Euphoria season 2 finale spoilers follow.
To be euphoric is to feel a kind of release, an overwhelming joy that eclipses everything else. But two seasons in, Euphoria the show has become obsessed with a very different kind of release, one that's finally came to a devastating fruition in season two's finale.
All season long, the spectre of death has lurked in the halls of Euphoria High. Fears about Rue's fate in particular came to a head in episode five's chilling relapse (aka Zendaya's Emmy reel).
While she did survive that horrifying ordeal for now, there were also concerns surrounding Nate's toxic relationship with his father. But by the end of the season, Nate actually did the right thing for once by handing Daddy Cal over to the police.
The penultimate episode of season two, 'The Theater and its Double', shifted our fears towards Fez, leading fans to believe that the loveable drug dealer (eesh) could be the one to snuff it instead. And now that the curtain has closed on this season, it's safe to say that his life has ended, just not in the way you might have expected.
While Ethan killed it in Lexi's play, death itself came a-knocking to Fez's house, which is only fitting given that this season opened with a different loss for him, bookending this chapter of the show with his personal tragedies.
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Faye, an icon who deserves far more lines moving forward, starts this episode off by helping Fez, aware that their visitor wants to incriminate him in Mouse's death. Faye and Fez point the finger at Laurie, the one with the creepy-ass voice, but before they can pin everything on her completely, Ashtray freaks out and stabs Custer in the neck.
'Never work with kids' takes on a whole new meaning here for Fez. Sure, Ash seems capable, and he picked up this trade pretty young, but he's still just a child, end of the day, and it was only a matter of time before his involvement in all this ended in tragedy.
Reacting quickly, Fez destroys Custer's phone, and then immediately decides to take the fall for Ash. With the police on their way, Fez claims the murder weapon as his own, getting his DNA all over it so Ash won't be incriminated.
Cassie and Lexi could probably learn a thing or two from the power of this sibling bond, although we wouldn't recommend they drop out of school and start pushing, no matter how much that might inspire Lexi's next play.
Ash doesn't let Fez take the blame though. Instead, he grabs as many guns as he can and holes up in the bathroom, waiting for the police to arrive. And when that SWAT team does kick the front door down, Ash ignores his brother's pleas to come out and give himself up.
"There's a kid in here," says Fez, but Ash puts his big boy boots on and starts shooting a machine gun through the door anyway. Of course, the police return fire, and with Fez stuck in the middle, it's not long before he takes a bullet to the stomach. But still, all he cares about is keeping Ash safe, so he doesn't stop shouting at his brother to give himself up anyway.
Eventually, it seems like Fez might have got through to Ash. The bullets stop, and there's no noise coming out of the bathroom. An officer tentatively opens the door to check, but it turns out that Ash is just playing dead, so he shoots the police guy for his troubles.
Now that the door's open, Ash realises that he's shot Fez too. Tears fill his eyes as he holds his gun tight, and then the camera shifts to a closeup of Fez and the sound of one more fatal shot. Whether Ash kills himself or whether the police shoot him down might be up for debate, but it seems almost certain that the young boy is now dead.
Although we don't see the body, this doesn't feel like a misdirect. Given Ash's age, it's far more likely that the director simply didn't want to show his corpse onscreen. Taboo-breaking is nothing new for this show, but it seems that even Euphoria, for all its controversy, draws the line at beaming dead children into our living rooms and laptops.
If that noise of Ash falling to the floor really is the last we'll see and hear of him in this show, what does that mean for Fez?
Season two doesn't hold any answers regarding his fate just yet. But it's safe to assume that the police will have taken Fez into hospital, and then most likely, a prison. After all, there's a lot of blood on his hands, literally and figuratively.
But don't count Angus Cloud out just yet. Assuming Fez survives, and he will, there are plenty of ways to bring his character into season three. Aside from all of those gorgeous hallucinatory dream sequences — imagine Fez in a Titanic movie parody like the one Rue had — he can also show up in real life too, whether it's via visits from people like Lexi or perhaps even a brand-new storyline set in his jail cell.
A release from prison might not be on the cards for Fez anytime soon, but it's not all doom and gloom. Just as Fez has to start coming to terms with his brother's death, not to mention his own culpability, it seems that Rue has finally started to make progress with her own grief, thanks in large part to Lexi's play.
Will Rue stay clean throughout the whole of season three? We're not sure, but at the very least, it's beautiful to finally see her enjoy some kind of release that's genuinely euphoric and not tainted by addiction.
Euphoria airs Sunday nights on HBO and Monday nights on NOW and Sky Atlantic in the UK.
After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
