Firstly, the season finale of The White Lotus season three is a triumph, right up there with the very best endings of any TV show in the streaming era. More fun than Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya gun-toting exit in season two? No, but it was far more successful as a tragedy, the final act of a slow-burning season, exploding with action and emotion and bringing in huge questions about fate, God and family violence. And with certain characters caught in an inevitable doom, this was actually a modern-day Greek tragedy.
The response to this season has been curious. Perhaps its late-stage social media culture but while conversation around previous seasons took in its thematic and satirical elements, now most of the chat simply revolved around the ‘shocking’ moments, as if Mike White’s aim with the show is to purely to stick it to viewers with weird moments, to simply freak you out with perversity.
