‘The White Lotus’ Finale: Breaking Down the Shocking Deaths

The third season of “The White Lotus” came to a bloody and explosive conclusion Sunday night on Max.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Fans always knew someone wasn’t going to make it out of alive, but by the end of the episode, five people were dead!

First there was that dramatic shoot-out, when Rick (Walton Goggins) killed two bodyguards and executed  hotel owner Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), the man he thought had killed his father years before. 

After gunning him down, Jim’s wife Sritala Hollinger (Patravadi Mejudhon) revealed that Jim was actually Rick’s father!

Soon after, Rick realized his girlfriend Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) had been hit in the crossfire. He scooped her up and began walking away, forcing reluctant hero Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) from security to fatally shoot Rick in the back.

Rick and Chelsea went tumbling into the water, tragically staying together forever as they had promised.

Goggins told “CBS Mornings,” “I sympathize so greatly with Rick’s pain, because his entire life story was defined by this event that he was told by his mother.”

He went on, “The genius of [creator] Mike White in that revelation, Rick only has a couple of seconds to register it before he is being fired at.”

Us Weekly reports Woods also spoke about Rick and Chelsea’s deaths in a post-finale panel, saying, “It’s weird. Because for about two weeks before we shot it, I felt super weird. It was, like, this odd, ominous thing that was just hanging over us.”

She added, “I didn’t expect it to feel like that for such a long time before. Chelsea doesn’t know what’s gonna happen to her, but I know. So, it’s this odd thing. [The finale] looked exactly how it felt, which was really strange. Like that whole bit, I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what it felt like.’”

White also weighed in on Rick and Chelsea's demise on "The Official White Lotus Podcast." He called it a "stealth move" to have everyone "rooting" for the couple in the end, adding, "you love them and have her be this kind of woo-woo and into astrology - but because of that, there's this idea that maybe in their tragic ending, there's something that feels a little like a hint to a life beyond, that love transcends this life. Even as they're wheeled out to the plane together in their symmetrical coffins, their love transcends this in some bittersweet way."

As for Chelsea saying she would follow Rick into the next life, White said, "I like the idea of giving her a lot of prattle that seems like nonsense, but that ultimately, you're like, ‘oh, maybe,’ and at the end, she talks about the groups working divine goal, so, whether I believe all that, it's nice to have a voice of that because she has this deep sense of belief - amor fati – and that things happen for a reason. Maybe somehow that takes off the edge of the sadness of her death in some way because it feels like she has some kind of higher power to what happens next."

Meanwhile, the Ratliffe family barely came out unscathed. As Tim (Jason Isaacs) faced financial ruin, he tried to serve up poisoned piña coladas to his wife Victoria (Parker Posey) and two eldest children Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), but had a change of heart. Tim planned to spare Lochlan (Sam Nivola) after his youngest son told him he could live without wealth. 

In a nearly fatal twist, the next morning, Lochlan used the same blender Tim used for the deadly piña coladas and nearly died!

The family eventually made it onto the boat and off the island as Tim finally confessed that they were about to go broke.

White said of Tim's downfall, "He's kind of like a pillar of the community, he still has the respect and love of his family intact. And then he has done this shady thing and realizes not only are they going to be poor, but that this idea of this self that he's created, he's going to have to rip off the mask and see that he's not that person. It's an annihilation of his identity in some deep way where it’s almost like, why live if you can't be that person? And let's burn down the entire world instead of having to face this life post this identity."

Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), Kate (Leslie Bibb) and Laurie (Carrie Coon) had a heart-to-heart and also left the island as close as ever.

Coon told Variety of Laurie's finale monologue about friendship, “I knew when I read the scripts that that was the heart of the season…There’s a lot of pressure building up to a big end-of-season monologue, which I’ve had that pressure before… The most important piece is that you are speaking into the listening of your scene partners. Leslie Bibb and Michelle Monaghan and I had been living together in Thailand for six months, and we had had our own experience of friendship in those six months that in some ways, mirrors the ups and downs of just what it means to be a family and what it means to be new old friends, which we became. So, it’s about the way they received it. The only way you can do something like that with any truthfulness is because of the people who are listening to you. The best work happens in between people. So I give them all the credit for just helping me stay focused in that moment.”

As for next season, perhaps fans will see more of Greg (Jon Gries) and spa employee Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), after he paid her $5 million to keep quiet about the suspicious death of his late wife Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge).

While Greg and girlfriend Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) stayed in Thailand, Belinda and her son Zion took the money and got the heck out of there. 

While speaking on the podcast, White said of Belinda, "The ending was kinda the first thing I really thought of - Belinda leaving with money and leaving somebody in the same way she got left [in the first season]."