Who’s Ready to Talk About the Chaotic White Lotus Finale?!

This story contains major spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “The White Lotus.”

Did you have that on your bingo card?

Creator Mike White upped the ante in the finale of the third season of his satire The White Lotus. All season long, fans had speculated on who was behind the gunshots that we heard in the season premiere. It turned out the “who” was plural.

The chaos ensnared Rick, the vengeful American played by Walton Goggins, hotel owner Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), Hollinger’s two body guards, Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), Rick’s sweet British girlfriend, and violence-averse security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong).

The body count would have been even higher had Tim Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) followed through with his plan for a murder-suicide rather than confess to his family that he had lost their fortune. 

I admit I was one of the viewers who found that this season dragged at first compared to previous years, but White came up with a firecracker of a finale. Here are eight standout talking points from the conclusion of one of television’s most talked-about shows.

1. I *am* your father

It seemed obvious to many viewers that Jim Hollinger, owner of the Thai outpost of the White Lotus luxury hotel with his wife Sritala (Patravadi Mejudhon), was Rick’s father rather than the killer of Rick’s father, as his mother had told him. Alas, Rick didn’t learn the truth until after it was too late.

Hollinger might not have been a murderer, but he sure seemed like an asshole: at breakfast, Hollinger taunted Rick, calling his mother a drunk, a slut and liar, and sneering “You’re gonna try to kill me now?” while showing Rick the gun hidden under his jacket.

Rick, simmering with fury, at least tried to avert violence by seeking out Amrita, the resort therapist, but she was too busy to see him right away. As he sat on a bench waiting for her, Rick spotted the Hollingers taking photos with TV star Jaclyn Lemon (Michelle Monaghan). He walked over and grabbed Jim’s gun, shot and killed him. Hollinger’s two bodyguards then opened fire on Rick. He took both of them out, but not before one of them killed Chelsea (Lou Wood). Finally, Gaitok (Thapthimthong) shot and killed Rick at Sritala’s behest.

2. Together forever, after all

One of the most puzzling parts of the season was Chelsea’s utter devotion to Rick, who spent much of the season being grumpy and uncommunicative.
Tragically, she and Rick finally seemed to be on the same page when he returned after his quest for revenge against Hollinger in Bangkok. 
Just before the fateful confrontation with Hollinger at the breakfast buffet, Rick agreed with her statement that they were going to be together forever. “That’s the plan,” he told Chelsea, smiling.

But Chelsea was right about bad luck coming in threes. She survived an armed robbery and a cobra bite, but not her boyfriend’s vengeance. He tearfully repeated that they’d be together forever as he carried her body away from the scene of the shooting and, inasmuch as they both ended up floating dead in the lagoon, their body bags later wheeled to a plane together, it came true. When Rick’s body surfaced, face up, he appeared to be smiling, finally free.

3. The main suspect survives

Greg, a.k.a. Gary (Jon Gries), the widower of our beloved Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge)—and one of the bald white expats his girlfriend Chloé (Charlotte Le Bon) jokingly dubbed LBHs or losers back home—was high on the list of suspects for who might kill this season. He was essentially a fugitive, hiding out in Thailand under an alias rather than answer questions about Tanya’s death at the White Lotus Sicily. Tanya died accidentally, but only after shooting three men Greg had apparently hired to kill her so he could inherit her $500-million fortune.

When Belinda, the massage therapist Tanya befriended in Hawaii, recognized Gary as Greg it seemed certain she would be next on his hit list. Instead he offered her money to keep his secret, which she declined—at least until her son Zion (Nicholas Duvernay) stepped in.

4. Et tu Belinda

The corrupting influence of money has been one of the show’s major themes from the get-go. Season 3 showed that no one is immune, even a seemingly incorruptible soul like Belinda (Natasha Rothwell). At first, she turned down Greg’s bribe, calling it “blood money.” She changed her tune after Zion convinced her they could get more out of him. Greg eventually ponied up $5 million, enough for Belinda to open the spa that Tanya had offered to invest in before reneging in Hawaii.

Belinda promptly did the same to her colleague and lover Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul): backing out of their plan to open a spa together, leaving Pornchai sadly waving goodbye from the beach as a giddy Belinda sped away in a boat,  just like Belinda had waved goodbye when Tanya left her behind.

As for Greg, we last saw him holding court at his mansion, winking at Chloé, unscathed.

5. Poor but alive

The male ego is a fragile thing in The White Lotus. To finance guy Tim Ratliff, killing himself and his family seemed like a better option than admitting he was being investigated by the FBI and about to lose his business and all his money.
His wife Victoria (Parkey Posey) had told him she wasn’t meant to live “an uncomfortable life”; son Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) said that his identity was tied up in his work and his dad’s company; and daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) bailed on her plan to spend a year in a Buddhist monastery because she couldn’t hack the tiny bedroom and the food: “It was vegetarian… but you could tell it wasn’t organic.”

Only younger son Lochlan (Sam Nivola) seemed unfazed by the idea of going without, which seemed to be why Tim spared him when he doled out piña coladas blended with poisonous seeds from the fruit of the pong-pong tree. He had second thoughts and dumped the drinks (“the coconut milk is off!”) but ironically Lochlan consumed the seeds the next morning, unwittingly using the tainted blender to mix up a protein shake. He vomited, passed out and appeared to die by the pool. But he woke up in the arms of his crying father, convinced he had seen God.

On the boat ride to the airport, as everyone got their phones back, Tim confessed (sort of), telling the family that things were about to change, but they’d get through it because they were “a strong family.”

6. Best frenemies

The catty, high school-like sniping between 40-something friends Jaclyn, Kate (Leslie Bibb) and Laurie (Carrie Coon) was one of the more tedious parts of the season for me. Their passive-aggressive shade throwing culminated in a falling out over hunky resort employee Valentin (Arnas Federavicius), who flirted with Laurie but slept with Jaclyn. But by breakfast on the last day, all was forgiven, with the women vowing their love for each other as they had upon arrival. They appeared to be even closer after surviving the shooting together—although my guess is they’ll be trash-talking each other again before too long.

7. A killer instinct after all

Gaitok was one of the more frustrating characters of the season. The security guard’s dopey friendliness made him endearing but almost cartoonishly bad at his job: failing to stop an armed robbery of the resort’s high-end jewellery store, for instance. Part of the problem was that he only had eyes for fellow employee Mook (Lalisa Manobal, a.k.a. Lisa of Blackpink), who valued him only insofar as he was ambitious for advancement. Their first date went south fast after Gaitok admitted he wasn’t cut out for a promotion to bodyguard because he didn’t like hurting people. Gaitok was on the verge of quitting altogether rather than rat out Valentin and his Russian expat friends, whom Gaitok had recognized as the ones who committed the robbery. He did, however, know how to handle a gun so, when Sritala ordered him to shoot Rick, he got the job done, however reluctantly. He got the promotion and the girl. Both crime and violence paid.

8. The curious case of the disappearing manager

Murray Bartlett set the bar sky high as hotel manager Armond in Season 1. Not only was he a key combatant in his entertaining feud with spoiled guest Shane Patton (Jake Lacy), he was that season’s victim after a petty act of vengeance in Shane’s room had a deadly outcome. Although she was no match for Armond, Season 2 manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) was also an active part of the plot. But this season, Christian Friedel, an accomplished actor (and singer) known for playing the Nazi commandant in The Zone of Interest didn’t have much to do besides be obsequious in his brief appearances. Hopes that he’d get more to do in the finale were for naught, although when he gathered the Hollingers and Jaclyn for a photo shoot near where Rick was sitting, he inadvertently became the catalyst of the ensuing chaos.