Zendaya’s “Euphoria” character, Rue Bennett, dying in the Season 3 finale was the most “honest ending” for the show, creator Sam Levinson insisted after the tragic scene aired.
The showrunner declared in a post-finale HBO interview that “people like Rue don’t make it.”
The 41-year-old added that he was motivated to kill off the beloved character as a way to honor late cast member Angus Cloud, who died in July 2023 at 25.
“People relapse. They f–k up. They’re not ready to get clean,” Levinson said. “There’s no reason to sugarcoat it. I wanted to tell this story for Angus and for people who weren’t granted a second chance.”
Bennett, notably, suffered an accidental overdose — as did Cloud — in a tragic scene that aired Sunday night.
Zendaya’s character took laced pills given to her by Alamo Brown, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, midway through the episode, titled “In God We Trust.”
Cloud’s character, Fezco, was featured in the episode during Rue’s death sequence.
“Rue is kind of going back through her life,” Levinson explained to Esquire over the weekend. “So this is actually a moment where she pulls up at the old convenience store that Fezco used to work at. She’s looking up at the sign and has this flashback memory of her and Angus together.”
The scene came from a test reel, the director shared with the outlet.
“It’s footage that never made it into the show,” Levinson noted. “I thought, oh, it’d be great to use that footage and just see him again—and see the two of them.”
He continued, “I really wanted to dive into that this season and deal with fentanyl, and deal with the consequences and how it’s taking away young people’s opportunity for a second chance. When I was growing up and doing drugs, sure, you could O.D. on something, but it wasn’t like it is today where you make one wrong move and you’re dead.”
Levinson, similarly, said in the HBO after-show segment, “I can say with absolute certainly that if I was going through what I went through when I was younger now, I wouldn’t be here either … with the influx of fentanyl into this country.”
As for Zendaya, she called the role a “pleasure and an honor” in an emotional goodbye to crew members shown in the behind-the-scenes breakdown.
“I just want to say, thank you,” the “Drama” star gushed. “I’m incredibly grateful for every single one one of you, many of you have been here since the beginning and watched me grow up.”
Rue’s passing comes on the heels of Zendaya’s co-star Jacob Elordi’s character Nate Jacobs’ gruesome death in last week’s penultimate episode.
Other original cast members from the series’ 2019 inception, from Sydney Sweeney’s Cassie Howard to Hunter Schafer’s Jules Vaughn, survived the show.
Levinson cyrptically addressed Season 4 rumors in the Esquire interview, saying that while he didn’t leave “anything on the field,” he approaches “every season like it’s the last” and hasn’t officially closed the door.
