Snake Bite: ‘Euphoria’ Season 3, Episode 7 Recap (‘Rain or Shine’)
For this week’s recap, here’s what we thought about “Rain or Shine,” which broadcast on Sunday, May 24, 2026. Watch out for spoilers ahead.
Ali is still doing good for the world
It’s been a while since we’ve seen Ali Muhammad, Rue’s gravel-voiced and perennially wise Narcotics Anonymous sponsor. The episode opens in a flashback to his deteriorating family life. Late nights smoking crack and meeting with a sex worker in a no-tell motel give way to screaming matches with his wife. Then he ends up in the hospital, and eventually on the path of recovery — a painful journey marked by overdose deaths and other tragic outcomes of young women he tries to help, whose names he keeps in a small journal.
Looking for counsel, Rue turns to Ali and tells him about the burning Joshua tree that ended last week’s episode—and about a dangerous mission she’s been ordered to embark on as part of Alamo’s attempt to take revenge on Laurie. Once all is said and done, she says she plans to run off to Texas to the Christian homestead that she visits in the season premiere. Ali is cool-headed, urging her to take her own spiritual messages to heart: “Do you want to undo the evil you’ve done? Start by changing yourself.” But he also points out that Moses never reached the Promised Land, and Rue certainly isn’t out of the wilderness yet.
Darkness descends for Cassie and Maddy
On “Stand Still and See” last week, Cassie got a package in the mail with one of Nate’s fingers in it. It’s terrible timing, because she also deleted her OnlyFans in that same episode. And now she has to get back to work to pony up the cash to pay off Naz, the Armenian loanshark who has been tormenting Cassie’s hubby all season. The breakout role that Cassie landed on “LA Nights” two episodes ago also suddenly falls through, because a male executive at the studio refuses to allow the show to hire a sex worker.
By now, Maddy is settling comfortably into the role of a hardened pimp: Infuriated over the deleted OnlyFans account (and short on cash herself because she lost her assistant job), Maddy slaps Cassie across the face and orders her to “get to work.” Soon enough, Cassie invites over a hip young star on “LA Nights.” After they have sex, she secretly hijacks his phone and sends a post on his account to juice her new social media profile.
Naz, the loanshark, settles his debts
Meanwhile, Nate has been abducted by Naz. A purveyor of funeral homes in addition to loansharking, Naz could very well be the most sinister villain of this whole season, calmly smoking a cigarette and sipping Arabic coffee from a tiny demitasse while Nate begs for his life.
Naz has a henchman measure Nate’s height, and then they throw him into a coffin and bury him underground — on the very same development plot where Nate was supposed to launch his failed real estate venture. The only thing keeping Nate alive is a PVC air tube, but then a rattlesnake creeps through it.
Naz also takes Cassie hostage and calls Maddy, threatening irreparable harm to her most important client if Nate’s debts aren’t repaid pronto. Maddy turns to Alamo for help, and he makes her dress up for him and join him in a hot tub. Betraying Rue, she spills the beans about Rue’s work with the DEA to gain leverage and insists that paying off Cassie and Nate’s debts will be worth it to Alamo because Cassie is a “money tree.”
In an unexpected twist, Alamo kills Naz, shooting him with a gold-plated revolver in a tense scene that could’ve come straight from a Spaghetti Western. They dig Nate out of his underground tomb, only to find him dead from a snake bite. Maddy and Cassie are now in debt to Alamo, and Maddy is genuinely freaked out for the first time this entire season. After ruthlessly exploiting other women to get ahead, Maddy is now about to be used herself.
The plot thickens with Alamo and Laurie
Over at Alamo Brown’s Wild West bad-guy headquarters, Alamo sends the former manager of the Silver Slipper — still recovering from a grievous injury sustained during the recent robbery — on a mission south of the border to smuggle a huge shipment of fentanyl. He’s working alongside a redneck from Laurie’s crew, and the DEA is listening along.
Meanwhile, Rue infiltrates Laurie’s camp as part of an elaborate plot — one that’s honestly getting pretty hard to keep track of. It’s not clear whether Alamo and Laurie are even still at war, or what types of alliances there are. But Rue is soon visited by another image of flames, and this time it’s a bonfire in the desert where Laurie’s neo-Nazi pals dance around and fire assault rifles into the air.
Now working as basically a triple agent, Rue has to convince these maniacs that they can trust her. Unconvinced, they terrorize her, cutting her hand open and hatching a plot to kill her. In an act of bravery, Rue’s old friend Faye tries to free her. But the duo’s shaky alliance falls apart over missing cash, leading to a nail-biting cliffhanger of an episode ender, with Rue once again on the brink of certain doom.
For more recaps, takes, and recs, check out our “Euphoria” watch guide.
