Eric Dane tragically died at 53 in February following an ALS battle. Before his death, the “Grey’s Anatomy” star completed filming for his role in “Euphoria” Season 3.
His character, Cal Jacobs, wasn’t in the season premiere, but it included a photo of Dane onscreen with the message, “In remembrance of Eric Dane. 1972-2026.”
Dane makes his first posthumous appearance in the season’s second episode, “America My Dream,” which aired Sunday.
Warning: Spoilers ahead! Do not proceed unless you’ve watched “Euphoria” Season 3’s second episode, “America My Dream.”
Cal shows up about halfway through the episode, visiting his son, Nate (Jacob Elordi). Father and son chat in Nate’s kitchen, mostly friendly, with little of the explosive tension that they had in the show’s first two seasons. Cal is sitting down for most of his screen time.
When he arrives at Nate’s house, he seems to be in high spirits (or tipsy), singing a song. In Nate’s kitchen, Cal tells Nate that he is attending SLA meetings, which is “Sex and Love Addicts.”
The season premiere revealed that Nate’s fiancée, Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), is trying to sell photos of herself on OnlyFans to raise $50K for a floral arrangement at their wedding.
Cal makes a concerned comment about Cassie’s photos to Nate. When Nate waves it off, Cal expresses worry that Nate might be having “financial issues.” Nate has taken over Cal’s construction business, and the show implied that he’s struggling, but he doesn’t reply to Cal.
As Nate cooks, Cal cautions his son about “chasing pleasure” instead of being “grateful to what I had at home,” comparing himself to what Cassie is doing. Nate dismisses the comparison, and tells Cal, “you’re gay. You’re in denial, and it came out in very weird ways.”
Cal replies, “I’m not gay, I was a hedonist.”
Overall, Cal and Nate seem to be at ease with each other.
This is a wild change from their volatile relationship in Seasons 1 and 2. The shift continues Season 3’s trend of making Nate feel so different, it’s prompting fans to say that he had a “lobotomy.”
In the first two seasons of “Euphoria,” Cal was tough on Nate, criticizing his football skills and encouraging his aggression. Although he was married to Nate’s mom and projected the image of being a wealthy family man, Cal often went to hotels to have sex with young men and women, including Nate’s trans classmate, Jules (Hunter Schafer). He taped his encounters.
Nate found Cal’s sex tapes at a young age, which messed with his idea of sex and masculinity. It shaped Nate’s anger issues, and his borderline psycho behavior.
At the end of Season 1, Nate and Cal got into a physical fight. In Season 2, Cal told Nate that he was his biggest regret. To protect Cal’s secrets, Nate threatened his ex-girlfriend, Maddy (Alexa Demie), with a gun in Season 2, after she stole one of Cal’s sex tapes. Season 2 ended with Nate calling the cops on Cal (the show implied that there were minors in the sex tapes with him).
Season 3 is set five years after the events of Season 2. It’s not made clear how Nate and Cal got from having an explosively hostile relationship to casually hanging out in Nate’s kitchen. Their first Season 3 scenes also didn’t mention Nate calling the cops on Cal.
Dane announced his ALS diagnosis in April 2025. He passed away just short of a year later, on February 19, 2026.
ALS “is a nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord,” leading to “loss of muscle control” that progresses over time, according to the Mayo Clinic. It has no cure.
“I feel fortunate that I am able to continue working and am looking forward to returning to the set of Euphoria next week,” Dane told People in April 2025.
In June, Dane told Access Hollywood that it was “great to be back” on set after the show’s four-year hiatus, since Season 2 aired in 2022.
In a recent interview, creator Sam Levinson told Extra that Dane told him about the diagnosis before they began shooting.
“We had a lot of conversations about just life and what that meant. I loved him very deeply, and I said, ‘Eric, whatever shape you show up in, we’re gonna make it work. I have faith that it’s all gonna work.’”
Levinson added that when Dane came to set, he had “a slight slur in his voice,” due to his illness.
In response, Levinson recalled, “I said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll just put, like, five beer bottles in front of you and you’ve been drinking all night.’ He was like, ‘Perfect, perfect.’ And his character, it was such a gift.”
“Euphoria” has not announced how many Season 3 episodes Dane will be in, but footage from the trailer shows Cal at Nate and Cassie’s wedding, which is the third episode.
Dane and actress Rebecca Gayheart called off their divorce in March 2025, one month before he announced his ALS diagnosis.The former couple wed in 2004 and had daughters Billie, 15, and Georgia, 14.
Elordi has not spoken publicly about his TV dad’s death, but one month prior to it, he was seen posing for photos and chatting with Dane’s daughters at the Hollywood premiere of his movie “Wuthering Heights.”
Dane is the third behind the scenes tragedy for “Euphoria.” Cast member Angus Cloud, who played Fez, overdosed in 2023 at age 25, and exec producer Kevin Turen died in November 2023 at age 44 from a cardiac emergency while driving.
The season premiere ended with an “in memoriam” tribute to all three of them.
“Euphoria” Season 3 airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
