So, who is going to die on ‘The White Lotus’?
Check-out will never come for one guest at the White Lotus resort in Thailand.
Next week, Season 3 of the Emmy Award-winning series The White Lotus will conclude with what promises to be a tense hour that answers the burning question hanging over the entire run: Who’s going to die?
Don’t look for HBO to provide any answers. The network released an appropriately vague season finale teaser on Sunday night for the episode, titled “Amor Fati,” a Latin phrase that translates to “love of fate.” Which character’s fate will come up snake-eyes? Who will survive? We’ve got some informed speculation and educated guesses below.
The Ratliff Family (Victoria, Timothy, Saxon, Lochlan, Piper)
There has been much speculation online that someone from the Ratliff family will die in next week’s finale — particularly Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) or Victoria (Parker Posey).
However, that feels almost too obvious. The Ratliff has been haunted by images of death all season. Timothy (Jason Isaacs) has fantasized about killing his family and dying by suicide; Victoria had a nightmare about being washed away in a tsunami; Saxon has said he’d have no reason to live if he weren’t part of the family’s wealth. For a casual viewer, this might feel like a flashing sign that someone in the group – perhaps daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), relatively innocent compared to the rest of her family — will pay the price for the family’s indiscretions. But real ones likely know creator Mike White typically isn’t so didactic.
“When I first spoke to Mike after having read the scripts, I was like, ‘My understanding was when a character leaves the White Lotus, they're a totally different person — you change in some way, for better or for worse. Is that what the hotel does to you?’” Lochlan actor Sam Nivola told Gold Derby in a recent interview. “He was like, ‘No, no, because that's unrealistic. Like, sure that happens to some people, but some people never change or some people might change later but one week in a hotel isn't enough to do it.’”
Nivola teased that while the ending was not “satisfying” for his character, “it’s more of an emotional thing.”
“Lochlan kind of winds up where he started,” Nivola shared. “He doesn’t grow as much as he would have liked to have grown. I think that’s realistic and sort of devastating.”
The Three Friends (Jaclyn, Laurie, Kate)
White’s general lack of didacticism in his work also probably rules out Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), Laurie (Carrie Coon), and Kate (Leslie Bibb). The three friends have been at loggerheads the entire trip, sniping at each other and gossiping about their shortcomings. In the penultimate episode, that conflict came to a head, as Laurie unloaded on Jaclyn and Kate and ran off on her own, eventually having sex with a local ruffian, Aleksei (Julian Kostov,) who tried to con her out of $10,000 in a moment of post-coital intimacy. So, the pieces are in place for Laurie to get killed – Aleksei’s girlfriend was mighty upset at Laurie when she walked in on the pair after sex – but it also feels like something White would typically avoid as a writer.
The Hotel Staff (Belinda, Fabian, Mook, Pornchai, Valentin, Gaitok)
If the past informs the future, then there is a 50 percent chance that the dead body Zion (Nicholas Duvernay) sees floating in the pond after the mass-shooting event in the opening moments of episode one belongs to someone on the White Lotus staff. It feels somewhat safe to rule out Zion’s mom, Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), if only because her death at the hands of Greg (Jon Gries) would be kind of obvious — and a bit mean-spirited, even for The White Lotus. However, that still leaves several possibilities, including Mook (Lalisa Manobal aka Lisa), Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), and Fabian (Christian Friedel). It is certainly possible: in the penultimate episode, Gaitok clocked that Valentin (Aranas Fedaravicius) and his friends are responsible for the hotel robbery earlier in the season, just as Mook is pushing Gaitok to be more aggressive — a recipe for misplaced violence.
The Couples (Greg and Chloe, Rick and Chelsea)
However, while anyone above can plausibly meet their end in the season finale, the most likely candidates are the show’s cursed couples: Greg and Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) and Rick (Walton Goggins) and Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood). White historically doesn’t merit out punishment to those who ostensibly deserve some retribution, leaving the possibility that Greg dies somewhat remote; he’s the key villain of the show and arguably the series. But his death would also feel very satisfying and serve as a bookend to Season 2. Similarly, as a tortured soul looking for closure he can never get, Rick would seemingly be ripe for some kind of violent end, especially after confronting White Lotus owner Jim (Scott Glenn) in the penultimate episode and escaping from his security goons. However, in the end, Chelsea might be the unfortunate guest who pays the price this season. Like the Ratliffs, Chelsea has been followed by death and danger — she was bitten by a poisonous snake and suggested she’d die if it meant Rick would be happy. She’s also the character on the show who has committed the least offensive transgressions, something that would make her death both undeserved and random, an outcome that lines up with White’s ultimate thesis for The White Lotus. Wood has also been stellar this season, generating great empathy and affection for viewers. If Chelsea dies, it will resonate like few other deaths on the show.
The White Lotus Season 3 finale debuts on April 6.