SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the Season 3 finale of HBOโs The White Lotus.
It seems the Season 3 finale of The White Lotus has left its cast just as shell-shocked as the audience (and the guests at the ill-fated Thai resort).
โItโs really weird, and it looked exactly how it felt [to shoot], which was really strange,โ a stunned Aimee Lou Wood told attendees at a discussion with her cast mates following a finale screening at the Four Seasons resort in Westlake Village, California on Sunday night. โItโs a lot, and itโs so clever, because at the end you want to hold the joy of the triumphโฆbut youโre still there like โehhh.โ It might just make you sit in that really achy place.โ
Woodโs character Chelsea met her demise during the 90-minute finale, as did Walton Gogginsโ Rick, along with several other key cast members.
Reflecting on the carnage and its aftermath, Wood also said: โDo you know what I loved about that last episode is that I feel likeโฆthere was a lot of hope in it. There was a lot of hope in it, and there was a lot of softnessโฆI found it incredibly uncynical.โ
Rightfully so, the cast was having a difficult time digesting the events that unfold in the final moments for these characters at The White Lotus Thailand, given it was the first time any of them had screened the finished episode as well.
โI donโt know how weโre supposed to talk about any of this,โ joked Nicholas Duvernay, whose character Zion and mom Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) left the resort on perhaps the best terms of anyone. โWe need some time to unpack that. Thereโs a lot to unpack there โ 90 minutes of just chaos.โ
Wood and Duvernay were joined at Sundayโs panel by Charlotte Le Bon, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sam Nivola, Sarah Catherine Hook, Jason Isaacs, Jon Gries, Leslie Bibb, and Tayme Thapthimthong. As difficult as it might have been, they did their best to make sense of the madness.
While everyone in the Ratliff family made it out alive, even after a near death experience for Lachlan thanks to a Lorazepam-induced murder-suicide plot gone wrong by dear old dad Timothy (Isaacs), they certainly arenโt leaving the resort on good terms, especially given what their about to find out about the patriarch.
Audiences will have to fill in the blanks about what happens to the family once they learn of Timothyโs money laundering scheme, but itโs safe to say that their money is gone and their lives are about to be much, much different. For better or worse? Well, that depends on who you ask.
โIronically, of all the characters that Mike throws into this mix, [Timothyโs] the one that actually, genuinely finds real spiritual enlightenment,โ Isaacs noted. โHeโs content with allowing fate to take him where he goes, and has some new found faith in his family that he doubted before, that they will be okay, that they will theyโll find their way.โ
Surprisingly enough, the Ratliff who might be the least able to handle the new way of life theyโre about to be forced into is Piper. While she was the only one in the family who had set out to go on a spiritual journey to begin with, by the finale, all sheโs learned is โshe is her motherโs daughter,โ as Hook put it.
โI actually love it though. I think itโs so brilliant. Itโs so fun. So Iโm like, โOh, god, sheโs just a little rich girl,โ Hook continued. โI actually feel like she kind of did the reverse of everyone.โ
The Season 3 finale certainly ties up a few big loose ends, but it also keeps many threads open, perhaps to be revisited in the upcoming fourth season, since the series has already been renewed. No word yet on where it will be set, or if anyone familiar faces will return, but creator Mike White did tease a bit about his idea in a featurette after the episode on Max.
As the only cast member to return for three consecutive seasons, Gries says that โevery time I leave, I assume itโs over.โ But, with Greg alive and $5 million poorer after Belinda and Zionโs scheming, the door appears to remain open for his character to return.
For now, all Gries can say is โyou never know.โ
