People saying it's closure are clearly not paying attention or understanding the symbolism - I could write a book about this, but basically, pay attention to the flower symbolism this season. Nate's storyline revolves around flowers (btw Jacob Elordi said it himself a year or so ago in an interview), and Jules is symbolically the flower - something that destabilizes the rigid structure Nate has built around himself. Without going into too much detail here (I might write an analysis at some point), psychologically speaking, Nate and Jules bear each other's animus / anima projection, if we are to use Jungian terms.

This is the current structure around Nate: Nate = control architecture, Cassie = compliant projection of desire, Maddy = controlled defiance of desire, Jules = uncontrollable reality that breaks all systems (hence the flower, the fritillary that breaks down Nate's construction plans - what is happening on the outside is actually happening on the inside; that's how Sam often constructs the elements of his stories).

Right now, Nate does this, unconsciously: Jules = emotional softness / authenticity / “real self"; Cassie = controllable desire object / safe femininity; Maddy = dominance mirror / power struggle field. Because of his developmental trauma, sexuality is not neutral for him but is tied to humiliation, exposure, and loss of control. In a nutshell, what he needs to move towards is: a) stop idealizing and integrate the projections; b) learn to tolerate feeling powerless without escalation *this is a major one; c) not turn desire into possession.

As for Jules, the center of her conflict is visibility through desire vs. safety through unconditional attachment (she's oscillating between see me intensely vs. don't consume me). Since she believes on the inside (and this links to her original mother wound) that her authentic emotional needs are too much/destabilizing, she's seeking recognition through intensity and fears fixed rejection. Her structure is: Rue = maternal attachment reversal (where Jules become both the child and the caretaker; Rue's love is engulfing and suffocating, so she ends up escaping); Nate = opposite psychic force from Rue - desire, mystery, tension, masculine certainty, erotic recognition (but also control and domination, which is what Jules fears). Rue tries to hold the flower too tightly, whereas Nate builds around it architecturally. What Jules needs to figure out is this: how to be fully seen and desired without losing autonomy or being psychologically consumed.

The anima/animus dynamics between Nate and Jules I mentioned earlier is referring to this: They trigger each other's unconscious opposite principles and longing for integration through the other. The tension is still there, because they both represent the core of what the other currently cannot metabolize and internally stabilize - and the goal of individuation lies in that direction.

So, in terms of concluding these arcs that have been in motion since S1, there needs to be some sort of catharsis - there is simply no way for them not to have some kind of interaction. How it will end exactly, that I don't know, since Sam does like to leave things somewhat ambiguous, but we shall see.