if The White Lotus The Season 2 finale has you hooked, don’t worry: HBO has already booked another trip to the luxury hotel (aka: a Season 3 renewal). And while creator Mike White didn’t say so a lot of What he envisions for a third season seems to affect a completely different continent again.
Beyond the pitch “more white lotus‘ White said that he believes the season will revolve around a core theme in the same way that the first two seasons did.
“The first season was about money, and the second season was about sex,” White said on HBO’s inside episode on the finale. “I think season three might be a satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like taking another spin at White Lotus could be a rich tapestry.”
[Ed. note: The rest of this post discusses the season 2 finale of The White Lotus.]
There’s not much to do, but death certainly seems an appropriate topic after the season 2 finale, in which fan favorite Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) died — somehow at the hands of the assassins her husband hired, and too attempted by herself to fall into the boat during her escape.
One such annihilation is the albatross of The White Lotus, the seeming framework for each season so far has been a mysterious death that usually gets a deeper resonance once you’ve watched the season. For White, Tanya’s dying felt appropriate for the character – “a larger-than-life female archetype” who needed the perfect “operatic ending” because she saw death as the last “immersive experience” she had yet to try.
But since she’s the only character to carry between seasons 1 and 2, the loss of Tanya at least leaves the door open to bringing more back The White Lotus‘robust cast.
So far, several cast members have said they’d be open to the idea. Jake Lacy, who played resident jerk Shane in Season 1, did Deadline say that “Mike sent a text message [Alexandria Daddario, who played Shane’s wife Rachel] and me with this idea for an episode where the two of us talk for half an hour; It’s just the banality of rich people on a boat.” And then, of course, there’s the season two finale, in which Daphne (Meghann Fahy) toasts the idea of a future vacation “to the Maldives.”
None of that is much for Season 3, which doesn’t even have a release date yet. But in theory, that means the sky’s the limit — right down to a new cast list and a banger white lotus Remix of the theme song.
The first two seasons of The White Lotus streaming now on HBO Max.
