On Sunday, we will all finally check out of The White Lotus. Some viewers have enjoyed the third season’s approach to Eastern philosophy (and the introduction to the most messed-up family from Durham, North Carolina, since The Staircase). Others have complained that season three has been too slow. But we’re all going to be watching it whether or not we’ve enjoyed the ride thus far because there is at least one major mystery left to solve: Who is the dead body floating in the water in this season’s opening scene?
Fans of the show remember that the first season’s opening moments foreshadowed a death (spoiler alert: It was the hotel manager, Armond, who was accidentally stabbed by a whiny hotel guest played by Jake Lacy). The second season opened with Meghann Fahy’s character, Daphne, discovering a dead body in the Sicilian waters (that one turned out to be Jennifer Coolidge’s character, Tanya). This year, it’s a question of who dies at the Thailand resort and who fired the shots that ostensibly killed them. Maybe it doesn’t even matter who dies. It’s Mike White’s world, and this season, he has already given us full-frontal male nudity, shades of incest, complicated age-gap relationships, and a really solid example of why you should never, ever take a three-person girls’ trip. But in case you need inspiration for what to chat with your co-workers about ahead of The White Lotus 90-minute season-three finale, which airs April 6 at 9 p.m. on HBO, here are some of our staff’s wildest theories about what will happen.
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• The Ratliff dad feeds poison fruit smoothies to his family.
• Saxon is the only Ratliff who goes back to America.
• The hotel manager gets a record deal.
• Victoria gets killed by a monkey à la The Staircase owl death.
• Saxon and Chelsea kiss.
• Pam, the health butler, is the one with the gun.
• Valentin and his Russian friends kill Jaclyn by accident.
• Gary tries to kill Belinda but accidentally gets someone else.
• Belinda goes on a shooting spree against everyone who has wronged her and runs off with her new masseur boyfriend.
• Lochlan becomes a Buddhist. He stays in Thailand to live with Chloe and Gary as their third.
• The bodyguards of the rich guy come to the hotel to kill Rick.
• Mook runs off with the bodyguards.
• Victoria moves to Taiwan.
• Saxon fucks Frank as a side quest.
• Laurie leaks Jaclyn’s affair to TMZ.
• Chelsea fires the gun.
• Gaitok gets a promotion.
• The siblings have a threesome.
