It’s finally here. After dozens of Mai Tais, countless stolen Lorazepam tablets, a handful of freed snakes and one very intimate moment with Jason Isaacs, we arrived this evening at the end of our third stay at Mike White’s The White Lotus, and learned at last just who exactly decided to open fire at the Thai resort that has played host to the motley cast of billionaires, hangers-on and hapless staff for the last seven weeks.

Going into the episode, the season had been… slightly mixed? Yes, there had been drama along the way. There had been intrigue. There had been sex (between brothers, no less). There had also been some comedy, though arguably less than in previous iterations of the programme. In fact, this finale was a bit of a you-win-or-you-die moment for a season which has been more divisive than its predecessors. Shorn of the high camp that is Jennifer Coolidge – can we talk about a Jen-aissance yet? – this season felt a little flat, at times. A little broody, meandering its way vaguely towards some sort of implied resolution. But certainly not beyond salvage, no sir – it just needed to go out properly on a bang which, admittedly, we knew was coming since the season’s opening scenes.

Would it live up to expectations? I sat down to watch the 80-minute season finale, and had some thoughts. Forty-seven, to be precise.

1. As that whimsical, lightly menacing theme tune begins, let’s recap the situation on the ground: things between the three friends Jaclyn, Laurie and and Kate are pretty frosty after Jaclyn stole the Russian masseuse Valentin off Laurie; the Ratliffs are experiencing a variety of different existential crises; Gaitok might finally get to impress Mook by nailing the Russians for the hotel robbery; and Rick managed to resist delivering swift justice to the man who (probably?) killed his father. Belinda and Zion, meanwhile, have to decide whether to accept $100,000 from Gary/Greg.
2. Let’s also make some predictions: Belinda will get some money, somehow. Piper will get cold feet and won’t stay at the monastery, partially put off by Lachlan’s interest in joining her. Rick and Chelsea will ride off into the sunset. Saxon’s world will collapse when he finds out about Tim’s business woes, but he won’t be the killer. That will be Gaitok (only joking – my real prediction is that the shooter is Laurie. Or that German guy who played Rudolph Hoess in The Zone of Interest).
3. $100,000 is nothing, and Belinda would be a fool to accept a payoff and become an accomplice to murder for less than two years of the average American salary. You can argue she’s poor, but… is she? She’s a skilled hospitality worker who has been in the business for a long time, and we have seen that she is valuable enough for her superiors to send her on a week-long training course to Thailand, so surely she makes at least $60-70k? Doesn’t she?
4. The episode opens with a voiceover from the monk who Piper so adores and admires, as we see each character in turn wake up for the final day of the holiday. I am afraid to say that, as I have done this whole series, I find the generically Eastern pseudo-philosophy of it all a little grating and pat. “There is no resolution to life’s questions. It is easier to be patient once we finally accept there is no resolution.” Sounds like a Westerner’s idea of what a Buddhist monk would say…
5. …because the resolution to life’s questions, obviously, is to take drugs with Sam Rockwell in a Bangkok hotel with a handful of Thai strippers.
6. It’s funny that Lisa, who plays Mook, is more famous globally than every other person in this series combined. One-hundred-and-six million people follow her on Instagram because she’s in BLACKPINK.
7. Whereas Parker Posey is cooler than every other person in this series combined. Because she’s Parker Posey.
8. Seriously – Posey has been a highlight of everything she’s been in since Party Girl and Clockwatchers (go watch The Daytrippers if you want some early Stanley Tucci action, plus a very young Liev Schreiber and Hope Davis). I’m glad she was here to fill in for Coolidge, essentially taking up much of the slack that Coolidge being killed off last season left in Lotus.
9. The Ratliff family is well cast. I fully believe that all these people are related.
10. Lachlan and Piper come back from the monastery, and Piper suddenly seems pretty uncertain about her plan to spend a year there. Has Victoria called her bluff?
11. She has! Mom: 1, Daughter: 0. Piper hates the food and the accommodation. Victoria is unusually kind to her when she admits this, and says it’s “offensive” not to live as comfortable a life as you can, if you’re lucky enough to be able to do so. I think we’re meant to find this sentiment entitled, but I actually sort of agree with it.
12. Tim, on the other hand, is having a full-on moment which seems to be a conversion to Buddhism (sorry, that should be bouw-diss-uhm). And also considering eating the fruit of the suicide tree from episode one. And giving it to his family.
13. This season has had Chekhov’s gun, but also Chekhov’s suicide tree. Quite the achievement.
14. Belinda and Zion have breakfast and meet Pornchai – though in fact, they have all already met that morning, when Zion walked in on them in bed. Is it worse to be the mother or the son in this situation?
15. Whatever the case, it seems like there’s no harm done. More contentious is that Zion is certain that Belinda should take Gary/Greg’s “blood money”, and Belinda is far more squeamish.
16. We haven’t really seen Gary/Greg’s house in the light yet, but my God, it’s like a sleek superyacht plonked onto land. It’s not exactly tasteful, but it is certainly impressive, and it probably could be a lot worse.
17. Belinda looks to be walking out of the negotiations on principle, but… turns out she has some moves of her own! A bluff! I have never enjoyed this character more than right now. Get that paper!
18. Belinda code-switches when she’s talking to Zion, which I think is a really good touch.
19. This programme really jumps between its characters: now Saxon and Lachlan are confronting each other about the, ahem, “events” of the full moon party. “It’s okay for you to worship me,” Saxon splutters, “but don’t, like, worship me, get it?” Lachlan’s response? “I’m a pleaser. I want to give everyone what they want.” Eesh.
20. Saxon can’t handle all the weirdness, so he flees to the beach to talk to Chelsea and Gary/Greg’s trophy girlfriend Chloe. He tells Chelsea he’s nearly finished the book she lent him on Buddhist philosophy, and she’s skeptical: “Really?” Cue Saxon’s best line of the episode, with a nonchalant shrug: “I went to Duke.” He nearly pulls it off. Nearly.
21. Valentin knows Gaitok knows he did the robbery. He asks him not to tell anyone. Shades of the bad kid at school trying to convince you to cover for them; horrible flashbacks!
22. I love the way they do the subtitles in this programme, with the Thai characters faintly outlined behind the Latin script – it’s very stylish and I’m surprised I’ve never seen it before.
23. Rick and Chelsea, now that he’s back and decidedly not a murderer, seem to be having a very romantic and beautiful reconciliation. Which doesn’t bode well for them, in my eyes. Rule one of The White Lotus: never find yourself in a position where the viewers are rooting for you, because that’s the surest way to get blindsided by the cruelty of Mike White’s pen.
24. (Perhaps now is a fun moment to note that White played Jack Black’s flatmate Ned Schneebly in School of Rock, a film dear to the hearts of many a younger millennial.)
25. Back to the American Ladies, as everyone seems to call them. Laurie is dropping some truth bombs at dinner. She’s had a terrible time on holiday but also come to some realisations about her life and her friendships with the other two women, Jaclyn and Kate. The holiday has helped her accept her life choices, and to escape the constant, constant comparisons she makes between herself and the others.
26. It’s quite moving. I find this trio to be one of the most accurate depictions of a certain type of competitive friendship I’ve ever seen, and so it’s quite nice to see that there is some real substance to the bond between the three of them.
27. In fact, is this finale a little more sentimental than the others, in seasons one and two? I think it is.
28. Back to the Ratliffs, who have an unwitting close encounter with the Murder Cocktail until Tim changes his mind about his murder-suicide plan: the coconut milk IS OFF!
29. Sometimes I think they write lines into this just to be turned into GIFs later down the line. Case in point: Parker Posey saying “Ha-yuv yew ever hearrd of wah-yun?” (in British English: “Have you ever heard of wine?”)
30. We’re getting close to the resolution here. I can practically smell the cordite. Do guns still use cordite?
31. Belinda got the cash! Uh oh – see point 23 above.
32. Back to Tim. Why, why would you leave the dregs of the Murder Cocktail out on the side where any member of your family could drink them? That’s mental!
33. I guess it’s Lachlan’s body that Zion finds floating past in the water.
34. More trouble as another gun is introduced to the milieu. Sritala’s husband, Jim, is here again… will Rick take a (metaphorical) shot at him?
35. Yes he will.
36. Maybe it’s not Lachlan’s body that floats past, then.
37. Rick’s expression when he’s deciding whether or not to go for Jim reminds me of the moment Daenerys went all mad on Game of Thrones back in 2019. Real, brow-furrowing, painful craziness and fury.
38. So Rick decidedly is a murderer.
39. Cue a twist about Jim that… well, it had crossed my mind. Did it cross yours?
40. Remind me never to take a job as a hotel manager at The White Lotus.
41. The next few minutes feature a lot of action, and by the end we have a five-person body count, not including one miraculous resurrection. Not bad! Some serious Oedipus/tragic irony stuff going on. Was it earned? I think it mostly was? Poor old Chelsea.
42. Hold on – how do the surviving guests just get to leave the resort and go home the same afternoon there’s been a mass killing at their hotel? TV logic, I suppose.
43. So: the broad winners of the series are Belinda and Zion, Gaitok and Mook (hooray! Someone has clearly told Mr White not to anger the K-Pop stans by writing anything other than a happy ending for Lisa). And, astonishingly but hilariously, Gary/Greg gets his wicked way at a cost of a mere $5 million.
44. The losers are Rick and Chelsea, and Sritala and Jim. Because three of the four of them end up in body bags.
45. But the most interesting plotlines have been those who come out changed, but possibly happier: the Ratliffs, whose ending was oddly uplifting, and Jaclyn, Kate and Laurie, who seemed to have achieved some sort of catharsis.
46. What, then, is next for The White Lotus? Personally, I want season four to come to the UK or Ireland. Think Scottish golf resorts or the wild Atlantic coast. The Isle of Wight Lotus. Would be hilarious.
47. Till next time!