‘The White Lotus’ season 3 finale is a whopping 90 minutes — and it can save what’s been a very uneven stay

“The White Lotus” season 3 has been … well, let’s be honest, it’s been an uneven stay at the resort this time around.

There have been some wild moments. The show’s focus on the excesses and unhinged behavior of those with more money than sense is a hallmark of the murder mystery show, and this season’s wealthy hotel guests have inarguably been the most deranged of any season yet.

Yet, although the show has largely kept to the formula that made it great, this season has been underwhelming for many, myself included.

Frankly, season 3 has a pacing problem. Maybe the eight-episode season is to blame — the previous two seasons were six and seven episodes long, respectively and perhaps Mike White needs a more truncated length to restrain some of his impulses.

Or perhaps there are too many characters.

The cast for “The White Lotus” has never been larger than this season, and instead of the typical three groups of guests plus the hotel staff, we have a few more groups of characters this go around. There are still three main groups of guests, but then there’s the Belinda storyline and the Gaitok storyline to focus on rather than just one main hotel staff storyline.

But regardless, we’ve spent over seven hours with these characters and many of them feel like they’re currently in a holding pattern. Walton Goggins’ character Rick, in particular, had seemingly been set up for a massive moment in last week’s episode, but ultimately, that storyline ended with more of a whimper than a bang.

Or at least, it did for now. Thanks to a mammoth 90-minute season finale, we have a lot of time to get the resolution we need to these expansive, sprawling storylines.

Season 3’s 90-minute finale could ultimately be a satisfying conclusion

Normally, I’d be in full panic mode about this season finale. If it were a standard hour-long episode, there simply wouldn’t be enough time to witness the death, find out who did it and wrap up everyone’s storyline in a satisfying way.

But with 90 minutes? That’s enough time to bring everything to a satisfying conclusion.

To be fair, there’s still a lot to wrap up. We need to know if Timothy Ratliff is going to successfully engineer a murder-suicide or if the Ratliff boys can ever look each other in the eyes again after their adventures at the Full Moon Party.

We also need to see if Piper Ratliff stays in Thailand or realizes the monastery life isn’t for her.

My prediction? In a manner fitting of how “The White Lotus” often goes, she decides not to stay because, at her core, she’s still a rich, sheltered girl from North Carolina rebelling against her parents. But I could see the youngest Ratliff, Lochlan, deciding to stay after his night at the meditation center.

Of course, this is just the Ratliffs. We still need to resolve Rick and Chelsea’s storyline, which is now tangled in Saxon Ratliff’s ongoing search for meaning.

There’s also Gaitok, who, after the last episode, I think is destined to pull the trigger and kill whoever Zion saw (Nicholas Duvernay) floating in the water at the beginning of the season 3 premiere.

The one group I’m most curious about is the girls’ trip of Jaclyn, Kate and Laurie. Their story seems likely to have the least satisfying resolution — does their friendship blow up or do they decide to still love/hate each other?

Finally, there’s Belinda, who has to decide if she’s taking Gary/Greg’s offer or to out him to the authorities. I’m relatively confident she won’t die, though, because it didn’t feel like Zion saw his mother floating in the water.

Regardless of how these stories end, Mike White just needs to keep to the model that “The White Lotus” held to over the past two seasons and deliver the unexpected in the season finale.

As long as that happens, we’ll probably forgive the flawed season that led up to what’s hopefully a shocking yet satisfying conclusion.

Watch “The White Lotus” season 3 finale this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max

Malcolm McMillan

Malcolm has been with Tom’s Guide since 2022, and has been covering the latest in streaming shows and movies since 2023. He’s not one to shy away from a hot take, including that “John Wick” is one of the four greatest films ever made.

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