Austin Abrams Reveals Why He Wasn't In Euphoria's Final Season
We missed you, Ethan!
The final season of Euphoria didn’t exactly get the whole band back together. Several characters who had prominent roles in the first two seasons wound up not returning for the grand finale. Ethan Daley, the insightful acting student, was among the disappeared cast. And Austin Abrams thinks he know why he was not asked to reprise his role in Season 3.
Abrams confirmed that he was not given the option to play Ethan one last time in the HBO drama’s final season, but he seemed to understand the decision. “That was a thing where it just seemed like maybe character-wise or something, it didn’t make sense,” Abrams told Entertainment Weekly on July 25. “But I love Sam [Levinson]. I just love him as a creator.”
He added that he has not seen Euphoria’s final season... or any of the show. “But granted, I haven’t watched the show in general,” Abrams admitted.
Abrams’ statement about how Ethan coming back “didn’t make sense” adds up, especially given another major cast departure. Barbie Ferreira, who played Kat Valentine in the show’s first two seasons, also did not appear in Season 3. Although, that exit was the actor’s own decision, as Ferreira has said she was disappointed Kat wasn’t “a fully fleshed-out character” after two seasons. Since Ethan’s story was so closely tied to his girlfriend Kat’s, it would feel a bit bizarre for him to show up again without his partner.
Ethan started off as more of a side character who sparks an empathetic bond with Kat in Euphoria’s first season, before he became a larger focus in Season 2 when he and Kat faced relationship issues. He also got a big moment in Season 2’s climactic episode as the star of Lexi’s drama-starting play, which unleashed chaos on the whole school.
Abrams and Ferreira are just two of the main Euphoria stars to not come back for the final season. Other notable absences include Dominic Fike’s Elliot, Storm Reid’s Gia, and most prominent of all, Angus Cloud’s Fez, who is honored throughout Season 3 following the actor’s death in 2023.
