Nate Jacobs is officially dead. Sunday night’s penultimate episode of Euphoria Season 3 delivered a lethal end for the show’s primary antagonist. After failing to repay a million-dollar real estate debt, Jacob Elordi’s character met a suffocating end in Episode 7. A gangster buried him alive in a coffin with only a small air pipe to the surface.
His wife, Cassie, was handed a strict 72-hour window to secure the ransom money. She never got the chance to save him. Instead, a snake slithered down the breathing pipe and delivered a fatal bite in the dark. It is a wild conclusion for a character who has terrorized the HBO series since 2019.
Elordi is not shedding many tears over the exit. Speaking in an HBO featurette after the broadcast, the Australian actor called the demise a “cool way to go.” He felt it was a fitting punishment because Nate had made “so many mistakes and so many dark choices.” Series creator Sam Levinson originally wanted a live rattlesnake for the underground sequence. According to direct behind-the-scenes quotes in US Weekly, the production team compromised by using a “sleepy” and “cuddly” boa constrictor fitted with a fake rattler instead.
The actor actually found the experience of being sealed in the tight box “quite peaceful,” even with the alarming sound of the fake rattling echoing down the pipe. It is a sharp pivot from the chaos of earlier this season, especially after the Nate and Cassie wedding ends in blood. Elordi did admit the departure is bittersweet. Playing Nate launched his career into global superstardom alongside Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney.
Now, only the 93-minute series finale remains. The five-year time jump introduced at the start of this season fundamentally changed the rules of the show, and losing an original core cast member right before the end sets up a highly unpredictable finale for May 31. Fans finally got what they wanted. We just have to see who actually survives the fallout next week.