Euphoria Star Jacob Elordi Is Just As Confused About Nate’s Missing Brother As You Are

The Jacobs family has a lot of secrets on Euphoria, but since Season 1, there’s been one that’s gone unaddressed. In the pilot episode, there’s a brief glimpse of a family photo on the wall in their house that includes not only Nate (Jacob Elordi) and his older brother Aaron (Zak Steiner), but a mysterious third brother who still hasn’t been seen, let alone mentioned.

In 2019, Elordi weighed in on his character’s missing younger brother during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. And it turns out, he’s just as confused as fans. "We haven’t seen him. I don’t know where he went. I have no idea," the actor said. In fact, he said he had questions about the photo on set but that they went unanswered. "I was like, 'You do realize that there’s a different child in this picture? And everyone just didn’t really say anything. I don’t know.”

It wasn’t a production error, though. In Episode 4 of Season 2, the photo is seen again, confirming that it wasn’t just an overlooked detail. After melting down in front of his family about his sexuality and extramarital affairs, Cal (Eric Dane) picks up the family portrait as he’s leaving the house and decides to take it with him. The third brother is still there.

This has renewed speculation about who the brother is and what happened to him. Viewers’ theories have run the gamut, though they’re largely tragic. Some think Nate, being the domineering and violent person that he his, bullied his brother to the point that he died by suicide. Others have suggested the child is LGBTQ+ and that the family disowned him, or that he was the boy Jules saw in the psych ward she was admitted to as a kid. And others have floated the possibility that the brother simply left the family because of Nate and Cal’s toxic behavior (which, if true, good for him).

Redditors have also postulated that the brother is someone we’ve already met on the show, like Ethan. However, the most popular theory is undoubtedly that the young boy in the photo is Ashtray (Javon "Wanna" Walton). In the opening sequence of Season 2, Rue narrates the story of Fezco’s childhood, and we see the first meeting between him and a toddler-age Ashtray. The boy in the Jacobs photo does look a little like Ashtray when we see him as a young child. However, the presumed age of the boy in the photo and Ashtray don’t necessarily align. We’ve also never heard so much as a hint that Nate’s mom Marsha (Paula Marshall) has used drugs, so her having to use her young son as collateral with Ashtray’s grandma doesn’t really make sense.

Wherever and whoever the third Jacobs brother is, it’s clear now that Euphoria is leaving the mystery open intentionally.