Euphoria Season 3: How The HBO Series Ends The Jules-Cal Storyline

Don't attend any weddings if you haven't seen "The Ballad of Palladin," the third episode of "Euphoria" Season 3. Spoilers ahead!

Anyone who's been watching "Euphoria" since it kicked off its run in 2019 is familiar with the ... situation between Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer) and Cal Jacobs (Eric Dane). After all, it's basically the inciting incident that begins the whole narrative. Now, in Season 3 of Sam Levinson's series (which may or may not be its final outing and which jumps ahead in time by five years), the two bury the hatchet, and it's weirdly beautiful to witness.

So, what happened between them initially? As a transgender teenager, Jules made a habit, in Season 1 of "Euphoria," of meeting strangers on the Internet — usually older men — and arranging trysts, and one of them happened to be with Cal, the father of her high school classmate Nate (Jacob Elordi). (I should say here that Jules is a minor and lying about her age, which makes what Cal did with her completely illegal.) Unbeknownst to Jules, Cal enjoyed taping his encounters with young queer lovers, and he did ... and the tape of Jules becomes a bigger issue throughout Season 2 after the footage is stolen in the Season 1 finale "And Salt the Earth Behind You."

Nate returns the video to Jules in Season 2 after significant strife and apologizes to her for its existence; when she reunites with Cal at his son's wedding, the two discuss the video, what happened between them, and come to a sort of strange and final understanding without anyone else at the event — especially Cal's wife Marsha (Paula Marshall) — finding out. Not only is it strangely touching to see this, but it does something "Euphoria" rarely does: closes the loop on a major storyline.

While Cal sits at the bar and Jules orders a drink, the two "meet" again — and it doesn't hurt that Jules is wearing an absolutely incredible dress and just generally looks phenomenal. (Though her dress gives the illusion of near-nudity, you can see quite clearly that there's a skin-tone underlay that completely covers Jules's body.) When Jules asks Cal if he remembers her, he responds in pretty classic Cal fashion: "How could I forget? It's not every day you f**k one of your friend's classmates." ("And record it," Jules retorts.)

Cal tells Jules he simply recorded his sexual encounters for his own enjoyment and not for "distribution," but he ended up as a registered sex offender, which he calls a "modern day 'Scarlet Letter,'" after a taped tryst with a boy who also turned out to be underage and lying about it. "But somehow, your video never made it to the police," Cal tells Jules, somewhat wryly. "Someone must have been looking out for me," he concludes, which is perversely funny when you consider that Nate is the one who turned his dad and his tape collection in to the authorities in Season 2 (though Cal says he still talks to his son because it's "easier than being alone and angry").

Lamenting the fact that he's aged, Cal tells Jules that nobody wants to "be with an old person" (he does not say "be with") and she disagrees, only for him to say, "Perspective. I call that youthful idealism. You know, high school? Best years of our lives." He then tells Jules, "For what it's worth, you still look fantastic." Cal wolf whistles as Jules walks away and she smiles, seemingly concluding this storyline forever.

As of this writing, we don't know if Eric Dane will continue to appear in Season 3 of "Euphoria" past his son's big day; Hunter Schafer is all but guaranteed to reappear throughout. Before Dane's tragic death from ALS, we didn't know that "Euphoria" would be his swan song. Now, it's one of his posthumous releases.

Whether or not it was intended this way, this exchange between Jules and Cal, strange as it might feel, certainly seems like a fond farewell to Dane — and Cal, for that matter. It's an understatement to say that hardly anybody behaves well or normally on "Euphoria," and Cal is clearly, in Season 3, paying the price for his actual crimes that he committed in the show's first two seasons. It's also hard to watch, in some respects, because Dane is clearly suffering from limited facial movement and other ALS symptoms, but the "Grey's Anatomy" veteran was reportedly determined to work for as long as he could while dealing with his terminal and debilitating diagnosis. "I'm going to ride this till the wheels fall off," he said in an Instagram video in 2025. "Keeps me sharp. It keeps me moving forward, which is super important right now."

We might see Dane again in "Euphoria" as its long-awaited third season continues, but if this is his last appearance, that feels ... right. He sees his son get married, makes peace with a young woman from his past, and remains his profane and even offensive self while somehow simultaneously being kind and affectionate towards Jules during their reconciliation. 

"Euphoria" airs new episodes on Sundays at 9 P.M. EST on HBO and HBO Max.