HBO‘s The White Lotus Season 2 ended in a shocking and tragic surprise. After two seasons of following the adventures of Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya McQuoid-Hunt, white lotus Showrunner Mike White killed his muse. Tanya and Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) are able to bond briefly long enough for the duo to figure out that Quentin (Tom Hollander) was hired by “Cowboy” Greg (Jon Gries) to murder Tanya for her wealth. In a triumphant twist, Tanya is somehow able to outwit Quentin, hitman Niccoló (Stefano Gianino) and their friends by murdering most of them with the gangster’s own gun. However, when left alone on Quentin’s yacht, Tanya takes the most risky route and dies in her fall.
We learn to the end The White Lotus Season 2 that Tanya was the body that Daphne (Meghann Fahy) discovered while swimming in Episode 1 and that the other dead “guests” were Quentin and his massacred buddies on the yacht. Everyone else just doesn’t survive The White Lotus Season 2, but also…thrives? Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan (Will Sharpe) get back together, Portia asks a dumped Albie (Adam DiMarco) for his number, and local girls Lucia (Simona Tabasco) and Mia (Beatrice Grannò) get everything they wanted .
So why The White LotusThe creator, writer, director and showrunner of , Mike White, decides to kill off the one character we’ve followed from the start? According to White, he decided to kill Tanya after being inspired by one of her final scenes in Season 1.
Officially on HBO white lotus After the show’s “Unboxing,” Mike White said, “At the end of the last season, in the last episode, Tanya is sitting with Greg, and he’s talking about his health issues, and she’s like … ‘I’ve had every kind of treatment over the years. Death is the last immersive experience I haven’t tried.’”
“I thought it would be so fun to bring Tanya back because she’s such a great character. But maybe this is the journey for them, it’s like a journey to…death.”
White emphasized that he didn’t want to kill Tanya – “I love her as a character and of course Jennifer” – but that the Italian setting solidified the idea for him.
“I just felt like, you know, we’re going to Italy. She’s kind of a diva, a larger than life female archetype. It just felt like we could make up our own operatic conclusion to Tanya’s life and story,” White said.
When it came to figuring out how she would die, White wanted to find a balance that felt right for the character and wasn’t “too tragic.”
“I just think it felt too tragic that she died at the hands of someone else. It felt like she had to fight back as best she could and in a way win a victory over whoever was conspiring to get rid of her,” White said. “So it just made me laugh when I thought she’d like to take out all this cabal of killers and after successfully doing that, she just dies that derpy death.”
“And I just felt like, that’s just the way it is, Tanya,” White laughed.
Although Tanya has officially checked out from HBO white lotus Forever White is still committed to the franchise. HBO has already ordered a third season of the hit series, and White has already revealed the theme and setting in the same Unpacking after-show.
“The first season was about money, and the second season is about sex,” White said. “And I think maybe the third season would be kind of a satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. And it feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another lap at White Lotus.”
So The White Lotus Season 3 will deal with death and spirituality in a seemingly Asian setting. We’ll have to be patient to find out exactly where White will send his next round of achingly privileged tourists and which actors will be in the cast.