Euphoria Season 3 Premiere Recap

“A lot of people ask what I’ve been up to since high school,” Rue tells us at the top of the “Euphoria” Season 3 premiere. “Honestly? Nothing good.”

That’s quite the understatement, as the hour that follows illustrates. As we dip back into Rue’s life five years after the events of Season 2 — and more than four years since the HBO series aired that season’s finale — she’s running drugs across the United States-Mexico border for Laurie. Rue still owes the dealer for the suitcase of supply that her mom, Leslie, flushed last season. Though the original cost was $10,000, time and interest have made that number balloon to over $43 million… though Laurie will accept $100,000 if Rue can somehow scrape it together. “And that is how I became a drug mule,” Rue says flatly.

The way Rue goes about the work is both highly dangerous and very stupid at the same time. At one point, she drives Laurie’s car up a precarious ramp meant to get the vehicle back over the border wall, but then gets it stuck at the top, so she has to shimmy out with the goods and hope that the teetering mass doesn’t suddenly tip and run her over. (It doesn’t.) Rue spends that night sleeping in the barn belonging to a large, Christian family in Agua Dulce, Texas; they later buy her story that she’s a college journalist, feed her, and warmly wish her well before getting her on a Greyhound bus.

We then receive an education on the process of ingesting condoms full of fentanyl in order to bring them into the U.S. undetected; K-Y Jelly and lots of gagging is involved. Faye sometimes joins Rue on these runs in order to split the load among two people. We watch one where, after a very tense check of (a different) car by Border Patrol, Rue zooms back to Laurie’s so she and Faye can frantically poop into a colander in the tub in order to recover the merchandise. (Side note: This show was always graphic, but did this scene feel gross in a more egregious way to anyone else?)

Rue sometimes crashes at Lexi’s in Los Angeles, which is how we find out that the little playwright is now a low-level staffer on “L.A. Nights,” a nighttime soap from big-deal producer Patty Lance (played by Sharon Stone). Rue urges Lexi to call Fez, who’s in prison for 30 years following the raid in Season 2, but Lexi is hesitant. (Side note: Show boss Sam Levinson has said that even though Angus Cloud died in 2023, Fez is alive and will have “a great arc” off-screen this season.)

Meanwhile, Cassie and Nate are engaged and playing house in “some right-wing, suburban bubble,” Rue voiceovers. Cassie spends her days trying to become Tiktok famous, having their housekeeper film her in various male-gaze set-ups, while Nate is running Cal’s construction business cough into the ground cough. He’s betting big on a facility he calls Sun Settlers, “the premiere, end-of-life, transitional facility in southern California.” But at the moment, he’s chasing funding for the project and not sure how he’s going to pay for his future bride’s very pricey dream wedding.

When she suggests that she start an OnlyFans to kick in for the (checks notes) $50,000 floral arrangements, Nate forbids it. But after she shames him for not being able to provide, he relents, making her promise not to show her chest and her face in the same photos.

In other “Where are they now?” news: Maddy is managing the careers of some influencers and an actor named Dylan Reed, who’s “the heartthrob” on Lexi’s show, and Jules apparently is a sugar baby in the city.

Back to Rue! She has a meet-up with Ali at the same all-night diner where they spent the soul-crushing Christmas episode. Rue isn’t in as much of a bad way as she was that evening, but that’s not saying much. Again, they discuss how she gets hung up on the higher-power aspect of 12-step programs. When she can’t stop picking apart the Bible, Ali says she’s either got to have faith, or not. “Otherwise, you’re going to argue about this s**t forever,” he adds.

So right there, Rue decides she’s going to believe in a divine presence — and she’s going to read the Bible. “The miracles have begun,” Ali says in the knowing tone of voice of someone who’s been privy to her — and her shenanigans — for quite some time.

Rue thinks the Lord is working in her life when she winds up delivering drugs to a man named Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, “Lost”), who owns several all-nude strip clubs. His employees include Bishop (Darrell Brit-Gibson, “Barry”) and Kidd (Asante Blackk, “This Is Us”). After Rue and Alamo share a drink and a joint, she begs him to hire her for whatever jobs he needs handled. It’s all seeming very right-time-right-place… until one of Alamo’s dancers takes some ecstasy Rue brought and dies right then and there, thanks to the pill’s being laced with fentanyl.

Rue is brought before a very angry Alamo. She says she had no idea what was in the pouch she transported, and that “I thought that maybe God brought us together.” Oh honey. She babbles about how much money she owes Laurie and gets teary as she says Alamo’s interest in her gave her hope. “So, you believe in God?” he asks. She replies in the affirmative. “Let’s see if he believes in you,” he says.

And that’s how Rue ends up outside, with a VERY small apple balanced on her head while Alamo points his gun at her and squints. He shoots the fruit clean off her head, causing her to break out in hoots of relieved, hysterical laughter as she falls to her knees and the episode ends.

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