4 hours Ago By Lucas Hill-Paul
Warning - this article contains major spoilers for The White Lotus season 3 finale Another season of Mike White’s critically acclaimed murder mystery drama The White Lotus is at an end following the drama’s most explosive finale yet. This year saw more wealthy guests meet a grisly conclusion at a resort in Thailand following a week of drug-fuelled mayhem, salacious family drama and revenge. After the season began with a terrifying shootout resulting in at least one body floating in the hotel pond, fans have been waiting two months to find out who would be suffering a tragic fate.
Let’s take a look at everything that happened in The White Lotus’ season three finale, Amor Fati. Season three has been building up to a potentially devastating conclusion for the Ratliffs after Timothy (played by Jason Isaacs) discovers his embezzling scheme has been exposed and a life of destitution awaits his family after their vacation. When his wife Victoria (Parker Posey) admits she’d rather die than live without their wealth, Timothy recklessly steals a gun from resort security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong).
While contemplating ending both his and his wife’s life, Gaitok manages to steal back the gun. Later, his daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) decides she doesn’t want to give up her creature comforts after all having spent the night at a Buddhist monastery. In a desperate move in the finale, Timothy finds some poisonous fruit and proposes that all but Lochlan (Sam Nivola), who’s not yet 21 and claimed he could live without money, toast the end of their vacation with piña colada, secretly blending the fruit into the cocktail.
Despite having a sudden change of heart and slapping the drink out of his son Saxon’s (Patrick Schwarzenegger) hand before they all drink a fatal dose, tragedy nearly strikes in the morning when Lochlan blends a shake with the remnants of the fruit. While Timothy sleeps in and the rest of the family head to breakfast, Lochlan is violently ill and passes out, experiencing a vision of drowning while four statues look down on him. Ironically, the one member of the family Timothy tried to spare comes the closest to death.
Thankfully, he regains consciousness in his father’s arms, claiming he “saw God” while he passed out. At the end of the episode, Timothy warns his family to prepare for things to change when they return home. Spa manager Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) made a return this season after almost striking up a business deal with Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) in season one.
She soon recognizes Tanya’s husband, Greg (Jon Gries), who is now going by ‘Gary’ and hiding out in Thailand after setting up Tanya’s murder in season two. Belinda also strikes up a romance with fellow masseuse Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul) with plans to go into business together. Unfortunately, their plan ultimately doesn’t come to fruition as Belinda walks away with a staggering $5million bribe from Greg, thanks to Belinda’s son Zion (Nicholas Duvernay) persuading her to up his original offer of $100,000.
She’s now forced to keep quiet about Tanya’s death and go into hiding in the fear that Greg might change his mind, ironically doing to Pornchai almost word-for-word what Tanya did to her in season one. While there was plenty of drama for lawyer Laurie (Carrie Coon), housewife Kate (Leslie Bibb) and TV star Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) throughout the season, their resolution was this season’s most wholesome moment of the finale. After Jaclyn stirred up tensions between the trio by sleeping with hotel staff member Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius), Laurie tries to hide her jealousy and ends up spending the night with his friend, Alexei (Julian Kostov).
However, by their last night, they’ve put their squabbles aside and come out closer than ever. Following a tearful monologue by Laurie, who confesses she’s been sad all week but doesn’t need religion to give her life meaning, they all say they love each other and enjoy their last evening together. But, the next morning, all three of them witness this season’s shocking twist when hotel owners Sritala (Lek Patravadi) and Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn) ask to get a photo with Jaclyn.
Recovering from a wild night in Bangkok with his friend Frank (Sam Rockwell), Rick Hatchett (Walton Goggins) is satisfied with having intimidated Jim, the man who allegedly killed his father. He reunites with Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) back at the White Lotus, but, at breakfast, he’s stunned when he realizes Sritala and Jim have followed him there. Jim threatens Rick to leave his hotel, but he refuses.
Later, when he sees Jim and Sritala chatting with Jaclyn and her friends, he seizes the opportunity to put down his father’s killer once and for all, impulsively grabbing the gun he revealed to Rick earlier. Rick kills him with two shots to the chest, but a grief-stricken Sritala reveals Jim was, in fact, his father. Sritala immediately sets the hotel security on Rick and a shootout ensues.
Chelsea follows Rick behind a large gong to cover from the flying bullets, but she’s tragically caught in the crossfire. As she lays dying, Rick comes over to try and help her, picking her up to carry her to safety. However, Gaitok catches up to them and is ordered by Sritala to shoot him.
Both Chelsea and Rick end up floating in the hotel pond and are subsequently confirmed to have died when we see their body bags being loaded onto the plane back to America. The White Lotus season 3 is available to stream on Max..
