Rue Bennett, You Will Be Missed
Season 3 of Euphoria and my updated thoughts on "The Female Martyr Problem"
The third and final season of Euphoria concluded this past Sunday on HBO. It’s Tuesday afternoon, and it’s still the talk of the town on my social media feeds.
Rue Bennett died of a drug overdose in the final episode. And I wish I could have seen what my own face looked like when I realized the episode still had an hour left remaining.
I didn’t even want to finish that shit.
I skipped through Ali’s speech about fentanyl addiction. Listened to Maude Apatow and Sydney Sweeney deliver the flattest sisterly exchange I have ever heard in my entire life. There’s absolutely zero love between the two.
Ali storms into the Silver Slipper and kills Alamo Brown. Bishop betrays Alamo. Ali ends up in the place Rue truly wanted to be.
It was bittersweet.
Everyone found some semblance of peace.
Except for Rue.
And I know there are people who find peace in death. She isn’t hurting anymore.
But I call bullshit.
From television to film, the female main character will spend her entire life suffering at the hands of others. The only way she’s “set free?”
Death.
And that’s a tragedy.
Rue dying is a realistic possibility for many addicts. But I think it’s really unfortunate that she spends the entirety of Season 3 sober just to die on Ali’s couch.
Her death catapults others toward finding peace.
Ali forgives himself for not being able to save his sponsees by avenging her.
The strangest thing about Rue’s death isn’t that she dies. Addicts die every day.
It’s that nobody seems to care.
A body removed from the story so everyone else can move on.
No funeral. No mention of her mother or Gia.
Her friends act like she didn’t exist.
Lexi and Cassie have a conversation that feels like it’s being spoken in a different language. Lexi expresses guilt about her final conversation with Rue, and Cassie sounds like she’s miles away in an entirely different reality.
If I got addicted to a substance, betrayed my entire family, and dabbled in illegal activity just to wind up six feet under, my family would still bury me at the end of it.
In media, it always seems to be one or the other for women. The only accurate story we tell is that even in death, women are in service to others.
Women die to catapult someone else’s story forward.
And I think that’s why this idea terrifies me so much.
I’ve spent my entire life questioning whether I was real. Wondering if there was a reason for me being here or if I was simply unfortunate luck for my parents. If I had a purpose. If I even mattered.
And maybe that’s why we spend our entire lives trying to leave a drag path behind us.
Evidence we were here.
Because if we can prove we existed, then maybe it wasn’t all pointless.
Rue never got that opportunity. Neither did Eleven from Stranger Things.
How heartbreaking it must be to spend your entire life ashamed of yourself and believing you’re unworthy of basic health, only to never experience any relief.
To sacrifice your life to push the narrative forward and have that sacrifice barely acknowledged.
You’re free from the pain when you’re dead, sure.
But Rue died hoping for forgiveness and begging to be saved.
That’s a tragedy.