Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi and other original stars are back for Euphoria season 3, which opened with a cast that mixes returning faces and new arrivals as HBO’s long-delayed drama finally moves on from nearly three years of waiting. The new season also adds Jessica Treska, Darrell Britt-Gibson and Toby Wallace, while Maude Apatow returned in the premiere and Colman Domingo appears in a larger capacity.
The show first premiered in 2019 and quickly became one of HBO’s biggest dramas after following Rue, the troubled high school student played by Zendaya, as she tried to stay sober after rehab. It was renewed for a second season soon after that debut, but the next batch of episodes took nearly three years to arrive, and season 3 was originally expected in 2025 before the schedule slipped again.
Creator Sam Levinson used the season 3 premiere in April 2026 to explain why the gap stretched so long. He said there were obvious factors, including the strikes in late 2023 and the challenge of lining up a cast that is in constant demand, but said the bigger effort was figuring out how to honor people the production lost along the way. He pointed first to Angus Cloud, who died in July 2023 at age 25 after an accidental overdose, and said he fought hard to keep Cloud clean.
Levinson said the year Cloud died, 2023, he was one of 73,000 people in America who died of a fentanyl overdose. He added that the loss changed how he thought about the series and about life itself, saying death gives life meaning and that people cannot be arrogant about existence. He described life as a wonder and a gift, then said he had tried to find a way to keep Cloud alive within the show after he could not keep him alive in real life.
That effort now shows up on screen. Levinson told Variety there are a lot of scenes in which people are talking to Fez on the phone, and the season is expected to address Fezco’s fate. Before his death, Eric Dane filmed scenes for the new season, and his character Cal appears in the trailer one month after Dane’s death following a battle with ALS. Hunter Schafer has not yet appeared on screen in season 3 but is expected back, while Alexa Demie is also returning.
The tension around the new season is not just about who is back, but about how the series handles the absence of the people it lost. Levinson said he thought that if he could not keep Cloud alive in life, maybe he could keep him alive inside the show, and he said the whole point was to honor him. With the premiere now underway, the answer to the long wait is clearer: season 3 is not just a comeback for Euphoria, but a memorial wrapped inside one.
