The White Lotus finale proves slow TV can be spectacular ...Middle East

This review contains spoilers for the series-three finale of The White Lotus

There’s been a lot of grumbling about how slow the third series of The White Lotus has been. I get it: entire episodes have passed with very little action and, with eight episodes rather than last year’s seven and a weekly release schedule, it’s taken a while to get to the deadly crescendo. But this escalating, intense finale more than makes up for slower moments earlier on.

Over the last few months, I’d almost forgotten that one (or more) of the guests wouldn’t be boarding their boat home. Distractions have included Timothy Ratliff’s descent into depression after being caught embezzling money, the bitching between childhood besties Jaclyn, Kate and Laurie, and the blossoming romance between hotel employees Gaitok and Mook. Oh, and incest of course – it wouldn’t be The White Lotus without a bit of incest.

But with an ominous opening speech from the local Buddhist monk warning of the dangers of violence and the merits of self-restraint, you remember the impending doom signalled by the gunfire that kicked off the first episode. In the next 90 minutes, each character’s arc will come to an end – some more finitely than others.

For Belinda, her worries over the return of Greg culminate in a meeting with the man she thinks murdered her friend and potential business partner. After being persuaded by her son to push for $1m rather than the $100,000 offered, she is stunned when Zion pushes for an extra $4m – then gives in to her greed. Watching Belinda get her dues and literally sail off into the sunset is a double-edged sword: on one hand she’s a good person, on the other, she now joins the ranks of the moneyed monsters she previously worked for.

The White Lotus’s brilliance comes from its skewering of the age-old paradox that money both protects and destroys. This third series hammers home that message harder than any previous one – unlike Jennifer Coolidge’s dearly departed Tanya, very few of the actual rich people have any redeeming qualities this time around, and despite their beautiful clothes and deep pockets, their lives are far from enviable.

Take the Ratliffs: Piper’s overnight stint in the monastery turns out to be the death of her dreams of living in Thailand and – disappointed in his daughter’s admittance of being spoiled – Timothy takes it upon himself to put an end to his family’s future misery via Saxon’s blender. While we were all focused on Chekhov’s gun being an actual gun, we forgot all about those poisonous fruit seeds, didn’t we?

By some Shakespearean twist it isn’t the family who end up prostrate pool side, but poor innocent Lachlan – the only one who wasn’t fed a cocktail by his familicidal dad but secretly made his own with the seeds left in the blender. But turns out his isn’t the death we were promised in episode one. He survives the poisoning, after “seeing God” in the form of four shadowy monks.

There are far too many threads in The White Lotus to delve into here, so rich is the world that creator Mike White has built. And while they may seem disparate throughout the series, they’re all adeptly woven together in the finale – perhaps with the exception of the three warring friends, who simply kiss and make up over cocktails.

It all comes to a head with the return of Rick from Bangkok, followed by Jim, the man he went there to kill. Rick’s hatred is reignited when Jim calls his mother a “slut”, and he fires two bullets straight into his chest. So ensues the anticipated gun fight, in which Aimee Lou Wood’s sweet, loving and loveable Chelsea is caught in the crosshairs. As if that isn’t devastating enough, who should deliver the second killing – another gunshot, this time into Rick’s back – but Gaitok, who previously lamented his inability to cause harm to others.

There are two ways to watch The White Lotus and both are perfectly valid. One is to enjoy it on a surface level, for the funny, ridiculous satire it is. This finale episode made me laugh out loud several times, even amid the gunfire when hotel manager Fabian is flung into the pool. This has been a stellar series of television, the slowness only adding to the meditative, cumulative dread.

Which brings me to the second way to watch: to go deeper, to uncover a wider, more meaningful message. This series’s final point is more nihilistic than ever: suffering is simply unavoidable. Especially if we inflict it on ourselves.

‘The White Lotus’ is streaming on Now

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