We’re halfway through the third (and perhaps final) season of HBO‘s Euphoria, but the noose is already tightening on all of our characters on this week’s fourth episode, “Kitty Likes to Dance.” Will Rue (Zendaya) get turned by the DEA? Will Maddy (Alexa Demie) turn Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) into a star, or utterly destroy her? And perhaps most importantly, what’s up with Jules (Hunter Schafer) and LA Nights?
Don’t worry, we’ll recap everything here, but first a little precap before the recap — and spoilers past this point. On last week’s episode, “The Ballad of Paladin,” a lot went down, as usual. To give the short version of the Rue storyline, after attending Cassie’s wedding to Nate (Jacob Elordi) with Jules, she headed out to go and confront Laurie (Martha Kelly) about releasing a pig in Alamo Brown’s (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) strip club, the Silver Slipper. She went with his second-in-command Bishop (Darrell Britt-Gibson), who surreptitiously poisoned Laurie’s bird, the Paladin of the title. And the episode ended with Rue getting pulled over by the DEA.
Meanwhile, Cassie and Nate’s wedding went off with whatever the opposite of “without a hitch” is, which is probably why they call it “getting hitched.” As things spiraled out of control, Nate’s overspending and borrowing caught up with him, leading to Nate getting beaten up and a toe cut off by loan shark Naz (Jack Topalian), while Cassie watched, covered in Nate’s blood and sobbing in her wedding dress. Maddy, who is now working for a management firm and has expressed interest in taking control of Cassie’s burgeoning OnlyFans career, left before all this, thinking Cassie got the perfect wedding after stealing Nate from her in high school. She was wrong!
Lexi (Maude Apatow), who we discovered is a virgin (and is avoiding calling her former sweetheart Fez), is working as a writer’s assistant on LA Nights, which is showrun by Patty Lance (Sharon Stone), and stars Maddy’s star client. Oh, and lest we forget, Faye (Chloe Cherry) is working for Laurie and boning Wayne (Toby Wallace), one of Laurie’s relatives/lieutenants.
There’s lots more that’s going, but why waste more time? Let’s get into the recap.
Spoilers for Euphoria Season 3, Episode 4 “Kitty Likes To Dance” past this point.
You’ll Rue The Day
Picking up right where we left off, Rue is in the back of a cop car as the DEA checks her vehicle, while she narrates about the subjective nature of the truth. “While we may disagree about what the truth is, we all know when we’re telling a lie,” Rue says. And sure enough, a dog finds drugs in her car.
So it’s off to jail and being fingerprinted… But it turns out the DEA has nothing on her, while Rue stammers and explains she’s headed back to a wedding. They ask her about Laurie, with Rue doing a pretty piss poor Martha Kelly impersonation. And then they ask her about Mexico. If they had a photo of her in Mexico, what would she think about that? Turns out, they do indeed have a photo of her in Mexico… So yeah, the DEA doesn’t have nothing on her. They actually have a lot.
Rue, per the opening narration, is a bad liar. On the other hand, the DEA are good liars, and know she’s been talking to a Cartel member. “So you guys can lie to me, but I can’t lie to you,” Rue says. “That’s fucked up.” And oh yeah, they also found drugs in her car. Faced with 20 years in prison with no parole, and an additional 20 years for every death they can link to her, it’s likely she’ll go to jail for life.
They want to make a deal, though: take her into federal custody; or “become a confidential source.” A sobbing Rue puts her head down. “And that is how I became a snitch.”
Play It Cool, Rue
She explains they swapped out the drugs for sugar pills and laxatives, and a very cool Rue heads back to the Silver Slipper, so distracted she’s not even checking out the booty on a new, prospective stripper, Kitty (Anna Van Patten).
Alamo taunts Rue, making her show off her “pearly whites” and gloating that he thinks he took care of Laurie for good by killing Paladin. Rue, meanwhile, can’t stop sweating. We also get the title of the episode, as Alamo calls the stripper Kitty, and explains that “Kitty likes to dance.” Kitty, however is from Kansas, so “cut her some slack” when it comes to actual dancing talent.
While Alamo tries out the new merch, Rue continues to be terrified, not removing her fanny pack, and questioning the DEA agents in a flashback… So we get a little bit more about how it all works: they installed an app on her phone and will track her that way (and as a note, Rue’s lock screen is a pic of her and Fez, which is sweet and sad since Angus Cloud died IRL).
“You guys are gonna give me a fucking heart attack,” Rue says, as we cut back to the present, with the club’s manager putting the fake drugs in the safe. This time, Rue takes a glance back… And it sure seems like what we called a few episodes back, that Rue won’t be able to resist the siren call of robbing the club. Though later, things go in another direction entirely.
Toe-ing The Line
Over to Nate and Cassie, great news, his toe got sewed back on. “The toe is a metaphor,” Nate says, explaining that it looked bad but now the toe is back to normal. Cassie isn’t buying it, explaining the toe has a scar, and nothing will ever be the same again. We do love metaphors, don’t we folks?
Cassie, shockingly, is the down to earth one here, wondering about how much Nate owes — which is a $1 million — while Nate prevaricates and explains that they have their love, and “have to keep faith… In me. In us. Our life.”
“The fairytale’s over,” Cassie says, walking out of the room.
While Nate moans and lies around, Maddy pulls up like a Hollywood dame of yore, and Cassie goes to work. “Let’s do something about your look,” Maddy says as they drive away from the house.
Then it’s over to a makeover montage, where Maddy explains to a team of people that “the goal is to take her from the suburbs to the city.” Cassie guzzles wine and pops her lips, and Cassie 2.0 makes her move with Maddy, heading to the Hollywood strip.
Que Seurat, Seurat
On the set of LA Nights, Lexi is taking a chance on Jules, getting her to paint something that will be shown on the series as if it was painted by one of the characters on the show. The pitch? Millions will see Jules’s art, versus the dozens in a gallery. It’s a big move for Lexi, and it goes… Very wrong.
…Because Jules painted a picnic with 14 penises, a clear parody of “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Seurat.
While everyone plays it cool with Jules there because they find out she’s trans, Patty explains “the penises are too much,” and they want her to get rid of all of them. They want to get rid of all the nudity, in fact, and they end up cutting the scene and moving it to next week.
This is disaster level for Lexi, who apologizes to Patty, saying she feels horrible. Patty, though, digs into Lexi, explaining they lost an hour and a half of shooting, which is $56,000. Plus the time to do another shoot is $191,000. “Don’t be a net negative, Lexi,” Petty says, and it’s hard not to think that in some ways Sam Levinson is playing on his own exacting nature as a creator… He famously reshot The Idol, and Season 2 of Euphoria ran way over scheduled. Is he siding with Patty, though? Or Jules and Lexi?
Jules, distraught as well, destroys her painting, covering it with red smears.
A Funeral For A Bird
Laurie, over at her compound, is holding a bird funeral, with the rest wanting to kill Alamo’s crew. Rue has her own problems, which is the DEA is putting the screws on her… And we get the first real scene with all the girls this season, which is a shocker.
Cassie is doing a photoshoot, while Maddy takes pics and Lexi is agog about how much money everyone makes from this. Rue enters, looking for drugs, and Lexi loses it, telling them they’re all pathetic and storming off.
Continuing our montage of “things happening,” Nate pathetically goes to court and explains that “everything happens for a reason,” and that the discovery of endangered flowers on his land is a higher sign from god… And instead of doing the right thing, or settling his debts, wants to build even more around these flowers. However, the motion is denied, and he gets even more pathetic, begging them to let him change his plans. Nate approaches the bench, gets down on his hands and knees and prays to them, begging them to give him more money.
He also slips up, sobbing, saying, “I can’t be bad,” which is really the crux of it, right? He can’t believe that the world doesn’t revolve around him — and sadly, it doesn’t. Looks like he’s about to lose more than toes, and his wife.
Cassie, meanwhile, pawns her wedding ring and moves into the same apartment complex as Lexi, with Lexi watching her sister take photos in the window across the way. Yet another bad day for Lexi!
The Sting
Back to main plot, Rue is playing poker with Alamo and the boys, with the DEA listening in. She’s trying to get him to do a big drug deal so they can arrest Alamo, and he’s not buying it. Rue doesn’t have the cards, literally and figuratively, and Alamo knows it. “Why would you ask me something so catastrophically dumb?” Alamo asks, and while Rue apologizes, “that don’t cut it.”
Rue isn’t good at bluffing, though. She says she’s got a good hand, but Alamo knows she’s got that look “like a motherfucking rat… Where you gonna go next?” But Alamo has misinterpreted what’s going on, and thinks she’s using again.
“Yeah, I had a slip-up,” says the relieved Rue, and when the cards go in her favor she goes all-in on her chips. While everyone else celebrates Rue’s win, Alamo tells her not to mess with hard drugs, and the DEA guys are, to put it lightly, annoyed. They may have backed the wrong horse with Rue.
Free of the tense game, Rue is next scratching Angel’s (Priscilla Delgado) name off her locker… She’s not coming back from rehab, with Magick (Rosalia) lamenting that Angel has been lost. Instead, they slap Kitty’s name on there in tape while she takes her first dance.
Drug Of Choice
While things are getting sad with Rue and the Silver Slipper, Cassie and Maddy are going out for the evening. Cassie is now full-on bronzed LA tiger lady, and Maddy tells her “you look good, bitch,” as they head to Brandon Fontaine’s (Jeff Wahlberg) house. He’s got 22 million followers, and she just needs to take a picture with him where she looks hot. Easy!
While Rue considers robbing the club to get out of the situation she’s gotten herself in, Maddy coaches Cassie to tempt Brandon with “pussy,” but not give it to him. In a classic bit of Euphoria juxtaposition, a group of guys in the champagne room leer at the eager-to-please Kitty while the eager-to-please Cassie tries to make her way up to Brandon. Kitty is calm and confident; Cassie, scared out of her mind, though making the moves to attract the influencer, dancing and making out with another girl on the table.
Kitty, one should note, is giving up that pussy to the guys in the room as they bang her on the table. Cassie is metaphorically the same, dancing with Brandon, and getting her pictures, stealing the spotlight. Maddy, though, I’d venture, might have other plans here: specifically to break up Cassie and Nate, permanently. And Maddy, noticeably, leaves… Though perhaps she has more plans going on than we know, as we’ll see in a moment.
Candid Cassie Camera
Noticing Maddy is gone, Cassie and the other girl head with Brandon to get some cocaine (“Oh my god, I love coke,” says Cassie, hilariously), while we get to see scenes of Kitty getting (painfully, it looks like) fucked by the guys in the champagne room. Rue, one should also note, at least seems conflicted about all this. So… Some humanity left there?
The other girl with Cassie, by the way, is Katelyn (Bella Podaras), who Maddy broke off repping back during COVID. They have some real frenemy energy going on as Cassie does the coke, and then tells Brandon to snort right off her upper crotch area. Meanwhile, Maddy is trying to break into the room with cameras. Katelyn throws up in a sink, and Brandon tells Cassie he’s going to “fuck your brains out.”
…But it was all part of Maddy’s plan, as she interrupts right before they do have sex, with Cassie happily introducing herself to the cameras.
Later, as Cassie’s phone blows up with followers, Maddy explains what’s next. “You’ve got their attention, now you’ve got to keep it,” she tells the elated Cassie.
I personally have questions about this storyline. Mainly: what is in it for Maddy? But we’ve still got half a season to go, so stay tuned.
Kitty Likes To Lie
Back at the club, Kitty swills mouthwash, and asks if Rue has “more ketamine.” Rue asks if the guys hurt her, and while Kitty says no, she’s clearly shaken. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Rue asks. “Are you being forced?”
“I like to dance,” Kitty says, barely holding it together, as Magick exits the toilet, ominously whistling. Rue steps outside the club, breathing the air and trying to get her head straight. But she’s made a critical error… Leaving her phone behind in the office.
Magick reveals what she learned to Big Eddy (Kadeem Hardison), and back in the club, Rue sees everything has taken on a more ominous that usual tone. She goes back to the office to get her phone, but Big Eddy isn’t having it. “Nobody enters my office alone,” he says, explaining that she crossed the line with Kitty… At which point Rue’s mom calls. After a pregnant pause, she takes the call. It’s actually Jimenez (Hamky Madera), one of the DEA agents, who explains Rue is compromised, and needs to find a way to discredit Magick.
Unfortunately for all of them, while Rue argues with Magick and tries to paint her as a drug addict to Big Eddy, masked men invade the club with guns. Is it Laurie’s crew? The men who abused Kitty earlier? Either way, Big Eddy thinks they don’t know who they’re dealing with, so they threaten to shoot Rue and Magick.
“Oh look, two birds, one stone,” the man says. He counts down to shooting them… And shoots Big Eddy instead, blood spraying all over the women. In the dressing room, Kitty asks a fellow stripper if she heard a “big bang,” and when the other woman says no, she goes back to snorting ketamine.
In the office, the rapidly bleeding out Big Eddy is threatened with having his balls blown off, so he gives up the location of the safe. They continue to taunt him while he opens the safe for them, and the men successfully rob the club, speeding out in their truck.
Rue calls Bishop, telling him they need to get Big Eddy to the hospital, but Bishop wants to find the guys who did this. Magick combs through the footage of the truck, and sees who the driver is: it’s a woman with “gigantic lips.” Oops, it’s Faye, and Rue gives her up immediately.
We’ve moved from pigs and birds to killing humans, and while a cover of Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice” plays we slam to credits… Meaning the cold war between Alamo and Laurie just stepped up to regular war.
Euphoria Season 3 Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of Euphoria premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. ET. Here’s what we expect from the full list of episodes in Euphoria Season 3 with premiere dates.
- Sunday, April 12, 2026: Euphoria, Season 3, Episode 1 – “Ándale”
- Sunday, April 19, 2026: Euphoria, Season 3, Episode 2 – “America My Dream”
- Sunday, April 26, 2026: Euphoria, Season 3, Episode 3 – “The Ballad of Paladin”
- Sunday, May 3, 2026: Euphoria, Season 3, Episode 4 – “Kitty Likes to Dance”
- Sunday, May 10, 2026: Euphoria, Season 3, Episode 5 – “This Little Piggy”
- Sunday, May 17, 2026: Euphoria, Season 3, Episode 6 – “Stand Still and See”
- Sunday, May 24, 2026: Euphoria, Season 3, Episode 7 – “Rain or Shine”
- Sunday, May 31, 2026: Euphoria, Season 3, Episode 8 – “In God We Trust” *Season Finale*
Where To Watch Euphoria
Comic Book Club Live Info:
Share this:
Discover more from Comic Book Club
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.