Why Nate Had To Die: Sam Levinson Breaks It Down Before The Euphoria Finale

Euphoria just went there. Nate Jacobs is dead in season 3, episode 7, and the show did it in a way that is equal parts nightmare, thriller, and '...they really did that, huh?'

How the episode sets the trap

Earlier in the hour, Nate is literally buried alive. He gets a coffin, a sliver of air thanks to a skinny pipe, and just enough hope to call for help. Cassie and Maddie, working with Alamo, manage to get him away from the people he owes. But when they finally crack open the casket, he is already gone — with a rattlesnake stretched across his body. It is a vicious image and probably the season's most upsetting scene.

Levinson on why it happened this way

Creator Sam Levinson told Esquire he cycled through a few grim possibilities for Nate's end. Suffocation. Extreme heat. He even looked to the 70s thriller The Candy Snatchers while mapping it out. The rattlesnake? That came later — on a sunny day in Los Angeles, driving to the Warner Bros lot with his wife, producer Ashley Levinson, when a very specific picture hit him: a snake sensing the banging from underground and following the vibration straight into that little pipe.

'I just had this image of a rattlesnake coming towards this pipe. He’s banging and the snake can sense the movement in the ground. And I thought, "What if the snake goes into the pipe and then he’s stuck inside the coffin with this rattlesnake?"'

Levinson also knows fans have been waiting years to watch Nate pay. But he did not want to hand over simple payback. He intentionally pushed Nate's season 3 arc into messier territory — the kind that makes you question, right up until the lid opens, whether you actually want what you have been asking for.

'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?'

What clicked together behind the scenes

• Nate is buried alive with a narrow breathing/call-for-help pipe.
• Cassie and Maddie, with Alamo's help, get him away from his debtors.
• The coffin opens to a dead Nate and a rattlesnake draped over him.
• Levinson first considered suffocation and heat before landing on the snake.
• He pulled tonal inspiration from The Candy Snatchers.
• The snake idea struck while driving in LA with Ashley Levinson to Warner Bros.
• The goal: deliver consequences, but with enough dread to make the justice feel complicated.

Yes, that was a real snake — and Jacob Elordi was oddly chill about it

Jacob Elordi shot the scene with an actual rattlesnake and, somehow, found the whole thing... serene? He even called it a cool way for Nate to go. In HBO 's behind-the-scenes, Elordi says the snake was more sleepy than scary — and kind of adorable.

'He was real cuddly, so he just saddled up next to me and it was nice,' Elordi said. 'But he was real sleepy. I had to kind of nudge him to get him to come up.'

As for Nate himself, Elordi does not sugarcoat it: the guy racked up a lot of damage over the first two seasons. The tougher question now is how you feel about losing one of the show's main catalysts in a way designed to rattle you as much as it punishes him.

So, did Levinson thread the needle — justice served, but in a way that ties your stomach in knots — or was it a step too far? Where do you land on Nate's exit?