Shock and babble: what surprised the audience with the finale of the third season of "White Lotus"

It's still almost a week before the official release of the finale of the third season of the series "White Lotus", but the world premiere on the HBO channel has already taken place. The new season, like the previous ones, was not without scandals: Milos Bikovich was excluded from the ensemble, but they took Yuri Kolokolnikov there and gave him very explicit scenes. Why the new HBO channel is worth watching right now and how the stars of show business reacted to it — in the Izvestia article. Attention, there are spoilers in the text!

What did you remember about the third season?

The third season of "White Lotus" ended on the night of April 7, but Russians will see the finale only a week later — on April 14 in an AMEDIATEKA subscription, the online cinema's press service told Izvestia. Many critics were quick to call this season the best of the three, in terms of direction and drama. The renewal of the series for the fourth season was announced even before the premiere of the third — in January 2025.

This season was marked by a series of stellar appointments and scandals. So, in February 2024, an HBO representative announced the early termination of cooperation with actor Milos Bikovic, and Yuri Kolokolnikov took his place on the set. For the sake of this role, the latter got naked, and impressed viewers then wrote on the forums.: Did you see that the Russian Vlad (that's the name of Kolokolnikov's hero) showed everything?

And this is true — at least two actors from the main cast got naked for the third season. Crime boss Vlad, played by Kolokolnikov, was remembered for his shirt with golden wings, the scene in the pool, and the fact that he survived the bloody events of the season finale. In an interview for Kinopoisk, he noted that there were many Russians on the set, and they were all inspired to work on such a project.

During the season, the actor played in five episodes out of eight available. Izvestia has already sent him a request regarding his impressions of participating in one of the main TV series of recent years. A request was also sent to Milos Bikovic, who was removed from the show for political reasons, as previously reported by our editorial staff, but this story has not been continued.

The cast of the third season is impressive — Leslie Bibb ("Iron Man", "Law-Abiding Citizen"), Sam Rockwell ("Luna 2112", "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"), Walton Goggins ("The Hateful Eight", Fallout) and many others have received roles, including Arnold Schwarzenegger's son Patrick. He even called this the main role in his career so far. But there is no Jennifer Coolidge in the third season, although fans were waiting for her appearance until the very last minute of the end credits.

Each season, the structure of the series develops according to one pattern. At the very beginning, viewers are shown a murder at a resort, then time rewinds back a week and details what factors led to the bloody denouement. The tragic tone and dramatic narrative combined with black humor and satire of journalistic sound are unchanged for each season. Everywhere is written and directed by Mike White. Thanks to the White Lotus, he has become one of the most decorated showrunners over the past five years.

White raises the stakes every season. In the first season, he told a chamber story in six episodes and with one fatal outcome. The audience was captivated by the locations of sunny Hawaii, the complex chemistry between the actors, and Jennifer Coolidge's great acting. Initially, White planned to limit the series to one season, and the story was completed in a miniseries format. However, the human vices that he so skillfully exposes on the screen turned out to be truly bottomless. They literally needed the director to once again show social inequality using the example of a luxury resort.

In the second season, there were literally more episodes — the number of episodes increased, their number increased to seven, superstars like Aubrey Plaza, Theo James and Michael Imperioli appeared. The setting of the second season was Sicily, and some of the characters came here immediately after their vacation in Hawaii and continued their personal story arcs. At the end of the season, a whole group of people died in the bloodbath, including Coolidge's character, Tanya McQuoid—Hunt, to whom viewers had become quite attached over the two seasons.

But the most shocking stream of revelations remained for the third season. This part of the show has a pronounced oriental flavor due to Thailand and one of the most famous singers in Asia, Lalisa Manoban, better known as Lisa from the cape pop band BLACKPINK.

In the third season, the stories of Greg Hunt (all seasons) and Belinda Lindsay (the first season) develop, and completely new characters are woven into their fate. Viewers once again receive veiled commentary about class differences, coupled with witty dialogues about relationships. Careful, spoiler: this time, the characters' work takes on a new level, showing us how Walton Goggins turns from a respectable and wealthy citizen into an armed psychopath, shooting in all directions and naturally ending his life with fatal wounds at the bottom of the pool.

Compared to the second season, where Tanya dealt with a group of scammers, and then unsuccessfully jumped overboard a yacht, the level of cruelty increases. The misled hero of Goggins kills a man in cold blood, only to immediately find out that it is his own father. In the subsequent shootout, Rick Hatchett himself and his beloved Chelsea are killed. The season finale is not inferior to the serial Guy Ritchie with his "Gangsterland", it was shot professionally, without sentiment, but with careful study of each frame, as if we were watching the iconic scene from Michael Mann's "Fight" again.

How did the stars react

Critics liked the season a little more than ordinary viewers.: 87% and 79% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes. The season finale was watched by 6.2 million people. The participants of the filming process themselves were impressed. Actor Jason Isaacs (his character is a loser businessman who didn't find the courage to commit suicide) admitted that the whole team literally sobbed and held hands for a very long time after watching the final episode of Amor Fati ("love of fate" in Latin).

— I don't know why we were all so overwhelmed at the end of the viewing. Maybe because the story ended in Tae, or maybe because the story turned out to be so heartbreaking," he said.

According to Patrick Schwarzenegger, he was crying over Chelsea's terrible death at the end and it was a new feeling for him. The fact is that he had a strange feeling when he spent so much time with his teammates on the court, and then saw some of them dying in the frame. The actor says that watching it left him feeling like everything really happened, it happened to him and he was involved in it.

Mike White promised to film one season on each continent. It is assumed that European resorts may be in the spotlight in the fourth season, with the Swiss Riviera, Lisbon, Prague, Budapest and Paris among the most popular contenders, despite the fact that Sicily from the second season also refers to Europe. As for the stars that will return: Most likely, these characters will be Greg (John Grice) and Belinda (Natasha Rothwell). According to rumors, the star of the third season, Leslie Bibb, will also return to the series along with her friend Megan Fahey, who played Daphne in the first season.

"White Lotus" is, if not an epochal, then at least a significant event in the world of TV series. However, there is a risk that it will be forgotten as soon as the second season of the series "Some of Us" based on the cult video game from Neil Druckmann starts this weekend.