Sam Nivola Says Lochlan Still Doesn't Know His Dad Poisoned Him

Spoiler alert: This post discusses the events of the White Lotus Season 3 finale.

Every season of The White Lotus always leaves a few big questions open-ended, and in Season 3, some of main head-scratchers revolve around Lochlan Ratliff. In the finale, Lochlan unknowingly downed a smoothie made from the lethal pong-pong fruit, briefly dying by the resort pool before recovering in his father’s arms. But one unhygienic moment in the lead-up to this climax and exactly what everyone knows in its aftermath have caused a lot of confusion. Thankfully, Sam Nivola is clearing everything up.

As the Season 3 finale aired, one moment that instantly went viral was Lochlan’s decision to make a protein smoothie with the dirty blender that his family had used to make piña coladas the night before. The appliance was still filled with milky residue, but instead of cleaning it out before making a morning drink, Lochlan simply poured his protein powder and water in with the leftovers. It turned out to be a grave error, since unbeknownst to him, his father Timothy had made the piña coladas with a poisonous fruit.

Nivola explained that his character didn’t clean the blender before using it because he assumed his older brother had just made his own protein-filled smoothie. “I was expecting that Saxon had made a protein shake in it. I thought it was just leftover protein,” Nivola said when asked on The Tonight Show. “So I’m like, ‘You know what? A little extra protein never hurt anybody.’ I’m not that much of an idiot.”

Another major question around Lochlan in the finale is just how aware he is of what really happened to him. The last shot leaves it unclear if the rest of Lochlan’s family even knew if he had briefly died, and it’s also up in the air if the youngest Ratliff had figured out that the smoothie was toxic (or that his dad was the one to poison it).

Nivola says the vague final scene is meant to confirm that Lochlan is totally unaware of what his father did with that blender. “I don’t think so, because I think if he did, he would tell someone, and then they’d be talking about that on the boat home,” Nivola told Variety. “He just thought he got food poisoning or something like, which is not uncommon when you’re from America and you’re traveling abroad.”