The White Lotus' Ending, Explained
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In 1976, The Eagles dedicated one of their most popular songs to an eerie, mythical hotel that always had plenty of vacancies. The Hotel California, however, operates on one solid principle—"You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave."
The White Lotus, the resort starring in Mike White's satirical HBO series by the same name, is its own kind of Hotel California. This week's season finale topped off the six episodes with a death, one we knew about from the first few shots of episode one. The White Lotus, which began with an unexpected birth, closes with an expected murder, a sacrifice in this parable of privilege and excess. Here's what went down; spoilers ahead.
Armond and Shane Patton
In the end, it was Armond (Murray Bartlett) who meets his demise at the hands of his nemesis, Shane (Jake Lacy). In the manager's fury over Shane's constant demands for the Pineapple Suite and his plot to get him fired, Armond gets high and breaks into the suite, where Shane and Rachel (Alexandra Daddario) are now staying. He then proceeds to defecate in Shane's open suitcase.
Earlier in the episode, Shane heard about the attempted robbery in the Mossbacher's room, took a knife meant to cut pineapples, and placed it on his nightstand in a sad attempt at self defense. When Shane later enters his room to unusual sounds and a putrid smell, he grabs the knife. Sneaking around the Pineapple Suite, knife pointed outward, he makes a sharp turn around a corner and literally, though accidentally, runs into Armond, stabbing him in the chest.
Shane reacts with a simple, “Oh fuck! I’m sorry!” and runs out of the room. However, it's too late, and Armond falls into the bathtub, slightly chuckling to himself as he dies. Armond's fate is sealed in the Pineapple Suite and, as he suspected all along, it was Shane, and the pineapples, who catalyzed his demise.
Killing Armond, though accidentally, falls in step with Shane's actions throughout the series. His absurdity lies not within his problems, but his escalation. Though his issues can be legitimate (he did actually book the Pineapple Suite; his new wife wanted to leave him; he had an intruder in his room), his responses are constantly out of sync with the gravity of his situation. Naturally, he seems to receive no recourse for stabbing someone, both legally or emotionally.
Rachel Patton
Rachel spends the finale soul-searching, though in a characteristically shallow way. She begins the episode crying in the spa and eventually tells Shane she's leaving him. Rachel seems like she's going to escape her husband's world, booking her own hotel room and actually confronting Shane after privately simmering for five episodes. Shane, though, somehow knows that Rachel can't leave. She tells Shane that marrying him was "a mistake" and Shane just laughs.
Rachel tries to get other people to bail her out, even laying her problems on Belinda (Natasha Rothwell). However, she gets an unsatisfying response when Belinda, to her credit, tells her, "You want my advice? I’m all out." At the very end of the episode, when the viewer almost believes Rachel breaks free from Shane, she reappears at the airport. Her streak of independence stayed on the island, while, when faced with the prospect of home, she chooses to return to her marriage. She hugs Shane and tells him, like the trophy wife she swore she didn't want to be, "Everything’s fine. I’m happy; I promise... I’ll be happy."
Mark & Nicole Mossbacher, Olivia & Paula
Meanwhile, the Mossbachers recover from the attempted robbery seamlessly. Paula, though, is still reeling from her role in Kai's eventual custody and, after vomiting on a boat, breaks down to Olivia (Sydney Sweeney). Olivia tries to distance herself from her parents' wealth, but Paula tells her that, whether Olivia likes it or not, she is one of them. However, what Paula misses is that she, too, is staying at the hotel with the rich white people she condemns, and probably caused more damage than any of the other Mossbachers. She, unlike Kai, gets to leave the island and her time at the White Lotus behind. She also manages to reconcile with Olivia by the end of the episode, as the two once again read side-by-side.
The elder Mossbachers (Connie Britton and Steve Zahn) seem happy as ever and finally get to take that scuba diving trip. The vacation drama—from Mark telling his son about his affair to learning his father died from HIV—seems to have washed away in the crystalline blue, turtle-filled Hawaiian waters.
Tanya, Belinda, and Greg
Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) vacates the White Lotus as narcissistic as she entered it, leaving damage in her wake. She backs out of her business promise to Belinda, telling her “the last thing I need is another transactional relationship.” Without any sense of irony, Tanya leaves an envelope of cash on the table for Belinda as a misguided thank you gift. Belinda begins to cry, crumbling under the weight of other people's problems.
After her mother's death, Tanya was looking for companionship, albeit one-sided. She found it in Belinda, but then easily replaced her with Greg. Tanya is also finally able to spread her mother's ashes in the ocean, because she now has another person to hold onto.
Belinda, though, cannot escape the island. Even though she is fed up with the white mess that is the White Lotus she, unlike the guests, does not have the privilege of leaving. The only way, it seems, that a "local" can get out of the hotel is with birth (Lani in episode one), death (Armond), or in custody (Kai). The guests' wealth buys them mobility, while Belinda is trapped in tropical Hell. The episode ends as Belinda is stuck waving to a new crop of guests as they approach the dock, and the cycle starts over again.
Quinn Mossbacher
Quinn Mossbacher (Fred Hechinger), unlike Belinda, can escape his unhappy situation. He asks his parents if he can stay in Hawaii and canoe, but given that he's in high school, they say no. However, Quinn makes a run for it at the airport and the episode cuts to him rowing with the Hawaiian team, just as he wanted. In the end, it is only Quinn that is both willing and able to change his situation. But, you can't help but wonder how long he'll last.
Lani
Though Lani (Jolene Purdy) never returns to the White Lotus, she acts as a symbol for the season's plotline. In hiding her pregnancy, Lani illustrated how deeply appearances matter in the show's ecosystem and how, though everything may seem fine, people are often ignorant to what may be bubbling under the surface. It is certainly not a coincidence, too, that one of the only Hawaiian, non-wealthy characters on the show gets to merely act as a symbol in one episode, rather than being fleshed out into a developed human being.
So, in the end, what's one to say of The White Lotus? Indeed, "this could be Heaven or this could be Hell."
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