Well, that was a bloodbath. We now know who died during HBO’s feature-length finale of The White Lotus season 3—all five of them.
Series creator Mike White ultimately axed several parties from the luxury hotel’s Thailand outpost. Both Walton Goggins’ Rick and Aimee Lee Wood’s Chelsea died in a shootout that also wiped out White Lotus Thailand owner Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn) and his henchmen. First, Rick kills Jim in what he believes to be retribution for his own father’s murder. But it’s revealed moments later that Jim was his father all along. Rick kills both of Jim’s bodyguards, only to discover that a bullet from one of them has claimed Chelsea’s life. Finally, hotel security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) finally puts Rick out of his perpetual misery.
The episode’s first suggested death is a fakeout involving another father-son duo. Sam Nivola’s Lochlan appears to be inadvertently poisoned at the hands of Jason Isaacs’s Timothy, after Timothy attempts a murder-suicide of everyone in his family but Lochlan. But it is only a near death experience. After it, Lochlan tells his father: “I think I just saw God.”
Ahead of the The White Lotus season 3 finale, White Lotus producer David Bernad said that the ending was so top-secret that “crazy fake endings” were passed around the set. “We didn’t distribute the real last script,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Some of the actors were apparently so disturbed by the season’s outcome that they seemingly blocked it from their memories. “I forgot who died,” Posey told the outlet. “It was so stressful when I read it. The dark stuff, I blazed through.” Charlotte Le Bon, who plays Chloe, offered a juicier tease on what was to come: “People are going to hate Mike White.”
But the series creator saw his latest slaying differently. “My hope is that it’ll feel like a cathartic sad or a satisfying sad and not a ‘What the fuck?’ sad,” White told THR, “but people are going to have a million different opinions. You just hope you stick the landing.” And return for another stay when season 4 The White Lotus takes off.
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