Euphoria will jump ahead five years when the hit HBO drama returns, and creator/showrunner Sam Levinson is teasing where the characters have ended up after all that time away.
The long-awaited return of Euphoria is coming in April 2026, HBO revealed this week (with a specific date still to be announced), which will be more than four years after season two premiered on HBO. The series initially launched in 2018. (Here’s a reminder of what happened at the end of season two.)
The unusually long hiatus was due to a number of factors — including aligning the schedules for the in-demand cast, Levinson’s other HBO series The Idol in the interim, and a cooling relationship between Levinson and star Zendaya, as The Hollywood Reporter detailed in a cover story last year.
During a Content London event where HBO CEO Casey Bloys unveiled the programmer’s upcoming slate, Levinson was interviewed about Euphoria to say that “being out of the safety net of school” is what the new season is about when the show catches up with the cast not only after high school graduation, but now after college.
“The one thing we all agreed on is we can’t go back to high school — although many, many shows have had 30-year-old high school students, we’re not,” Levinson said. “Five years felt like a natural place [to jump] because if they had gone to college they’d be out of college at that time.”
When Zendaya returns as Rue, the starring addict has found herself south of the border in Mexico in debt to drug dealer Laurie, played by Martha Kelly, “trying to come up with some very innovative ways to pay it off,” shared Levinson.
One of the biggest spoilers that Levinson dropped is that Sydney Sweeney‘s Cassie and Jacob Elordi‘s Nate are not only engaged, but eventually get married this season. “I promise that it will be an unforgettable night,” he teased of the wedding, adding that when the season opens, “Cassie is living in the suburbs with Nate. They’re engaged, and she’s very addicted to social media and envious of what appears to be the big lives that all of her high school classmates are living at this point in time.”
Hunter Schafer‘s Jules, meanwhile, is in art school “very nervous about having a career as a painter and trying to avoid responsibility at all costs”; Alexa Demi’s Maddie is working at a Hollywood talent agency for a manager while having “her own side hustles”; and Maude Apatow‘s Lexi is working as an assistant to a showrunner who is played by new castmember Sharon Stone.
During his conversation with Bloys, Levinson acknowledged the mega-success of the cast during the hiatus, saying that everyone really wanted to come back, which prompted new contracts for the cast. “You want everyone to be there because they want to be there, and they’re passionate about the work and excited about the story that we’re telling,” said the creator.
There are many new castmembers this season, including Danielle Deadwyler, Eli Roth, Natasha Lyonne, Rosalía, Marshawn Lynch, Sam Trammell and Asante Blackk, to name a few. While Eric Dane, who was recently diagnosed with ALS, Chloe Cherry, Dominic Fike, Nika King and Colman Domingo are also returning, missing from the cast this season are Storm Reid, Austin Abrams and Javon Walton. Angus Cloud, who played fan-favorite drug dealer Fezco, died July 2023.
Levinson summed up of what to expect, “It’s exciting to write this show because there are aspects that I can draw upon in my own life, but at the end of the day, it’s also about telling the story of what it’s like to be out of the safety net of of school and trying to figure out who you are in the world and what matters to you. … The stakes are a bit higher than they were in the past because the consequences are real and no one’s gonna swoop in and save you.
“I feel strongly this is our best season yet,” he added.
