‘The White Lotus’: Creator Mike White Unpacks Season 2 Finale Deaths, Ties Loose Ends & Teases Season 3

12.12.2022 - 07:41 / deadline.com

SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about the Season 2 finale of HBO’s The White Lotus.

The slow burn second season of HBO’s The White Lotus continue to simmer until the finale’s last minutes that resolved the show’s signature whodunit mystery.

At the end of the episode, creator, writer and director Mike White revealed more details about the shocking finale, calling it an “operatic conclusion” for Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya, as well as a “happy ending with dark clouds on the horizon” for the two couples – Ethan and Harper and Daphne and Cameron.

The show upped the ante from the first installment with not one but four dead bodies but to be fair, only one was a main character, Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya, and her fate had been foreshadowed by the tragic Madama Butterfly opera she watched midway through the season.

“When I stay at a White Lotus, I always have a memorable time, always,” Tanya said ominously in the Season 2 premiere as series creator Mike White brought back Season 1’s breakout character for a second go-around which became Tanya’s final act.

The vacation didn’t start well for her when her husband Greg left and she discovered that he may be cheating on her. Things got from bad to worse when she got involved with some shady characters, led by Quentin (Tom Hollander), and spent much of her time in his villa in Palermo.

The penultimate episode started piecing together the con Tanya was at the center of with the revelation that Quentin’s mysterious long-lost cowboy love is likely Greg when Tanya saw an old photo of them in the villa. Quentin tried to throw her off in the finale by claiming the name of the guy was Steve but the signs were already there.

Portia’s suspicious about Jack, who had been