Euphoria Season 3 Episode 8 Recap: What Really Happened to Rue?

As Faye screams for Wayne, Rue (Zendaya) hits Wayne with a wrench and punches Faye (Chloe Cherry).  Wayne shoots at Rue as she climbs up from the basement and makes a run for it. One of Laurie’s crew  members cases her on horseback and throws a rope around her legs and begins dragging her back, but  she narrowly escapes when one of Alamo’s men shoots the rider. 

Meanwhile, Maddie (Alexa Demie) and Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) sit in a diner. Cassie is stricken with  grief, and Maddie asks what she’s going to do. We know she means the fact that Maddie now owes  Alamo and is indebted to him. Cassie tells Maddie they’ll figure it out together. 

Alamo is pleased with Rue and gives her a Percocet for the pain. He even takes one himself. He then  hands her an entire bottle and tells her to rest up because he’ll take care of anything she needs. 

Big Eddy and one of Laurie’s men bring Alamo’s girls back across the border with what we think is a drug  ridden ambulance.  Wayne realizes the drugs they got from Alamo are actually laxatives. He figures out the deal was a setup  and rides off on horseback with Faye. 

The DEA arrives at Laurie’s house just after Big Eddy pulls up in the ambulance. Agents rush in and arrest  everyone, but Laurie (Martha Kelly) makes a run for it and hangs herself from the roof. The DEA searches  the ambulance floorboards and finds nothing but a dead rat. We then see Bishop driving a different  ambulance to Alamo’s house, and when the floorboards are opened, the drugs are hidden underneath. Alamo outsmarted Laurie once again by switching the ambulances when Laurie’s guy went inside the  clinic to get the girls. 

Faye and Wayne are later seen hiking, obviously having ditched the horse the night before to evade  police. Rue goes to Ali’s (Colman Domingo) house and begins listening to the Bible on her phone. The next  morning, she sees a news report saying Fez escaped prison. Rue rushes out of the house to find him. Rue  pulls up to Fez’s old store and finds it closed and desolate. We then see an image of Rue and Fez standing  in a field smiling together. It’s a beautiful homage to Angus Cloud and a touching moment for fans who  loved both the character and the actor who portrayed him. She drives down the same road where she  first saw Jules (Hunter Schafer) riding her bike. 

Rue eventually drives to her mother’s house, only to find it surrounded by police. She sneaks in through  the back and finds her mother sitting at the table reading the Bible. They embrace, and the hug slowly  transforms into an embrace with her father as “Ave Maria” plays. 

Then the day suddenly starts over. We realize Rue actually died. Ali tested her Percocet bottle for fentanyl, and it came back positive. He  calls Rue’s mother with the news and writes Rue’s death into his book. 

Later, Ali attends his addiction support group and admits he recently picked up a drink after losing  someone he deeply cared about. He tells the group it will be his last meeting because he’s tired of  pouring his heart into young people only to watch them never get a second chance. He says he no longer  knows what he believes in.

Jules paints a beautiful portrait of Rue. Cassie tells Lexi (Maude Apatow) that she and Maddie now charge girls room and board while taking a  percentage of what they make on social media. Cassie tells Lexi all they need now is a storyteller. Maddie  gets ready to leave the house tells Cassie that she will be late. Cassie hands her a thick envelope and tells  Maddie that it’ll be easier if she pretends she likes him. 

Bishop picks Maddie up and they have a friendly chat in the car. Lexi asks Cassie if she thinks Nate (Jacob  Elordi) will ever come back. It’s clear that Lexi assumes he disappeared on his own. Cassie says she hopes  so, but she doesn’t like thinking about it. 

Courtesy of HBO

Lexi also mentions that Rue left her Bible on the coffee table, and she finally read it. Lexi carries guilt  over how things ended with Rue. She realizes bad things happen and that sometimes you just have to  keep going. In the end, Lexi declines Cassie’s offer to work together. 

Maddie and Bishop arrive at the Silver Slipper, where Maddie enters a back room and hands him an  envelope full of money. 

Ali arrives at the Silver Slipper wearing a military uniform and locks the door behind him. Alamo tells  Maddie he wants the American dream with her. G asks Ali why he’s there, and Ali responds that he’s a  friend of Rue’s. Ali starts shooting up the

Silver Slipper and Alamo grabs a gun from Bishop and goes to  confront him. 

Ali tells Alamo that Rue sent him.  At that moment, Alamo realizes that Ali has a score to settle. The two face off, but Alamo pulls the trigger too early. His gun is empty. He looks at Bishop and tells him  he’ll see him in hell before Ali blasts him with a shotgun. Maddie is visibly relieved. Bishop drops the bullets onto the floor and tells Ali, “May God have mercy.” He then offers Maddie a ride  home as the girls walk out. 

In the final scenes, Ali travels to the homestead in Texas and introduces himself as Martin, telling the  family that his daughter once visited them — meaning Rue. The family is heartbroken to hear of Rue’s  passing. 

Ali leads a beautiful prayer at the dinner table, and we see an image of Rue sitting at the end of it. The final shot is of the home and an American flag waving outside. It symbolizes the promised land that  Rue never reached and the American dream every character spent the season chasing. 

Or maybe Rue did reach it.  She found God before her death. 

It’s not the ending most fans wanted for Rue, but this is Euphoria. A happy ending may not be realistic  for many addicts, and I appreciate the honesty in the storytelling. As fans, we wanted to see Rue win. 

Maybe, in finding God, she did.

What did you think?

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