This post contains spoilers for Euphoria.
He’s…going to make it after all? In the penultimate episode of Euphoria’s second season, viewers had one question on their minds: what’s going to happen to Fezco? All season long, it had seemed like Sam Levinson was laying the groundwork to prepare fans for the death of the beloved character (played by Angus Cloud)—from his cover-up of the death of Mouse to his too-good-to-be-true relationship with Lexi (Maude Apatow). But Sunday night’s season finale swerved at the last minute, seemingly saving Fezco…and sacrificing Ashtray in the process.
The episode picks up where the last one left off, showing Fezco still at home, late to Lexi’s play because he senses Custer might be up to something. Just as he starts to figure it out, Ashtray (Javon “Wanna” Walton), who’s spent the season becoming increasingly violent, stabs Custer in the neck and kills him. Fezco makes a quick decision: he’ll take the fall for Custer’s death so that his younger brother can stay free.
Ashtray, however, has other plans. He immediately starts loading up on guns and barricades himself in the bathroom, locking Fezco out. When a SWAT team arrives at the house, Ashtray opens fire, determined to take out as many cops as he can. Fezco, who keeps pleading and yelling out to Ashtray and refusing to leave the room, gets caught in the crossfire and takes a bullet to the stomach. All he can do is lay there and watch as the SWAT team storms his younger brother and kills him.
“It was a sad day, ‘cause we were really close,” Cloud said of losing Walton as a castmate in a closer look that aired after the episode. The episode ends there with Fezco, showing him in dire straits—but, thankfully, alive.
Though it would have had temporary shock value, killing Fez off would have been a narratively frustrating move in retrospect. In season one, he quickly became a fan favourite thanks to his easy, calming manner, a welcome juxtaposition to the wild energy of everyone else at Euphoria High. Season two only deepened his fandom. The first episode opened with his backstory, explaining how he ended up in the morally dubious position of selling hard drugs to teens. (In short: he’s a family man!) Then he struck up a precious flirtation with good girl Lexi, a delightful will-they/won’t-they that added some much-needed levity to an intense season. The finale also leaned in to this, showing flashbacks of late night phone conversations that Lexi and Fezco have had, sharing their hopes and dreams with one another. It seemed, at first, like heavy foreshadowing—any time a TV character talks about their future, it’s lights out, right? Alas, all that was just to throw viewers off the scent of Ashtray’s death.
So, what will happen to Fezco next season? Considering he doesn’t die in the finale, it seems likely that we’ll have to see him recover from his grievous injury, grapple with the death of his brother, and deal with getting caught up in the legal system. All while still, somehow, taking care of his comatose grandmother—who will, hopefully, come around and play a bigger part in season three. Just another easy, lighthearted day in the life of a Euphoria character.
This article originally appeared on vanityfair.com
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