Who lives, who dies, who tells their story?

Predictions for 'The White Lotus' season three finale

Our nation may be coming apart at the seams as tariffs postpone Nintendo Switch 2 preorders, but hey — we still have Sunday night HBO, one of our last true bastions of real time-ish communal experience. Tonight, ‘The White Lotus’ ends its third, arguably most divisive season with a 90 minute finale that promises confrontation, violence, and possible murder-suicide by smoothie.

**SPOILERS**, I guess, for every episode to date, as we run down the major questions on the table:

• Will Gary/Greg have Belinda murdered?

• Which one of the Ratliffs, if any is actually going home?

• Which one of the friend trio is blowing up the others’ lives first?

• Will Fabian get another chance to sing?

To me what makes ‘The White Lotus’ so fun, apart from its willingness to really put incest under the microscope, is how much it knows and leans into the fact that it’s a TV show. Crazy concept, I know, to once a week air individual episodes that (largely) function unto themselves, and generate conversation! But barring a bit of a slow start to the season, this is a show absolutely written and directed and performed¹ to be talked about. Which we will do right after playing the theme song — which truly grew on me! — one more time to set the mood.

Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan, and Leslie Bibb 💃🏼👯‍♀️🍷

The only character name that’s really stuck with me here is “Laurie,” if only because the characters say it the most. The names don’t matter! This is Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan, and Leslie Bibb, and at this point they fucking HATE each other. Actually, scratch that — Trumper Leslie Bibb has stayed largely out of the fray, conflict-avoidant. Which of course suggests to me that she’s the fulcrum point of anything that happens in the finale. Even though it’s Carrie and Michelle at each other’s throats, I think it’s Leslie who steps in and

1. calls Michelle’s new husband about her tryst with Valentin

2. gets Carrie in deeper trouble with the Russian set, somehow. An accomplice to the robbery we already saw? Or the murder we’ve yet to see?

All three women are making it out of Thailand alive but their friendship is dead outside of Christmas cards, which at least Leslie will continue to send.

The Ratliff Family 👬🏼🍆💊☸️

Just because it’s been SO heavily implied over the course of what’s felt like not just seven previous episodes, but thirty, no one here is getting killed. That smoothie WILL be prepared — it’s Chekhov’s suicide fruit at this point, you don’t introduce it and forget about — but I just really don’t see Mike White going the distance here. I think Timothy makes the smoothie, then stops short of serving it. Somehow familicide seems like a line he won’t cross? Then again, incest. Maybe there are no taboos anymore. Maybe Timothy Ratliff will kill himself and everyone wearing his Duke shirt, and ruin the school’s NCAA chances forever.

But here’s what I think is happening: while she may have started the season as the only Ratliff who wanted to leave North Carolina, Piper Ratfliff is ending the season as the only one actually going home. Everyone in her family needs Buddhism more than her! Feeling crowded out of the one thing that set her apart, she’s going back to the Tarheel State and becoming a staunch Catholic.

Chelsea and Rick ♈️🔫♏️

Am I allowed to say I truly don’t care about their relationship? Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood are both fantastic, but something about the way they’ve been written… I just don’t buy it, or anyway I don’t buy her part in it, which makes me feel like Mike White’s either pulling his punches there or has something bigger in store.

In any case, you don’t assault a rich old body-guarded man in his home without consequences, which could very well include violent retaliation with Aimee Lou caught in the crosshairs. Something about Rick achieving some measure of inner peace (and maybe relationship clarity?) right before having that torn asunder feels right, if not heavily melodramatic. Chelsea will die in his arms on the beach.

…But for the sake of argument — and circling back to the “I don’t know her character” thing — I’m going to throw out another possible ending. Rick returns from Bangkok with the level of spiritual clarity Chelsea has wanted from him the whole time. He’s a changed man; he’s whole. This is actually a turn-off for her, and she decides she’s ready to go hook up with Saxon, over by the pool five pages into ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’.

Gary/Greg and Belinda 👨🏼‍🦲👩🏾💰

Another storyline that has always struck me as more interesting on the page than in practice. I get the appeal of ‘The White Lotus’ as a lightly serialized anthology; it even worked for me last season, culminating in Jennifer Coolidge murdering a boatful of gay Italians.

But something about Belinda has felt Belabored, and not just because (see Aimee Lou Wood notes) poor Natasha Rothwell has been given practically nothing to play. It’s hard to look at her investment in bringing Gary/Greg to justice as some kind of moral act. Maybe that’s important for balance — that in a sea of myopic (and occasionally murderous) hotel guests, driven purely by self-interest, she’s taking a stand for what’s right? But it’s also hard not to think of her as naive. Take the money! Open your spa! On some level I have to agree with Gary/Greg that this is what his murdered wife would have wanted, on exactly this timeline.

Anyway, Belinda will survive (Mike White is puckish, not sadistic), Zion will survive, and Gary/Greg will have a heart-attack as he attempts to make love to his French-Canadian girlfriend, who will then casually push him into that man-made ‘White Lotus’ lake.

Gaitok and Lisa from Blackpink

So glad they finally went on their first date last episode after — appropriate to Gaitok’s Buddhist faith — we’d been hearing about it over the course of multiple reincarnated lifetimes. Even though he’s an excellent shot, Gaitok abhors violence. But Lisa from Blackpink says that’s just human nature, man, I want a boyfriend willing to throw down. Just like Seth Cohen for whatever reason wanting to pursue a relationship with the most annoying podcaster of all time (Kristen Bell) in that Netflix show… is he willing to compromise his faith for love?

YES.

Gaitok will shoot his way out of the friend zone if he has to, and now that he’s pieced together Valentin & Co’s role in the episode 2 robbery, he’s going to. Several Russians will fall to his expert aim, but maybe also… the hotel owner, Sritala? Someone’s getting caught in the crosshairs (I already mentioned Aimee Lou as another candidate), and accidentally killing the person he was hoping to guard professionally feels like the right level of dramatic irony.

Fabian

How much would you lose your mind if, after taking weeks to work up the courage to sing in front of an audience, you finally do so but everyone ignores you to talk about Buddhism and Lorazepam? Fabian is KILLING TONIGHT, and he is doing so in grand fashion.

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More from Lifting Fog:

This was written as season two wrapped up, but all these locations are still very much on the table for season 4!

1. and scored until just the other day by the amazing Cristobal Tapia de Veer