What next for ‘The White Lotus’ after its tragic season three ending?

Harsh truths, heartbreaking deaths and all-out gunfire brought the curtain down on yet another action-packed stay at a White Lotus resort.

Mike White wrapped up the most explosive season yet with his trademark feints, misdirections and sly sleights of hand. Just like most of the guests, we depart the shores of Koh Samui with some lessons learned, but even more still to be learned further down the road.

Once the internet recovered from the shock of the new theme song and the endless meme machine that is Parker Posey’s South Carolina accent, The White Lotus season three slowly blossomed into one of White’s finest achievements. Tautly plotted yet given the space to let these characters breathe and reveal their complexities and contradictions, it’s less a whodunnit and more a “please don’t let them die”. Sadly, the one character anyone with a soul was rooting for is the one who left Thailand in a body bag.

How did The White Lotus season 3 end?

Stay gold, Chelsea, stay gold. White has written some terrific characters over the three seasons, but none that can touch the pure, gorgeous light of Aimee Lou Wood’s eternal optimist. Tragically, her necklace (referencing Johnny’s dying words from The Outsiders) turned out to be the prophecy many feared. “Whatever happens to you happens to me,” she told Rick (Walton Goggins) at their final breakfast.

Following Rick’s wild night in Bangkok, he returned to Koh Samui with a newfound sense of peace and closure, having confronted Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), the man who killed his father. He reunited with Chelsea reformed and rejuvenated, telling her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. That turned out to be all too sadly accurate.

As Rick and Chelsea spoke, Jim and his wife Sritala (Lek Patravadi) also arrived back at the hotel (which they also own). Jim revealed a few home truths to Rick about his parents, telling him his father was no saint and his mother was a slut and a liar. Jim also showed off his sidearm, lest Rick decide to do anything about it. Foolishly, Rick did decide to do something about it, killing Jim (who turned out to be his dad after all). Chelsea got killed in the ensuing shootout (along with Sritala’s bodyguards) before Gaitok eventually shot Rick in the back, killing him. Gaitok’s actions get him the girl (Mook, played by BLACKPINK‘s Lisa) and the job he coveted, but at what cost?

Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Lochlan (Sam Nivola) got back to The White Lotus after their night at the Buddhist temple, with Piper having learned, much to her mother’s endless delight and father’s crushing disappointment, that she can’t live without the riches she’s accustomed to. Lochlan, however, learned the exact opposite about himself. Confronted by his family’s materialism, Tim (Jason Isaacs) turned to Chekhov’s fruit (or Chekhov’s blender) and decides to end their holiday with murder/suicide via poisoned-fruit piña colada. Only Lochlan is deemed fit to live, forced to settle for a Coke. At the last minute, Tim comes to his senses.

The following morning, Lochlan wakes first and decides to make one of his brother Saxon’s (Patrick Schwarzenegger) famous smoothies, not realising what his father has left in the bottom of the blender. He was discovered dying by the pool by his father, only to pull through at the last moment. They finally got their phones back on the boat home and discovered what Tim has been hiding all week: they’re broke and he’s probably going to jail.

Kate (Leslie Bibb), Laurie (Carrie Coon) and Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) mended their differences, Laurie finally transcending all the petty jealousies that were driving them apart and realising that their friendship was the religion she’d been seeking in work and love and the one thing that gave her life meaning. It was a truly wonderful piece of acting from the peerless Carrie Coon.

Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) and Zion (Nicholas Duvernay), meanwhile, decided to try and milk Greg (Jon Gries) for all he’s worth, negotiating him up from $100k to $5m. It worked and they left Koh Samui as millionaires, Belinda telling Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul) that her circumstances have changed and they can’t open a spa together. How his disappointment mirrored her own from season one was totally lost on Belinda.

Greg’s final wink, delivered as much to us as to Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon), suggests that we haven’t seen the last of him.

What is The White Lotus season 3’s legacy?

In the end, White stayed true to the Buddhist principles taught by Luang Por Teera (Suthichai Yoon). Anyone seeking violence or attainment lost it all. “Sometimes we wake with anxiety,” Por Teera says over the opening scenes. “An edgy energy. What will happen today? What is in store for me? So many questions. We want resolution. Solid earth under our feet. So we take life into our own hands. We take action. Our solutions are temporary. They are a quick fix. They create more anxiety. More suffering. There is no resolution to life’s questions. It is easier to be patient once we finally accept there is no resolution.”

The White Lotus’ legacy beyond its finale has been in its meme-worthiness, ever since Murray Bartlett shat in a suitcase and Jennifer Coolidge uttered the immortal words “These gays, they’re trying to kill me.” If anything from season three is going to live on, it’s Parker Posey’s glorious delivery, up there with Matt Berry in What We Do In The Shadows and Catherine O’Hara in Schitt’s Creek for finding the craziest way to say a line. Signing up now for our “Charles Manson wrote books” t-shirt.

What next for The White Lotus?

The excitement ahead of a new season is always mostly about the location and the new cast of characters. It seems a given that Belinda and Greg will be back, hopefully with Charlotte Le Bon’s wonderfully droll Chloe in tow. Beyond that, it’s notable that we still haven’t seen White’s Enlightened star Laura Dern at a White Lotus hotel.

As for the location, White suggested he wants to get away from the oceanfront, while HBO’s Francesca Orsi mentioned that Europe is a likely destination. When the season three cast were quizzed about what might be in store, Aimee Lou Wood said she thought a ski resort would be an interesting change of pace, which could make for a Mike White take on Force Majeure-esque mayhem. That said, White has been very vocal about his dislike for the cold and his desire to hit every continent with the show, so Australia or Morocco have also been mooted as possible destinations.

What is for sure is that Emmy-winning composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer won’t be along for the ride. The man behind one of the most unlikely floor-fillers has stepped away from the show, citing his frequent “hysterical” battles with producers over the music for the show.

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