'Euphoria' Season 3 Episode 3: Nate and Jules wedding scene has fans asking big questions
Sam Levinson's acclaimed teenage drama 'Euphoria' returned for Season 3 on HBO on April 12. The show's latest episode, 'The Ballad of Paladin,' featured the most talked-about wedding between Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) and Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney). Episode 3, which aired on April 26, marked a reunion, of sorts, for the high school gang from the first two seasons. Among those sweet reunions was Jules (Hunter Schafer) and Nate at his wedding reception. The two have shared a complicated history since the start of Season 1 and are probably seeing each other for the first time in years, as Season 3 is set five years after Season 2's events.
Jules, who was not on the guest list, attended the wedding as Rue's (Zendaya) plus one. Nate mentions that she was the last person he expected to see that evening. As they share a cigarette, Jules brings up his ex-girlfriend, Maddy (Alexa Demie), who left the party after getting emotional over seeing her best friend marry her ex. Nate locks into her eyes before replying, "You love who you love," hinting at his lingering feelings for Jules. This tender moment between Nate and Jules at the reception has sent fans into a tizzy, wondering what's really going on between the two.
The two go all the way back to Season 1, when Nate drunkenly harasses Jules, a trans girl who recently arrived in town, at a friend’s party. Their paths cross again after Nate finds his father, Cal Jacobs’s (Eric Dane) sex tape with Jules. Nate decides to catfish her on Grindr as ‘Tyler’ and the two bond over text messages, forming a genuine connection that borders on love. However, his true intention lies in getting her nudes so he can blackmail her into silence to protect his family’s reputation. Jules is left heartbroken when she discovers Tyler’s true identity. In Season 2, Nate hands over the explicit tape to Jules before reporting his father to the police for secretly filming his sexual encounters, which sometimes involved minors. In a rare moment of honesty, Nate tells Jules, “For what it’s worth, everything I ever said was true,” confirming that he did fall in love with Jules after all.
Levinson, who wrote and directed Episode 3, revealed why Jules agreed to attend the wedding. He told HBO, "Jules must be going to this wedding for a reason. Part of it’s curiosity, part of it’s Rue. But I think that she wanted to see Nate. We know from previous seasons that Nate played a significant role in her mind." He went on to say, "There is the fantasy of what it could have been if he was not as troubled. 'Here we are. We’ve both sort of moved on, and things are the way they are.' There’s a lot that’s unsaid in the scene between Nate and Jules, and its poignancy is in how the audience can interpret it in a multitude of ways."
Schafer added that, "Jules is still confused about her feelings for Nate and the person that she thought Nate was." Furthermore, Elordi also shared some insight into his character's state of mind in Season 3. "We’ve all grown up, and Nate’s better at listening and he’s maybe more aware of himself,” he said. Does their brief interaction signal the start of something meaningful, now that they have grown up and gained some perspective in life? We will have to wait and see. 'Euphoria' Season 3 drops its latest episodes at 9 p.m. ET on Sundays only on HBO and HBO Max.
