Sam Levinson Ends Nate Jacobs in Euphoria Finale Twist
Sam Levinson used the euphoria finale to finish Nate Jacobs in season 3, episode 7, and he said the character was “finished” from the start of the season. The creator framed the death as punishment built around audience hunger for justice, then pushed it into territory that left the final minutes focused on a finger, a toe, burial alive, and a venomous rattler in a coffin.
Levinson on Nate Jacobs
“Not all dark scenes come from a dark place” — Sam Levinson. He said, “There’s this kind of funny thing where I know what the audience wants in terms of justice or karma, and with that in mind, I always think, ‘Well, how can I give it to them?’”
He added, “How can I give them what they want but make it so horrific and anxiety inducing that by the time it happens, the audience isn’t so sure they wanted it?” That line tracks the way season 3 has handled Nate Jacobs, the character played by Jacob Elordi, by mixing flashes of humanity with a long run of domineering toxicity.
Episode 7's final minutes
Season 3, episode 7 ended with the most severe payoff in the season’s run: a finger and a toe cut off, burial alive, and Nate thrashing inside a coffin with a venomous rattler. Levinson described that ending as a bad end after years of the character’s behavior, and he said the audience’s own appetite for karma was part of the writing equation.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, you wanted him to get his comeuppance…? Okay,’” he said. “That feeling of complicity with the audience is always an interesting note to play inside of this sort of larger structure.” He followed that with, “You end up going, ‘Oh God, I don’t know. Should he have had it better? Did he deserve it?’”
Warner Bros. lot preview
Several weeks before publication, Levinson was speaking on a sound-mixing stage on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank when the episode 7 preview was discussed. Five days after the premiere of episode 1, the show’s editing suite had already been set up in an office across from the Steven J. Ross Theater on the same lot, and Levinson said he was then adding a particularly heavy scene to episode 8, the season finale.
That leaves the season with a clear editorial choice: punish Nate, but make the punishment hard to sit with. For viewers tracking how the show closes out a long-running character arc, episode 7 does not just remove Nate from the board; it turns the audience’s own wish for revenge into part of the scene’s discomfort.
