First 5 Minutes of ‘Euphoria’ Season 3 Released Online

The third (and very likely final) season of Euphoria premieres tonight, April 12. The second season aired all the way back in 2022, and the third doesn’t ignore the passage of time. It takes place five years after the season 2 finale, with all the main characters out of high school and navigating the difficulties of adult life.

That means different things for different characters. Nate (Jacob Elordi) and Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) and together and living in the burbs, although their relationship is under strain. Jules (Hunter Schafer) is working as an artist and Lexi (Maude Apatow) is a Hollywood assistant working for a prolific showrunner played by Sharon Stone.

Rue’s (Zendaya) adulthood isn’t shaping up to be quite as traditional. To work off her debt to drug lord Laurie (Martha Kelly), she’s smuggling drugs in and out of Mexico. That’s how we find her in the opening scene of Season 3, which HBO has shared online. Watch it below.

What Time Does ‘Euphoria’ Season 3 Come Out?

At least Rue is making the most of it, making friends with some of the locals in Chihuahua and cruising up to the border wall while singing along to Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like the Wind.” She runs into trouble when she actually gets to the wall and tries to drive over it using a makeshift ramp, which is a thing that has actually been tried, believe it or not. Much as happened in real life, the car she’s driving gets stuck up there, since she doesn’t have enough momentum to get over. Four-wheel drive might have helped, but that’ll be a problem for the next run.

Proving she’s nothing if not adaptable, Rue gets out of the car while it teeters 30 feet above the ground, gingerly walks down the ramp, and hoofs it into the United States on foot. And that’s where we’ll pick up with her and the rest of the characters when the Euphoria Season 3 premiere airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST.

Euphoria has had an indelible impact on the wider culture, especially among younger viewers. If nothing else, it’s introduced us to a lot of new stars. Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Hunter Schafer have all blown up thanks to the show, and while Zendaya was already a name before the first season aired in 2019 thanks to her role as Michelle opposite Tom Holland in the Spider-Man movies, Euphoria raised her profile considerably. Her latest movie, The Drama, is in theaters now, where she stars alongside Robert Pattinson.

As with the first two seasons, Eurphoria Season 3 will have eight episodes in all, coming out one per week on Sundays. Review scores for Season 3 have come in far below where they were for Seasons 1 and 2, but we’ll see if that makes a difference when it comes to viewership.