alamo sends Maddy out to actually hand over the bag of bills... which turns out not to actually have any money in it. Naz has just realized as much when Alamo shoots him in the throat from a distance, then intimidates Naz's muscle, Artur, into dropping his weapon. Alamo then shoots Naz once more, putting him out of his misery. In the aftermath, Alamo makes sure that Maddy knows he's going to get 20 percent of all of her (or maybe Cassie's? I'm unclear) future earnings. Then Artur uses a backhoe to dig up Nate's coffin, in which they find him dead from the rattler bite. As his stupid corpse stares up, tongue swollen and hanging out of his mouth while the snake does a maraca impression on his chest, I can't help but think: Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Back to Rue: After leaving Ali's, she slams her face into G's dashboard to make it look like Alamo hit her, and then she shows up at Laurie's claiming that her new boss is trying to kill her because he suspects she's still working for Laurie.

Laurie, Wayne, and Harley insist that Rue has to pay for the crime of "treason" against their crew. So they start with slicing her hand across the palm, and they have a very casual conversation about whether they'll eventually kill or traffic her. Lovely. When Faye protests, saying that Rue is her friend, Wayne tells his girlfriend that she is going to have to "put Rue down like a dog." Then he locks Rue into a bedroom ahead of their "big day tomorrow."

Faye creeps into Rue's room that night after everyone's asleep, whispering, "Let's get the money." Rue cautions her to wait, but changes her mind after Faye fills her in on Wayne's murder plan. In a sequence that makes me crawl out of my skin with nerves, Rue and Faye creep down to the bedroom where the safe is. And when the 3D-printed key doesn't work, Faye grabs Wayne's heavy, jangly key ring off the bedside table. Once they get the safe open, though, there's no money inside — just a lot of driver's licenses, including one for Angel the dancer, which confuses Rue – and Faye is MAD. 

She starts to raise her voice about how Rue lied to her just like everyone lies to her. As Wayne tosses and turns in his sleep, Rue begs the blonde to keep quiet, promising that she can leave with Rue, and Alamo will pay her. But Faye is done, and as she episode ends, she opens her mouth wide to scream: "WAYNE!"

Now it's your turn. Are you ready for next week's finale? Hit the comments with your thoughts!