Euphoria: The 10 Worst Things Nate Has Done So Far

Nate Jacobs is not just one of the most terrifying and morally corrupt characters on HBO’s Euphoria; he is one of the scariest antagonists on all of television. Extremely cunning, Nate uses people to get what he wants, which is absolute control over others.

Euphoria, which focuses on the lives of high-school students dealing with drug abuse, relationships and trauma, really capitalizes off the fact a character like Nate, although frightening to watch, is still someone who could exist in the world. And that’s bone-chilling considering all the terrible things he’s done on the show so far.

Mate Manipulated Maddy Into Getting Back Together With Him

Although it appears in the second season that Nate isn’t so sure about his future with Maddy, one of Euphoria‘s most stylish main characters, in the first season he did anything to try to control her and keep her as his alone. This is why, even though he says he would never hurt her and would always protect her, he still fights with her and does terrible things to preserve their relationship.

He lies to her constantly, especially after assaulting her, and he convinces her that what he did will never happen again. Maddy, of course, isn’t entirely innocent, but he knows that he’s lying when he says that, which makes it even more difficult to watch when Maddy agrees to be with him again.

Nate Convinced McKay That Cassie Didn’t Actually Like Him

Nate always says crass things, especially around the hyper-masculine jock crowd that he spends time with, but when it comes to McKay and Cassie, it’s clear that he wants to make McKay feel insecure. At the beginning of season 1, he convinces McKay that Cassie only wants him for sex.

Not only does this one conversation spark the season long tension between the couple, but it’s the reason McKay believes everything Cassie does is hypersexual. With this evil seed of an idea, Nate ruined this relationship from it’s inception. It also potentially suggests that he wanted Cassie to himself all along.

Nate Gaslit Cassie And Went Back To Maddy

Season 2 starts off with Cassie and Nate hooking up, which results in her falling in love with him and Nate feeling potentially similarly, but in a more possessive way. After this night, Cassie starts to dress for his attention, but to no avail because he is too cowardly to tell Maddy that he hooked up with her best friend.

All this is to say, he has basically driven Cassie to have a total meltdown because she doesn’t know how he really feels and he messes with her feelings constantly. Not to mention, he continues to hook up with Cassie at night while ignoring her all day at school.

Nate Daydreamed About Killing People For Maddie

In the first season, one of the cold opens explained Nate’s whole mentality when it came to his relationship to Maddy, which is unhealthy. Not only does he only like her because of her external feminine qualities, but he also constantly likes to think about how he would specifically kill people that tried to hurt her.

The ironic thing about this is that now he doesn’t really care that much about Maddy. It’s almost as if the violence is more exciting to him than the idea of being in a loving and protective relationship. There are many quotes about Nate and Maddy being perfect for each other, but the truth is that they make each other worse.

NAte Made A Grindr Profile To Stalk His Dad’s Hookups

Of course, Nate connected to Jules through the dating app that his father used, but it appears as if he owned this account before ever searching her out, specifically. This is obviously a little bit of speculation, but it wouldn’t be out of Nate’s wheelhouse to stalk his father’s lovers.

Not to mention, the hotel that he meets Maddy at in season 1 is the same one that his dad uses for his hook ups, which is definitely not a coincidence. Nate analyzed those rooms and is, in a strange way, trying to be a voyeur to his dad’s secret sex life.

Nate Watched Every One Of His Dad’s Sex Tapes

Most kids, if they found explicit videos of their parents would look away and hide it or tell their parent about it immediately. Nate, being the emotionally distant person he is, watched all of the tapes, learned how his dad stored them based on color coordination and continued to do so for his prime years of development. In fact, Euphoria needs to revisit the plot point of Nate’s sexuality and aversion to sexuality in season one.

This is not only sick and twisted, but it shows just how he has pent up so much hatred over the years for his father. In a weird way, he likes that he has the blackmail even if it hurts him to know about it. The same goes for finding the tape with Jules because, as Fezco even pointed out, it appears that some of Nate’s anger comes from the fact that he won’t admit to himself that he likes Jules.

Nate Intentionally Took Advantage Of Cassie When She Was Vulnerable

Cassie wasn’t thinking about Nate at all when he ran into her at the gas station while she was a little buzzed. Of course that doesn’t mean he fully took advantage of her, but he openly flirted with her and invited her into his car.

Cassie knew it was wrong, but because Nate is such a good manipulator, he got her to do exactly what he wanted by giving her loving attention, which is one of the only things she craves. In a way, his attempt and success with hooking up with Cassie was a challenge to himself and made him feel superior to McKay and his ex, Maddy, who cheated on him many times.

Nate Assaulted Maddy

Nate is a violent person, but what makes him so scary is that he holds it in so well the majority of the time. When he actually bursts out with anger, he is impossible to predict because he is strong enough to kill almost anyone with his bare hands and he despises most people.

When he assaulted Maddy at the carnival he didn’t care about her feelings because he knew that she loved him so much that she wouldn’t tell anyone what he did. He wanted to test the hold he had on her and his sadistic plan worked until she passed out at school the next day.

Nate Beat Tyler Almost To Death

When Maddy lied to Nate and told him that she was blackout when she had sex with Tyler in the pool at McKay’s party, he went ballistic and immediately made his move to scare Tyler.

Not only did Nate beat Tyler up, but he also took a shower at Tyler’s apartment to clean the blood off of himself, took Tyler’s clean clothes and he threatened to go to the police. With this leverage, Nate got complete control over Tyler and made him confess to the crime of strangling Maddy. Not to mention, the name on his Tinder profile that he used to stalk Jules is Tyler.

Nate Blackmailed Jules

As previously mentioned, one of the worst things Nate has done on Euphoria, one of the best teen dramas according to Reddit, is blackmail Jules with the sex tape of her and his father. He has evil motives, but his conversations with Jules on the dating app and the way that he can’t get her out of his mind prove otherwise.

He’s obviously conflicted because he does like Jules, but he despises masculine qualities and anything associated with his father. He hurts Jules with this blackmail because that’s the only way he knows how to deal with people that he doesn’t understand. He hurts them.