This article was published on 5/1 and republished on 5/3.
While season 3 of Euphoria was advertised as the final season of the series more or less since its inception, it no longer seems entirely impossible that season 4 may happen after all.
There is, of course, nothing official on this front. There is a note that some HBO piece of advertising has the Euphoria final episode listed as the "season finale" rather than the "series finale" like other shows on that list (Hacks, The Comeback), but I don't think you can take that as gospel confirmation.
Rather, the evidence that HBO may want this to happen is in the data. We often see series dramatically shed viewership with long gaps in between seasons. 2-3 years can result in as much as 50% declines, and we've recently seen series like Rings of Power and Wednesday suffer big drops, for instance.
But Euphoria? The premiere of season 3, four years after season 2, saw its viewership rise by 44% from the premiere of season 2. And that's even with declarations that the new season was "bad" from critics, with a 40% Rotten Tomatoes score ahead of release. But audiences showed up anyway.
The theory here is that HBO may not want to shelve a show that clearly still has a lot of interest and has not reached the end of some sort of source material, given that it's a wholly original Sam Levinson creation. But there are obvious problems with this. Namely, how big-time its main cast members have gotten.
- Zendaya - She is appearing in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Dune: Part III and The Odyssey this year alone. She's just so incredibly busy now that the series may have to follow through on the fan theory that Rue is probably going to end up dead by the end of season 3 here, even if the show does carry on.
- Sydney Sweeney - Possibly the most-discussed actress in Hollywood right now, she just came off her biggest feature ever, The Housemaid, which is gearing up for a sequel. She's starring in everything from a Gundam movie to an adaptation of the Split/Fiction video game. Immensely busy.
- Jacob Elordi - He's fresh off an Oscar nomination for Frankenstein and has at least two other films coming up, in addition to rumors that he's at least in the mix for James Bond (however unlikely that may be).
However, as busy as they have been even before this, they still made time to shoot Euphoria back in February 2025. That frankly seemed miraculous at the time, that this was actually coming together. But who's to say it couldn't happen again if Sam Levinson can put a script together?
I think they could lure Hunter Schaefer, Alexa Demie and Maude Apatow to stay. I wonder if Barbie Ferreira could return. Hell, Storm Reid, now 22, could show up as Rue's sister again and join the main cast, maybe.
I think Zendaya is gone no matter what. I do think Jacob Elordi and Sydney Sweeney could perhaps be convinced to return. But Elordi seems bored, while Sweeney is giving the Cassie performance of her life, so maybe just her.
I can see it happening. But it's still far from a reality right now.
Update (5/3): In the wake of the release of the recent Resident Evil trailer, I think we could also nominate Austin Abrams to return, and perhaps in a more elevated role than he had before if we're say, replacing Jacob Elordi as a male lead. My guess is that Elordi, like Rue, may not survive the end of the series given his current situation that left him beat half to death on his wedding night.
I first saw Austin Abrams in his Walking Dead Carl nemesis arc, but he's recently gained acclaim for his role in Weapons, and now he's leading Zach Cregger’s entire Resident Evil movie—a lot of pressure.
We do not know what Abrams’ Ethan Daley has been up to since high school. He’s not mentioned in the show so far, and I doubt he will be, much less get a cameo. His storyline involved a relationship with the also-departed Kat (the aforementioned Barbie Ferreira). This all culminated in one of Euphoria’s best moments where he plays a homoerotic version of Nate in a school play.
If Ferreira does return, it could make sense for Abrams to as well, especially if a potential season 4 was lacking for stars. I could see it being possible, at least.