Who Was Murdered in 'The White Lotus' Season 3? Early Predictions and Theories
We get to enjoy a whole six minutes and fifty seconds within The White Lotus’s Thai outpost before we see a dead body. And while creator Mike White’s exceptionally successful anthology series serves to satirise the super-rich, we mustn’t forget that ultimately the show is ultimately a vehicle for a whodunnit murder mystery.
The set up for this season shows a man in his twenties – presumably the son of the spa manager from series one, Belinda – startled out of his meditation session by shots being fired. Wading through the water in the resort, he stops by a Buddha statue and frantically starts praying, “Please let my mum be OK, please let my mum be OK” then, totally unironically, starts praying “in Jesus’s name” in front of the Buddhist god, before yelling: “What the fuck? I said don’t let anything happen to my mother, muthafucka!”
With that one scene we’re back, plunged into the kind of darkly comic culture clash that the show is famed for. Then the dead body (face down; dark hair, greige top) floats by.
Looking back over TWL’s unfortunate history, we’ve had the death of one staff member (Armond, the manager, season 1) and one guest (Tanya McQuoid, season 2), so statistically speaking, for season 3 it could go either way. White told Time magazine of the characters in season three: “They’re all in some kind of hurt. Like, they’re all dead, but they don’t know it”.
Still, it's worth remember that one of the guests is not only spiritually dead, but actually dead-dead. So let’s speculate on who the murdered floater is most likely to be (spoilers, obviously, ahead):
Rick Hatchett (Walton Goggins)
Perennially grumpy and/or angry, something’s happened in Rick’s life to make him incredibly miserable: even being in a luxury Thai resort with his gorgeous (much) younger girlfriend can’t get him to crack a smile. He’s got some sort of unfinished business with either Sritala, the older Thai woman who owns the resort, or her husband, so perhaps he’s come looking for some sort of trouble or revenge, and why he may be the one who actually ends up dead.
Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong)
The sweet resort security guard has a crush on Mook (Blackpink’s Lalisa Manobal), but will this see him get caught up in some other darker forces at play in the hotel? Plus, the dead body floating in the water looked a little like it was wearing his exact resort uniform.
Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood)
This cosmic, straight-talking chick seems young and naive – “Ooh, I don’t mean to complain, but that’s not very much?” she says when the server pours her a taster of wine to sample at dinner – and given that her holiday mates look like they’re going to be Greg (yes, that Greg!) and his new girlfriend, we could see her end up in a nasty situation.
Sritala (Lek Patravadi)
From the fevered way the staff talk about her, is anyone else getting cult leader vibes from Sritala? Is she exploiting spirituality to make a mint off her clueless, rich guests? There’s the added layer of some unexplained link between her and the angry Rick, so perhaps this makes her the possible victim.
Belinda (Natasha Rothwell)
Surely White didn’t bring back Belinda the spa manager all the way from series one, only to kill her off? That would be incredibly unfortunate (and a double blow for Belinda, who already had her dreams and wishes murdered by another White Lotus guest back in the day). But, as fate would have it, she’s doing the wellness exchange programme at the same time that Tanya McQuoid’s con-man and killer widow, Greg, is there. Will she make the link? Will it lead to her death?
Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs)
The dodgy dad from the Southern states, this guy has screamed “guilty of some indiscernible financial crime” since the opening seconds of the trailer. However, he’s also probably one of the richest people in the resort, and we all know how millionaires manage to make problems like this mysteriously vanish and continue to carry on failing upwards – a recurring theme of TWL – so we’re going to go out on a limb and say not old Tim, nor his prescription-popping wife, Victoria (Parker Posey).
Saxon Ratliff (Patrick Schwarzenegger)
Just a horrible, predatory person through and through – grossly enabled by his mum – Saxon is the character most people will hope is knocked off mysteriously on the Thai island. But, like his dad, his privilege will likely protect him, and if anything, he’s more likely to be the murderer, rather than the murderee.
Kate (Leslie Bibb), Laurie (Carrie Coon) and Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan)
We’re putting these three gal pals (“longtime friends, not old friends, hahaha!” they quip) low down the list as although the true toxic nature of their friendship is slowly seeping out on the island, we’re betting that the only thing that’s going to be killed off here is their struggling relationship, as they emotionally destroy each other over the course of a week-long Pinot Grigio sesh.
Greg Hunt (Jon Gries)
The best kept secret of season 3 has to be the jumpscare that is the return of Greg. “I think he deserves a terrible fate,” Jennifer Coolidge previously said of Greg, after her tragic-comic icon Tanya McQuoid’s untimely demise. Will creator Mike White cave to his good pal’s plea? Please, Mike #JusticeForTanya.
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