What a heavyweight ending to an insane slice of television. [Ed Note: Spoiler Alert on Euphoria's Season 1 finale from here on out]. The first season of Euphoria ended with a little bit of sniff and a whole lot of dancing. Labrinth's "All For Us" (which was slyly teased throughout the eight episodes of Season 1) was fleshed out, with vocals from series MVP Zendaya being added, along with a grip of dancers in church robes and a whole ass marching bad to signify...what exactly? It's hard to say definitively; we'll have to wait until whenever HBO starts promoting their already-announced second season to get the full scope of how that finale shook out.
To recap, after Rue convinced Jules that they should leave the Winter Formal, pack some bags, and skip town, Rue had a change of heart as they were hopping onto the train. It looked like Jules took off (maybe to be with Anna again?), leaving Rue to cry it out all the way home. After finding out why she spent most of Season 1 in a hoodie, we also saw Zendaya get a line ready and take that plunge. Aside from it being a dope display of Zendaya's talents—the stumbling into the house, the way she interacted with her oblivious mother and sister, all while singing a song that's so deep into what her character's gone through—it also a dope metaphor for what appeared to be Rue going through a whole-ass overdose.
First off, she went from snorting a line and falling back on her bed to being pulled up in a room that appeared to have snow falling in it. It was reminiscent of the other sequences from Euphoria where reality is physically distorted when Rue gets high (the tilting room in the pilot comes to mind). Her movements are key, though; the way she's throwing herself across the room, onto the floor, seemingly convulsing on the floor or while she's being held up by the previously-mentioned church robe people, which she then ascends and collapses onto.
Now, all of this leads us to one obvious question:
is rue hallucinating from the drugs? did she overdose? is she dead? i need answers
It certainly feels like she got high, OD'd, then died; it'd also fit into one popular theory we've seen developing since the beginning of the season: Rue's always been dead.
okay what if season 1 of euphoria was just showing us Rue’s journey and she dies at the end, but she’s dead and that’s why she narrates 😭 so season 2 will be her narrating but life after her death. pic.twitter.com/9SHn3UAx7L
That's an interesting conceit, considering that Rue has been the (unreliable) narrator throughout Season 1, knowing everyone's business and laying out their stories for the audience during each episode. The signs make sense—there were references to people thinking she was dead right up through the finale, calling her Casper, etc.—and some even say Jules, who has been spotted with angel's wings on, was Rue's angel. With so many real-world interactions with people in her peer group, it's either Rue has been alive the entire time or she's really good at being a ghost.
Where does that leave us? Unless you're Euphoria super-fan Leonardo DiCaprio, we imagine it'll be hard to get info on what Season 2 will behold. For many, Rue been dead. For others, the realization that she may have legit danced with death is a lot to carry. Whatever the case may be, we've all grown close to this cast and this series, and it'll be difficult to wait how many moons before Euphoria returns to HBO for Season 2.
Man fuck all this work shit, i need to know if Rue and Fezco are dead
Same, fam. Same.
