Euphoria Returns to HBO With Season 3 Premiere

It has been 1,505 days since Rue Bennett hit the floor at the end of Euphoria's Season 2 finale. On Sunday, 13 April 2026, that story continued on HBO and Max at 9 p.m. ET — and the internet responded exactly the way it did in 2022: all at once.

The eight-episode Season 3 is the show's first since February 2022. Creator Sam Levinson wrote and directed the entire run. The returning cast includes Zendaya as Rue, Hunter Schafer as Jules, Jacob Elordi as Nate Jacobs, Sydney Sweeney as Cassie, and Alexa Demie as Maddy, plus guest appearances by Sharon Stone, Rosalía, and Natasha Lyonne. The late Eric Dane appears in previously filmed scenes.

The season picks up five years after the events of Season 2, with former East Highland High students navigating adult life and what Levinson has described as "the virtue of faith, the possibility of redemption, and the problem of evil." The time jump frees the show from its high-school frame and gives Zendaya, now 29, room to portray a Rue who is no longer a teenager in crisis but something more complicated and, arguably, more interesting.

“Euphoria is one of the three dominant TikTok content drivers in April 2026, alongside Coachella and The Boys Season 5, according to social listening data from Brandwatch.”

Euphoria is one of the three dominant TikTok content drivers in April 2026, alongside Coachella and The Boys Season 5, according to social listening data from Brandwatch. Max has reported that Season 3 pre-registrations surpassed any prior original in the platform's history — a figure HBO has declined to break out specifically, but one the network cited in promotional materials on 13 April.

The four-year gap carried real cost, and also real benefit. Sydney Sweeney, who played Cassie Howard to critical acclaim in Season 2, has since become one of Hollywood's highest-earning actors following films including Anyone But You and Immaculate. Jacob Elordi won a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2025. Both returned to Euphoria at fees described by multiple industry sources as substantially renegotiated. The franchise's commercial gravity proved strong enough to hold its cast through a gap that would have dispersed a lesser ensemble.

Not everyone welcomed the return uncritically. Roxana Hadadi, writing for The Washington Post in a 12 April preview, asked the question early premiere reviews will now attempt to answer: "The show is extraordinary at looking like pain. Whether it has anything new to say about pain is the question Season 3 answers, or doesn't." Early Rotten Tomatoes critic scores landed at 78% fresh — strong, but below the 83% Season 2 finished with and significantly below the 100% of Season 1.

The bigger picture: Euphoria's return is a strategic bet for HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery. The show costs an estimated $15 million per episode to produce, comparable to The Last of Us, and its cultural footprint provides the streaming platform a reset moment it has needed since Succession ended in May 2023. Netflix's algorithmic dominance in the streaming era has been built on volume; HBO's counter-strategy is prestige serialised drama at a scale where volume cannot compete. Season 3 is the proof of concept for that argument.

Episodes air weekly on Sundays through 31 May 2026. Whether Rue's story ends in redemption or in a more ambiguous register, Levinson has said publicly that this is the show's final season. Seven episodes remain.