• Euphoria's first season wrapped up last night
• The season ended with a music number preceded by several dream-like sequences
• Some sequences are symbolic while others are purely emotive

Eight weeks of drug abuse, male frontal nudity , child pornography , and overall teenage mayhem have concluded in a drug-abusing, male-undressing, porn-threatening prom night from hell. In short: Euphoria ended last night. And it went out with a snort. (And then a giant musical number, because fuck conventionality.)

Euphorias previous episodes have experimented with single event narrative frames, including Fourth of July and Halloween. The series concluded its first season with a similar structure, using high-schools most natural punctuation, a dance, here interspersed with enough preceding character drama and face zooms to make you feel both sick and overwhelmed, which we guess was kinda the point.

The narrative threads tangling last night entail primarily five character relationships: (1) Rue and Jules, (2) Nate , Maddy , and Nates dad, (3) Cassie and Lexi , (4) Kat and Ethan, and (5) Fez and Mouse, the very scary drug dealer dude. To make things even more confusing, the Winter Formal framing is also paired with a letter that Rues mother reads aloud at an AA meeting, which itself frames the entire episode as a parent looking at the infant version of their grown child. Like, seriously, pick a frame, Euphoria.

The result is several character dramas that play out across the episode: Nate plays in a football game before becoming sexually impotent with Maddy, who then takes Nates dads video tape and leaves the house; Cassie, accompanied by her sister and mother, goes through with an abortion and decides to never fall in loveat least for another couple years; Kat apologizes to Ethan for hurting him and the two decide to maybe probably get hurt anyway, but, hell, lets just make out; and Fez , following the police raid on his house, steals money from a drug supplier to pay back his drug dealer, who, noticing blood on the money, stares down Fez.

And, of course, Rue and Jules.

What Happened to Rue?

In a moment of seeming character clarity, Rue unreservedly kisses Jules. This climactic moment of the episode, however, instead of being a cathartic decision for a character navigating sexual identity and emotional turmoil, turns instead to be the inciting incident for about 20 minutes of absolute chaos. Rue tells Jules the two of them should leave town. Jules accepts. Jules and Rue pack. Rue questions her impulse aloud. The two go to the train station anyway. Jules gets on a trail. Rue does not. Jules leaves. Rue walks home.

We then see a younger version of Rue running through the house, embracing her father, watching her father die, taking his medication, overdosing on the floor in her room, dancing with her sister, embracing her mom, kissing Jules. The sequences are framed both by Jules walking home after prom and also while listening to her mother read that AA lettera location and time that remain unclear.

We return to the hallway of Rues house, a girl standing, her back to the camera, watching a gurney wheel out a body from someones bedroom. The girls hair is done up to resemble Rues sister. And at first, we believe the body to be Rues. We then enter the room to find Rues mom sitting at the edge of a bed and beside medical equipment. The remembered event is actually Rues and the death is her fathers. Rue then picks up a maroon hoodie (the one she has worn all season) and leaves the room, as the surrounding rooms fill with memories of herself and her mother yelling.

We return to the street where a distraught Rue walks toward a bright streetlamp. We then see her snort what we believe to be a suicidal dose of fentanyl and then animatedly risein an almost Weekend at Bernies -like fashionand return to the street with a choir of gospel singers form a pile of bodies and raise her, singing, into the air, Khaleesi-style.

That ending, in fact, is quite similar to the way Euphoria creator Sam Levinson's 2018 movie Assassination Nation ended. If you don't mind some mild SPOILERS for ASSASSINATON NATION, take a look below at the closing scene of that film, and marvel for a moment at the similarities:

So, like, WTF did this mean?

The sequence obviously carries a lot of ambiguity: Whats real? Whats symbolic? Whats memory? Whats fantasy?

Part of the difficulty involves untangling the two framing devices: Rue returning from train station after prom and Rues mother reading a letter to an AA congregation. The latter frame is the most unclear. The eulogy style of the event would certainly reflect a strategy for such AA meetings, where loved ones read letters explaining how addiction has impacted their families. The mock funeral setting would then not necessarily be a literary device for the series (though, it probably is). In Rues case, the letter becomes something of a tethering device to her family, and she leaves Jules on the platform in part because she fears the repercussions on her mother and sister (Rues first selfless filial act, which occurs, tragically, at her characters most liberating moment.)

Taking the eulogy letter as an actual funeral (and that Rue really died at the end of the episode), would, I think, be reductionary. Whether or not that letter takes place after prom or before is part of the intentional ambiguity. Rues death may help explain the level of omniscience her narrator exercises (and in her letter, Rues mom even refers to an all-knowing narrator that might inform her of future events), but the death would be almost too conventional given the absurdist musical treatment that concludes the episode. The death would feel somewhat tasteless and unearned.

The dance number could also just mean, well, nothing. It serves instead as a visual aid for Rues emotional journey during the season (and a new song from both Labrinth and Zendaya ). The overture also seeks to embody the shows titular state (Euphoria), one that Rue has been chasing all season. That this state teeters on actual existential demise (death) follows naturally.

As far as whether or not Rue did commit suicide that night of the prom, just ask yourself whether or not season 2 works without Zendaya. While it wouldnt be the first time HBO had its primary lead kick the bucket in season 1, we expect Euphoria's star to make at least a half recovery.