WHITE LOTUS: 5 Things That NEED To Happen During Sunday's Finale
It's been a slow, slooowww build but we've finally arrived at the explosive finale of Mike White's Thai tale. Here's what I need to see happen!
(Vitamin C voice) As we go on…we remember…all the Thai we…had together…
My friends, it has been quite a season of HBO’s White Lotus. Of all the White Lotus seasons, this was absolutely one of them.
It’s been a very slow burn, with most episodes feeling like repetitive underlining of plot points and character traits we already fully understood, to the point the pencil tip snaps. Jason Isaacs has taken about 37 stressful phone calls, Amy Lou Wood has called Walton Goggins her soulmate about 98 times, Parker Posey has made the most of her two hazy lines per episode, and the trio of blonde besties have THOROUGHLY established they’re all insecure and jealous of each other, many times over.
We get it! Just get us to the shooting you teased in episode 1!
But before you do, here are five things I absolutely need to see happen.
1. Parker Posey Needs To Do Something! Anything!
Yes, I know I keep harping on this but it’s so true and it makes me so furious! Parker Posey, easily the greatest comedic talent on the show, has been wasted. Unless she does cartwheels uzis off a roof in the finale, Mike White has failed us, tricked us, insulted us by putting Parker-baby in a corner.
“Ohhhh John, just wait, she’s off her Lorazepam! She’s gonna go wild!” they said. She’s been off her pills for two episodes and NADA. NOTHING. Just more “I like being rich” and repetitive “Piper nooOooo!” moments.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s FANTASTIC with what little she’s had to do. Each line is a tiny triumph. But she’s really the only major character in ANY season of the White Lotus to truly not have her own subplot. She just sits, disapproves of her daughter, and reminds Jason Isaacs that she likes money. It’s depressing.
So, how could Mike White salvage this? Here are a few ideas:
Make the entire episode a flashback to Victoria at UNC, her college self played by Parker with a 90s perm. Who cares if it doesn’t have anything to do with the White Lotus resort, it’ll be 10,000 times more interesting.
Make Victoria the shooter. She learns the truth of her husband’s financial fuckery and lunges for Gaitok’s gun and just kills everyone in the resort (with cartwheel uzis!) before exhaling, sitting down, and dabbing herself with perfume.
Instead of a finale, it’s Mike White sitting down and staring at the camera and explaining that Parker’s talent was too vast and cosmically overwhelming for him to write for and he got scared and that’s why Victoria was sidelined. Then, as punishment, Parker gets to chase him with a leaf blower.
2. Belinda Just Needs To Bounce
Why in 7,000 hells would Belinda EVER agree to going to Greg’s house??? She’s too smart for that, Mike White. Ugh!
The very first scene of the finale needs to be Belinda telling her son to take their luggage to lobby and wait for her. Then, she swings by the spa and takes sexy Pornchai by the hand and say “You’re coming to Hawaii with me, Pornchai, where we will have porn sex and drink chai tea.” Then, her and Pornchai (who is now shirtless) go to the lobby to kick Fabian in the dick several times, and then they get an Uber to the American embassy where she can report Greg’s whereabouts. And then, she and her son and Pornchai fly first class back to Hawaii where she gets promoted, lei’d, and laid.
Anything else is less than she deserves!!
3. Justice For Pam
Oh Pam, our delightful shit-upon queen. If there’s any justice, the finale will let you dropkick Jason Isaacs’ character in the balls about forty times. And then casually drop his phone on his stomach and say “Here’s your phone back, bitch” (or, in Australian, “Heeh’s yeh phohrne bick, bitch!”)
Actually, I wouldn’t mind Pam turned out to be the shooter and just goes postal on the Ratliff family and anyone else who has wronged her (just leave Gaitok, Belinda, Pornchai, and Chelsea alone, they are treasures!)
4. Give Sritala A Helicopter And An Army
This poor, glamorous icon! She’s been nothing but kind to her trashy white guests and the one of them tricks her into thinking she’s been cast in a big Hollywood movie, only for him to want to secretly kill her elderly husband, for vague reasons that honestly feel like a gay man trying to write straight man 1970s movie motives.
Sritala invited Rick to her home! She queened out watching her old music videos with Frank! Queening out is one of the most vulnerable and trusting things you can do!
So basically, I need Sritala to fly a helicopter herself filled to the gills with special forces marine types, float it over Rick’s villa, let the marines do their slide-down-ropes things and infiltrate the villa, be very kind and respectful to our sweet angel Chelsea, but demand Rick exist the villa and face Sritala (who is now holding a bazooka) and apologize to him. In this scenario, she will have already captured Frank and have him tied up in the helicopter, and somehow she demands that they actually make a movie with her, and one where she DOESN’T play a bordello owner, but instead a singing helicopter pilot fashionista queen. She then airlifts Rick like a cow rescued from a flood over to Greg’s mansion, where the marines do their rope-slide thing again and get Greg at gunpoint to sign a check to fund the movie, which will be called Goddess of the Skies.
That’s what I need to happen!
Yes, I know Sritala’s husband is a terrible guy and Rick is endearing in his own crooked way, but none of that matters when you have wronged such an absolute glamazon QUEEN.
5. The Return of Tanya McQuoid
Let’s face it, any season of White Lotus without Jennifer Coolidge will always be a lesser season. I don’t know how, but she needs to come back in the finale to avenge Tanya’s death and put Greg in his place. Maybe it’s as Tanya’s twin sister Tonya, maybe there’s a tsunami and somehow it’s carried Tanya’s body from Sicily all the way to Thailand and it hasn’t rotted and Sritala sings a song that brings her back to life, maybe she just appears as an entirely new character who buys the house next to Greg and drives him insane. Maybe she’s the fourth friend of the Leslie Bibb/Michelle Monaghan/Carrie Coon trio and they finally unite in their annoyance with her!
I don’t know! There’s no sensical way to bring her back, I realize, but the logical leap to restoring Jennifer Coolidge to our Sunday night screens could never be as disruptive as the abyss she left behind when she tumbled off that yacht.
We need our Peppa Pig, now more than ever!
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