What will happen in The White Lotus season 3 finale? Our predictions for the ending | Canada Voices

If the fans of The White Lotus have anything in common, it’s their love of a good plot twist. Ahead of Sunday’s season 3 finale, we’ve rounded up some of the best theories and wildest guesses about who wins, who loses and who doesn’t make it out alive. (Do you have a theory? Tell us what you think in the form at the bottom of this article.)

Spoiler alert: This article contains key developments of Season 3.

Who’s the killer(s)?

The first episode of the season opened with a barrage of gunshots. But whodunit?

• The Russians inadvertently kill Mook and Chelsea, and the Russians are killed by Gaitok. –Michele Mondoux, senior manager, Human Resources

• The Russians come back for more armed robbery (gotta get Aleksei’s mom outta that $10,000 debt hole!). Gaitok is an inadvertent killer (and sacrificial lamb to late-stage capitalism) as well as the Russian killers in ensuing shootout. –Stephanie Chambers, news researcher

• I think it’s Rick’s friend, Frank. He is back on the booze and the drugs and in who knows what kind of mental state. Plus, he has access to that gun he got for Rick. Boom. Alternate theory: it could be lovely Gaitok, in a wrongheaded attempt to impress Mook, who expressed disappointment on their date that he was not moving up the corporate ladder because of his geniality. –Marsha Lederman, columnist

• Gaitok, sadly, will be the killer. In a best-case scenario, the Russians die. I’m not sure I could handle a more high-stakes killing. Maybe Tim will die, not by his own hand, but by accident, in the shootout. –Lisan Jutras, editor

• I believe Gaitok is going to confront the Russians and start a clumsy firefight, probably hitting a few stragglers along the way — the White Lotus’ manager Fabian, who even the show itself seems disinterested in, might catch a stray. And while all eyes are on Greg/Gary, this season’s closest thing to a bona fide villain, I’ve got my eyes on his French-Canadian partner, Chloe. I believe she knows more than she lets on about her sugar daddy’s past. Plus, I cannot get her glaring Maggie Simpson necklace from episode 6 out of my mind. Nothing in this show is accidental, and it might point to an unexpected “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” surprise in the finale. –Jacob Dubé, audience editor

• I don’t know [about a killer], but I think someone will die via the suicide fruit. I’ve thought that since episode one, when Saxon was holding it. It’s a classic Chekhov’s gun! –Meera Raman, Retirement and financial planning reporter

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Who’s going to die?

In episode 1, we saw at least one body floating in the water. Someone dies. But who?

• Saxon via suicide fruit, Mook via gunshot wound. –M.R.

• One of the Russians (but not Valentin). It also wouldn’t surprise me if Tim saw the bullets flying and threw himself in the middle of it to let others do the work for him. –Chris O’Leary, assistant sports editor

• Rick (a day late and a dollar short for enlightenment), Greg/Gary (IT’S TIME. And he deserves to die for nickel and diming Belinda with that bribe. Tanya would be so embarrassed with that cheap tip) and Jaclyn – the head of the triad dies and the power struggle between remaining diad of Laurie and Kate will be FIERCE. –S.C.

• All of the Russians as well as Mook and Chelsea (and maybe Fabian) who gets caught in the crossfire. Chelsea keeps on saying bad things happen in threes – and after being held up in a robbery and the snake bite, she hasn’t had her third yet. Lochlan kills himself after meditating and gaining memory of the threesome with his brother. –M.M.

• If Frank is the killer, one of his victims is going to be Mook, the beautiful young Asian woman he so lusts for/despises/wants to be. Part of my reasoning here is that Lisa, who plays Mook, is way too big a star to be relegated to the minor role she seems to be playing in this drama. And she’s definitely not going to spend another six months of her life coming back to shoot season four. –M.L.

• Timothy Ratliff will hear gunshots and think the cops are finally on his tail about his (arguably a little drawn-out) fraud debacle back home. In true White Lotus fashion, he’ll die either running from the gunfire, or in a misunderstood shootout with Gaitok. Plus, I fear for Chelsea, who famously said that bad things happen in threes. After surviving a robbery and a deadly snake bite, her time might be up. -J.D.

Who checks out of The White Lotus as a winner?

• Belinda, potentially. She takes her hush money and maybe her newfound love interest and starts a spa…perhaps away from Thailand, though. -C.O.

• No one wins, really. If I had to choose, maybe Laurie. She has a newfound confidence. -M.R.

• Belinda (hoping she finally gets hers!) and Victoria (she has money stashed off-shore and will never run low on lor-AH-ze-pam again.) -S.C.

• It’s Belinda’s time to shine. She’s going to walk away with a big pile of hush money cash from Greg/Gary to keep her mouth shut about him murdering Tanya. Now that she’s got her groove back, maybe she and Pornchai can take all that cash and open their spa together. Maybe they’ll even call it … Tanya’s. Rick also wins as he finds his real dad – it’s Jim, of course (surely you caught the likeness in the family photos). Rick is liberated from the tragic murdered-father story that has clouded his life, he gets to have a dad, and he gets his dad’s fortune. And in this new frame of mind, he looks at Chelsea and realizes she is the best thing that has ever happened to him. Why hasn’t he cherished her all along, as she so clearly deserves? Maybe season four takes place around … their honeymoon? -M.L

• Spiritually speaking, the biggest winner could be Saxon, who seems sincerely affected by Chelsea, although I’m not convinced that his questing is sincere. But maybe if he discovers his father has nothing? Lochie’s request to stay with Piper in the monastery seems tragic — more about his attachment to her and what she represents, morally, than about his own spiritual quest. -L.J.

• Laurie, Kate and Jaclyn have been through a rollercoaster this season, and my biggest hope is that they will finally get the closure they so desperately need. And poor Saxon Ratliff has been on a (mostly unwilling) journey of his own, and I find myself rooting for him to break out of his family’s cycle. Maybe we’ll see him in a future season, learning to surf and making shell necklaces. But I suspect we haven’t seen the end of Chloe and Greg. There’s still a lot of mystery around the couple, and they might come out on top by silencing a few of our other faves. -J.D.

Who’s the biggest loser?

• Greg/Gary, if he gets turned in. Runner up, Saxon, because the brotherly shake appears to have broken him. -C.O

• Greg/Gary is found out and goes to jail for murdering his wife from last season. Rick is devastated by the death of Chelsea and stays in Bangkok to party himself to death. -M.M.

• The biggest loser has got to be Tim. Unless he dies, I can’t see any good way out for him. Spiritually… will Piper be the big loser, whose newfound spirituality will be proven to be a contrarian pose? -L.J.

• Timothy (extradited to prison and North Carolina humiliation or eternal meditation? Not sure which will be his hellscape) and Saxon: this wellness retreat broke apex bro. -S.C.

• Rick. The dude ditches his girlfriend in a den of lions to follow an ill-thought-out revenge fantasy? He doesn’t have the full picture on what happened to his dad and allows his friend Frank to break his sobriety in order to enact his plan. What does he expect to happen when he comes back to the resort? I hope he finds his peace, but I won’t be rooting for him. -J.D.

• Jaclyn’s the biggest loser. I think her frenemy Laurie is in cahoots with Valentin and they plotted the whole thing: Valentin sleeps with Jaclyn while Laurie films. And then he bribes her: pay up or he goes to the tabloids. Jaclyn pays; she doesn’t want to risk losing the love of her life back home. He and Laurie split the earnings, Laurie doesn’t have to worry about her miserable experience with the law firm that denied her the promotion, and Jaclyn is none the wiser. (Maybe Jaclyn’s not the only actress in this little group of three.) Kate returns to her Trump-supporting church congregation in Austin, scandalized. Also a loser: Saxon, who has to slink home to shame and no job. And he will never be able to forget what happened with his little brother. -M.L.

Final thoughts?

Here’s what we thought of the season so far:

• There wasn’t enough cringe/dysfunction/dialogue and character conflicts compared to first two seasons! -S.C.

• If Sam Rockwell wasn’t in the season, it would’ve been 30 per cent worse. Without Parker Posey, 100 per cent worse. -M.R.

• If the Ratliff family were Tar Heels none of this would have happened. This season has had its moments but season two is still the best the show has done. -C.O.

• No one is allowed to hurt a hair on Chelsea’s head, and this includes not killing Rick, whose spiritual journey seems more or less complete now. -L.J.

• Tim Ratliff is staying in Thailand, holing up at that monastery with his beloved daughter Piper to experience a year of Zen and hiding out. His ultimate fate might be to remain in Thailand and become one of those rich white guy tax cheats who Victoria so despises. Victoria returns home with her sons – their family name shamed, but she doesn’t have to give up that lifestyle; she’s got some old family money stashed away. Besides, the shame – which they can’t get away from on their phones, now that they’ve got them back – is overpowered by a tsoooonahmeee of grief (and a giant refill of Lorazepam). -M.L.

• Anyone else feel as though the ghost of the dearly departed Tanya McQuoid is watching over Belinda? We might see some divine intervention in the finale, keeping her safe from all the lizards, real or fictional. -J.D.