The White Lotus Season 3 finale: Series’ triumphs are a goddamn tragedy

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE WHITE LOTUS SEASON THREE FINALE

Check-out is complete, more permanent for some than others.

The White Lotus has wrapped up for another season and in its wake are more than just the bodies floating among the lily pads of the resort’s pond: there are tragedies on many levels.

Sad sack Rick and pure soul Chelsea have departed for realms unknown, as have Rick’s dad, Darth Vader, and his nameless Thai bodyguards. The Ratliffs are about to step into the storyline of another TV series, Schitt’s Creek, the trio of girlfriends will go off to only speaking to each other every three months, while the chaotic Frank is coming off his hangover in a temple.

In theory, there are also triumphs, or that’s certainly how some of the wash-up has positioned it. But if you really think about it, those victories are actually soul-destroying disasters.

For a season that was supposedly underpinned by eastern philosophies - despite some characters’ misunderstandings of such (Sorry, Chelsea - RIP, girl - that’s not how yin and yang works) - you have to believe there is another reading of that season finale that’s not all about jetting off into the sunset and getting the girl.

We’re talking here about Belinda and Gaitok.

Of all the characters this season, Belinda and Gaitok are the two who are “better off” than when it started. But that’s only on a material level, and if we’re supposed to take the series’ deep dive into Buddhism seriously, then that’s not winning.

Let’s start with Belinda. Natasha Rothwell’s character made her debut in the first season of The White Lotus as the spa manager at the hotel chain’s Maui resort. Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) took a shine to Belinda and waved promises of investment in her ambition to start her own wellness business.

Tanya flaked, as she is wont to do, and left Belinda in Maui after the heiress decided she wanted to chase Greg instead. That ended up being a perilous decision, with Greg having Tanya murdered in season two before running off with her half a billion-dollar estate to eventually go into hiding in Thailand under the name Gary.

Belinda, doing a secondment at The White Lotus Thailand, recognises Greg and after a little online sleuthing, deduces that he likely had Tanya killed and that the authorities are looking for him.

Greg offers her $100,000 for her silence and she is appalled. That’s “blood money” she declares to her son, Zion. But by the end of the finale, Belinda and Zion extort Greg for $5 million, allowing her to quit her job and sail off.

Of course, $5 million is life-changing money for someone like Belinda, from a marginalised community, who’s never been part of the capital class and has eked out $12,000 in savings. No one is underplaying the significance of that.

But it feels less like a triumph and more like a tragedy when she gives the brush-off to Pornchai, the Thai spa worker with whom she forms both a professional and personal bond. Throughout the season, she and Pornchai daydream about going into business together, and now that she can, she quickly abandons him in an almost mirror moment to what Tanya did to her.

It’s heartbreaking, and it feels like such a betrayal of ethics for a character that was one of the few “good” ones.

Look, you can certainly empathise with her “Can I just be rich for five minutes?” declaration, and you don’t begrudge her that glee.

Rothwell, in an interview with the official The White Lotus podcast, had a different take. She said, “If they look at it closely, you’ll see she’s departing with kindness. She reiterates multiple times … some things have changed and she just needs to wrap her head around those things, because her life just got really big.

“There’s more grief on Belinda’s part than perhaps Tanya’s part. Tanya is about to go get dick, so she’s like, ‘Bye, girl, I gotta go’. Belinda is a little more heartbroken – and she doesn’t say no. She’s just like, ‘Right now, I have to get my bearings.’ I do think that maybe she’d circle back.”

Sure, there’s a world in which Belinda emails Pornchai and calls him on, but that disappointed look on his face when he’s waving her and Zion off says he believes it just as much as Belinda was, when she was banking on Tanya’s return.

None of this makes Belinda a bad person, she’s human and compromised, and when there’s $5 million involved, even more so. That is The White Lotus way – money corrupts, even blood money.

In a parallel storyline, Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) was seduced by similar promises, not of millions but of love.

The mild-mannered security guard has been involved with a flirtation with his colleague Mook (Lisa, from BlackPink) since before the start of the series, and it’s a very sweet subplot in a show about the worst entitled behaviour.

But it becomes increasingly clear that Mook is only interested in Gaitok if he’s going to “make something of himself”, as defined by traditional structures of success and promotion.

She wants him to ascend the hierarchy within The White Lotus, something he struggles with because his job necessitates direct contravention of his Buddhist beliefs. He doesn’t want to use violence or cause suffering, but Mook makes it clear to him that she will only consider him if he plays the game.

As an aside, Mook’s characterisation is incredibly regressive and one-dimensional - she has no context besides her uncompromising chase of a “successful” man. Shouldn’t we be beyond that now?

All season, Gaitok has been wrestling with this question of violence, and spurned on by the self-important owner of the resort, Sritala, the guard shoots a retreating and unarmed Rick in the back.

For this, he gets his promotion to personal security guard (the positions were, uh, vacant) and a kiss from Mook, who has now deemed him man enough for her. Gaitok too puts aside his personal principles to “win out”. He drives off with Sritala, sporting new sunnies and a sh-t-eating grin, knowing Mook will wait for him.

On the subject of Gaitok, creator Mike White told The White Lotus podcast: “He’s a true Buddhist and he’s non-violent, but he likes this girl but ultimately for him to get the girl and get the job is to be a killer.

“The happy ending is off the back that we know he killed this guy we loved and he went against his morals, and it’s something that feels very human. Which is in order to get ahead, and this is obviously an extreme version of it, you have to suck up your idealism and step up and push yourself to the front of the line, or push someone down the stairs.”

Ultimately, it feels as if White’s thesis for his show is one of cynicism bordering on nihilism. No one is immune from throwing out their belief system if given the opportunity to “level up”, and get closer to the status of the elite.

Whether viewers can see the not-so-subtle seam of that is another question.

After all, rather than awareness that The White Lotus is meant to be a critique of the ruling class, “bad tourism” and cultural blindness, the series has instead inspired audiences to copy the looks, wardrobes and holiday itineraries of its odious characters.

They’re not cautionary tales, they’ve become aspirational. That’s the greatest tragedy of all.