Season three of HBO’s “The White Lotus” kicked off with all the hallmarks of a Mike White show: beautiful scenery, displays of wealth, and a dead body viewers will spend the rest of the show trying to identify.
Tonight, we found out who the latest victim is.
As it turns out, it’s not just one victim — two main characters die, as well as several supporting characters.
Reader, beware: From here on, there be major season three spoilers.
‘Amor fati’
To understand the series of events that unfolded in the final episode, we have one big clue and one big conversation: The episode’s title and the conversation Chelsea and Rick have over their last dinner at the resort.
At dinner, Chelsea glowingly describes the concept of “amor fati” — the name of the episode — to Rick.
“It means you have to embrace your fate, good or bad,” she says. “Whatever will be will be. And at this point we’re linked, so if a bad thing happens to you, it happens to me.”
“I think we’re going to be together forever, don’t you?” she asks.
“That’s the plan,” he answers.
HBO
How does ‘The White Lotus’ end?
By the end of the episode, Chelsea’s words ring true.
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Sritala and Jim, the resort’s owners, return from Bangkok. Rick and Jim have a heated exchange over breakfast, in which Jim insults Rick’s mother and Rick reverts back into revenge mode.
Later, in a fit of fury and despair, Rick shoots Jim in the chest. As Jim lies dying in Sritala’s arms, she tells him Jim was his father.
A shootout between Rick and Sritala’s two security guards ensues. Rick kills both guards, then turns around and sees Chelsea has been shot in the chest.
As he picks up her body and carries her across one of the property’s ponds, Gaitok — the seemingly feckless security guard — shoots Rick in the back. Rick and Chelsea fall off the bridge, and their bodies slowly sink into the water.
Amor fati, indeed.
A season of simmering tensions
The dramatic culmination of season three of “The White Lotus” came after viewers had been set up with plenty of pairs and trios of people who would want to harm each other.
First, there’s Rick, who came to the hotel with his younger girlfriend, Chelsea — and with a vendetta to exact revenge on Jim, the man who he believes killed his father years ago.
Then, there’s Timothy Ratliff, the patriarch of a rich southern family whose big finance career is blowing up in front of his eyes. He repeatedly fantasizes about killing himself, his wife, his daughter, and his oldest son to spare them the shame of his professional sins. At one point, he even steals Gaitok’s gun.
And of course, there’s Gary. He’s a threat to Belinda, a hotel staffer from season two who is now a hotel guest on a training rotation. Belinda discovers that Gary is wanted for questioning in relation to his wife Tanya’s death (which was the dramatic end to season two of the show). Gary tries to buy Belinda off with a $100,000 payment; Belinda declines and says she needs time to consider the offer.
That’s not Gary’s only vendetta. He’s romantically involved with a woman named Chloe — who’s beautiful, young, and capricious. After Chloe takes his yacht to entertain some friends for a full moon party that turns raunchy (and incestuous), Gary believes Chloe slept with one of the two Ratliff sons, creating three potential targets for Gary.
A new world order — sort of
For some characters, the season ends with a new world order.
By the end of the episode, both of Sritala’s bodyguards are dead. Her newest appointment? Gaitok himself, now fitted out in a sleek black T-shirt, driving Sritala’s shiny car, and getting a loving goodbye hug Mook.
But as “The White Lotus” has shown before, this is a show about how money lets rich people sail away from the world and from their problems — and this season is no exception.
The Ratliff family departs from the resort, settling back into all the technology they had surrendered on vacation. Timothy — who has narrowly talked himself out of poisoning his family — vows they will get through anything that comes their way.
We see Chloe flirting with a guy in a pool and gesturing back to Gary, who winks slyly — rich and untouched by his season two crime.
And most strikingly, we end the season with a view of the newest rich folks in “The White Lotus” orbit. Belinda didn’t take Gary’s $100,000 buyout — because she and her son Zion negotiated a $5 million payday instead.
The season ends with Belinda and Zion, rich on blood money, literally sailing away into the sunset on a private speedboat.
