Hosts Jia Tolentino and Josh Bearman unpack the Season 3 finale, reflecting on its biggest moments and the emotional impact of saying goodbye to certain characters. They share their personal connections to the season, revealing which characters resonated with them the most. Finally, they sit down with Natasha Rothwell to discuss Belinda’s time in Thailand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the hosts' initial reactions to the season finale?
Hello and welcome to the White Lotus official podcast companion to season three. I'm Gia Tolentino.
And I'm Josh Behrman. And I'm feeling sad. Yeah.
I'm fucking sad. It's a sad finale.
I know. I know. It's a different feeling from the other two finales. Yeah. Where everybody in both cases like kind of airport reunions. There's like the different kind of resolution. And here was a lot of bodies. Yeah.
A lot of bodies.
Yeah, it was melancholy, you know.
There's not like a gag at the end of the, like usually there's kind of a gag. Like you have Portia in her insane outfit, you know, like you've got Jake Lacey still being a dickhead or whatever. Like here it's fucking sad.
Yeah, well, that's what you get when you tackle the season about death. Death.
About life being a prison, about death being the eternal return and the release from suffering.
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Chapter 2: Which characters do the hosts identify with the most?
About death being the escape.
Yeah. And when you have our, you know, our faves from episode one, Chelsea and Rick, they were our self-identification characters and we knew they were doomed. But we hoped episode by episode that they would make it.
I know. So far, you've been asking the question at the top of the show that kicks it off and puts us into the mode. And often it was, who are you identifying with? Now I turn the tables back on you. It's all said and done. Who are you identifying with?
Well, the part where Chelsea is like, get me a donut. And then when Rick gets the look in his eyes, it's like, I'm going to murder someone in 30 seconds if I can't talk to my therapist. And she's like, no, Rick, no. And eats the donut as she's running after him. Like that's that's she's still my girl. She's still my girl. She's still my overbite representation queen. I do think.
I mean, Chelsea doesn't have any bad qualities. Like, I refuse to assign to that angel.
She's a perfect person.
She's a perfect person. Yes, she's credulous. But I'm not willing to say that she has any negative qualities. If I am to search myself for my most negative qualities, I'm probably a Jacqueline. Yeah. Like the self-interest, self-centeredness. Queen B. I wouldn't even describe myself as a queen. But, you know, the sort of behavior I'm feeling. I'm feeling a little Jacqueline. And who are you?
Well, I think my time on the Rick Walton Goggins train might have come to an end because I would not have been snapped back into revenge mode.
You would have stayed in the sweet dinner moment.
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Chapter 3: How does the episode 'Amor Fati' unfold?
So in that kind of round robin where we're seeing everybody again for the last time, maybe some of them forever for the last time, you have the monk from the monastery talking about, we wake up every day looking with anxiety, looking for resolution, looking for answers, and basically, what if there is no resolution?
What will happen today
what is in store for me.
So many questions. If you keep looking for resolution, that causes suffering. So what if there is no resolution? Which is an interesting way to obviously open the episode where there is going to be some kind of resolution for this story. Right. But so then the question about it is sort of like, how are the characters going to be resolved?
Are the ones who think they need resolution actually going to be choosing the wrong path, which is ultimately what happens, right? And it's the ones who accept that there may not be a resolution that actually come out ahead, that come through unscathed.
Yeah. Unless you're Chelsea, who accepts that, you know, all we have is the here and now, and she gets fucking murdered by a security guard. Caught in the crossfire. I know. Poor Chelsea. Moog and Kai Talk, they do end up together.
I don't know...
I don't know.
I don't like her anymore.
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Chapter 4: What insights does Natasha Rothwell share about Belinda's journey?
It's like the minute you get some money, you're not the same.
I think she plays, I think Natasha Rothwell plays this episode really wonderfully. Like I think she's funny in the negotiation scene. It's funnier when you realize she's faking. You love getting to see her be like, oh, I'm a rich bitch now. Mm-hmm. When that direct deposit hits, we were all like, can you just deposit that much money? Do checking accounts do that?
Technical conversation about money laundering, logistics, and how does that work? What are the tax implications for Greg slash Gary?
Who cares?
Cut a third out of that right away from your 1099. Yeah, exactly. So it's more like three and a half million.
But it is nice to see her get out ahead. And I wanted this whole season to see her just be selfish, like to see her be like cunning and selfish. Because that's what every other character gets to do all the time. Although I guess in the case of Mook and Guy Talk, like Mook is being selfish and I hate it. I want her to love Guy Talk for who he is. But...
Right. Well, we've seen sort of Belinda's state of unease and kind of the struggle. So it's much more satisfying, I think, because we want her to win. And also, also this season, she's saying, oh, you know how to treat a broke down bitch. And like, can't I just get a break? You know, and so she's kind of in this beleaguered state.
So it's earned the satisfaction to see her become a cunning, rich bitch and win.
Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What themes are explored in the character arcs?
She goes, but she reverts to, you know.
I'm going to get my job at Sotheby's and, like, you know. Yeah. And marry just as rich as I ever have been.
Also, while Piper's revealing that she can't, she's not going to be able to hack it at the monastery, then Papa Fernholz is like, oh, shit, I guess I got to poison her, too.
I got to kill everyone, yeah.
I got to kill everybody except for little Lockie.
Well, but he doesn't know yet. He asks Lachlan, and then he's like, okay, so I don't have to kill him.
Okay, four smoothies.
Yeah, four smoothies it is.
Yeah. By the way, why do they just have poison fruit, like, laying around? What if there were children? In the villa.
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Chapter 6: What are the hosts' takeaways from the season?
We love you, too. Love you, too.
Love you, too.
But I was also just like, you're such a fucking coward. I was like, this is what I was thinking in my head. Like, we're expecting like, Mukwan's guy talked a man up by just like, kind of being good at his job. And then this guy's like parading around like he's the king and he's... understand success and how to be the lion, the head of the pride.
And then basically the first sign of trouble, he doesn't know what's really going to happen. He's like, okay, I'll just kill my whole family. Like, it's such a fucking cop-out. And so then I was... You know, sort of rooting for him when he was going to slap the death smoothie out of his kid's hand. Although, by the way, they had a little bit, so you'd figure they would have the runs.
They'd be shitting all night. Yeah. But this is like arguably a whole thing about how you shouldn't take so much Klonopin that you end up leaving the dregs of your death smoothie in your blender.
Right, right.
And he wakes up the next morning and he's like, he immediately looks at the blender. It's like he was relaxed enough the previous night that he was like, you know what? I guess I'm not killing my whole family and myself. I'll leave this dish for tomorrow. I'll clean up those dishes tomorrow.
I know. For like plot purposes, the Chekhovian smoothie has to be left on the counter. I was really hoping, but towards the end, I wouldn't have seen this at all coming earlier in the season, that Saxon would emerge as the unlikely... Vulnerable. Like emotional star of the whole thing. He kind of almost gets there. He read the whole book. Yeah.
You know, there's that moment where Patrick Schwarzenegger comes down to the beach and tells Chelsea that he read the whole book, almost the whole book. And she's like, oh, amazing. And then she sees Rick and runs to him and they have that, you know, lens flare moment. And Patrick Schwarzenegger, like, he has a tear in his eye, right?
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