‘Euphoria’ season two episode eight: death, destruction and heartfelt reunions

Before the second season of Euphoria arrived at its finale, trouble and strife were being whipped up in two different locations in East Highland. First, at the school where Lexi’s (Maude Apatow) play was causing drama in Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) and Nate’s (Jacob Elordi) relationship, sending the latter storming out of the building. Second, at Fezco’s (Angus Cloud) house, where the lovable drug dealer was about to head out to watch the production only to be held up by an on-edge Custer (Tyler Chase).

The final episode picks up immediately at Fez’s place, where he’s suited and booted and carrying roses for Lexi. Before he can get out of the door, though, Custer tells him he needs to talk to him about “everything”, but more specifically about the police finding Mouse’s body. Faye (Chloe Cherry), stood next to Fez in the kitchen, drops her glass on the floor in faux shock, using it as an opportunity to drop behind the worktop and motion to Fez to stay quiet.

He picks up on her hints and susses that Custer is up to something and doesn’t say a word, even as his friend tries to get him to confess to killing the former drug lord. To fill the silence and get Fez off the hook, Faye stands back up and puts the blame on the other dealer Laurie, noting how she was always scared of her and her crew. As Fez is about to get out of the situation, his adopted little brother Ashtray (Javon Walton) – who has been sitting watching on with a knife up his sleeve – thinks he’s cracked how to fix things, and gets up and stabs Custer in the neck. Desperate to keep Ash out of trouble, Fez puts his hand over Custer’s mouth so the phone he’s secretly recording on doesn’t pick up the sounds of his death and then puts the phone in a cup of soda.

Before the regretful events of the evening, Fez and Lexi had been getting closer and closer, and we’re shown some of their phone conversations over recent weeks. In them, they talk about everything – from their plans for family life to views on guns and how social media is ruining society. It’s an unlikely bond, as they acknowledge, but one that is very genuine and wholly pure.

As Lexi looks at her texts with Fez and realises he’s not coming to the play, Cassie glares through the glass of the theatre door, a crazed look on her face. Seconds later, she bursts into the room and stomps onto the stage, slow clapping as she goes. “I had no idea how hard your life was, Lexi,” she sarcastically tells her sister, comparing it to the plight of women in Afghanistan. Their mum Suze (Alanna Ubach) gets on stage in an attempt to get her eldest daughter off of it, but only makes things worse. Cassie starts attacking Hallie (Eden Rose Ginsberg), her alter-ego in Lexi’s play, prompting Maddy (Alexa Demie) to run on stage to confront her, with Kat (Barbie Ferreira) following behind her. Maddy quickly forces Cassie back into the corridors of the school, chasing her and slamming her head into a wall.

Rue (Zendaya) is sat in the audience as all this unfolds and takes a look around her, noticing Elliot (Dominic Fike) sat in one of the back rows. A few days earlier, she stopped by his house and told him she forgives him for “being a snitch” and that he might actually have accidentally saved her life. They have a brief chat, with both admitting they haven’t spoken to Jules, and Elliot plays her a song he’s been working on on his guitar. “Little star, feels like you fell right on my head,” he sings. “Gave you away to the wind, I hope it was worth it in the end.” Their relationship is left unclear – both acknowledge that they’re bad for each other but there’s a lingering desire to stay friends.

Back at school, Lexi is crying behind a stage prop while her assistant Bobbi (Veronica S. Taylor) tells her it could be worse – the play could be boring. After her pep talk, Lexi decides that the show must go on and, as she’s about to address her cast, Rue sets the audience off chanting her name. Before Our Life gets re-started, Lexi speaks to those watching on from the seats and dedicates the play to Fez.

It seems a safe bet that Fez would much rather be watching the drama unfold in the school theatre than present for what is going down at his house. With Custer’s body lying on his couch, he takes it upon himself to make it look like Ash had nothing to do with his death, with Fez preparing to take the fall. Ash has other ideas, though, and ransacks the house for weapons before heading to the bathroom and locking himself inside. Moments later, the police break-in and all hell breaks loose. Fez is banging on the door, begging his little brother to come out as the cops appear behind him.

An exchange of gunfire begins on either side of the bathroom door and Fez gets hit in the stomach. As he lays on the floor of the hall, the shots continue until the door is barely a door anymore. Suddenly, everything goes quiet inside the bathroom and the police advance into the room. When one officer opens the door, they find Ash laying prone on the floor and turn to tell the others – a move that turns out to be a fatal mistake for all involved. Ash sits upright and shoots the cop, only to be taken out himself by a sniper.

As Fez is arrested, Lexi’s play finishes on a poignant note with another reenactment of Rue’s dad’s wake and a standing ovation. In the present, Rue calls Lexi days afterwards and asks if she can come over and, when she does, the girls reconnect over the hardships they’ve been through – particularly in the context of their dads. In the school bathrooms, another relationship looks to be on the mend as a bloody nosed Cassie tells Maddy, who is holding a can of Coke to her foot, that Nate broke up with her. “Don’t worry,” Maddy says. “This is just the beginning.”

Not every relationship can be so quickly repaired, though. After he leaves the school, Nate loads up a gun and drives out to an old warehouse, where his dad Cal (Eric Dane) is living. After asking Cal if he’s happier since he left the family home, Nate recalls finding videos of his dad having sex with sex workers in a motel room when he was 11 years old and, then, reveals the real reason for his visit. He pulls a USB stick out of his pocket as police lights flash through the windows and tells Cal it has “everything” on it, before giving his dad over to the police.

In the theatre, as the audience files out, Jules (Hunter Schafer) plucks up the courage to go and talk to Rue, and tells her that she loves and misses her. Rue sits in silence for a minute before kissing her forehead and walking away. As she walks down the corridor, she reflects on Jules being her first love and wanting to remember her that way, even as she admits she was “probably high” for most of their relationship.

Her voiceover reveals that she stays clean for the rest of the school year at least and considers something that many of her peers can likely relate to, whether they’re conscious of it or not – the idea of being a good person and trying to live in a way that makes her one. Season two ends on the thought, setting up season three as the time when we find out if she can truly achieve that.

‘Euphoria’ airs every Monday on Sky Atlantic at 2am in the UK – it is repeated at 9pm. Stream it via NOW