Euphoria star reveals last-minute changes to season 2 finale’s shock death

Warning: spoilers for Euphoria season 2 ahead!

While we had prepared ourselves for an explosive end to Euphoria season 2, we were still shocked when the show’s youngest – and most violent – character was killed in a shootout with a team of SWAT officers. However, it turns out that Ashtray did not die in the finale’s original script, and it was actually his “brother” Fezco (Angus Cloud) who was struck down in the police raid.

“Ashtray wasn’t supposed to get shot,” actor Javon Walton, who plays the teenage drug dealer, explained to Variety. “He wasn’t supposed to get shot! It was Fez that was supposed to get shot at first, which is crazy. Then, like a day before, they changed the storyline to me getting shot.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Walton revealed that showrunner Sam Levinson had initially penned dialogue for Ash in the last episode. He added that he cut the lines when he realized he wanted to use the youngster’s trademark “mystery” to make the scene more impactful.

“If I could write for Ashtray… it would be some like super gangster shit,” the 15-year-old joked. “Like when he was hitting Cal in the head, it would just be some super G stuff the whole time. [In the finale], I don’t think there’s much he could say. ‘I’m not gonna leave you like this.’ That kind of stuff. Telling [Fezco] he’s sorry for what he’s about to do.

“I really just was following Sam’s vision. I just wanted to follow that because that’s what he thought was best. And I thought it worked as well.”

Given the brutality of the sequence, it’s clear why Levinson kept the camera on Fez’s face while the armed cops swarmed in on Ash and fired their fatal shots. But you know what they say when it comes to deaths in movies and television shows… if you didn’t see a body, then there’s a chance that character may still be alive. Walton is hopeful the theory applies to Ash.

“If there’s somebody who could take a bullet in the show, it’s Ashtray,” he said. “Ashtray is one badass kid. He’s not playing around. I believe he has a shot about being around for season 3.”

We’ll have to wait and see whether or not he shows up in the next installment. We’re thinking not, but hey, stranger things have happened. In the meantime, check out the 100 best TV shows of all time.