Every White Lotus Clue About *That* Finale Death
This calls for a rewatch, immediately!
Spoiler alert: This post discusses the events of the White Lotus Season 3 finale.
At long last, the mystery of who died at the end of The White Lotus Season 3 has been unveiled, but if you were paying close enough attention, you might have been able to figure it out before that finale. As always, HBO’s twist-filled vacation drama was filled with clues pointing to its climactic moment. And now that the ending has been revealed, those little hints have become much more prominent when looking back.
Even though The White Lotus loves a good misdirect, each season always includes more than enough clever nods to which character (or characters) will be checking out in a body bag. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, so they usually become much more obvious once you know what to look for — like how fans realized Season 2 was filled with ill omens for Tanya only after she met her end.
In the Thailand season, the carnage was multiplied, as two main characters (along with a key side character and a few nameless bodyguards) were massacred in a shootout. If you have the sudden urge to rewatch Season 3 to look out for clues about Rick and Chelsea’s brutal deaths, here are a few things to particularly stay alert for.
1. “Things Happen In Threes”
Probably one of the biggest thematic motifs in the Thai story is the number of the season itself: three. As in many religions, the number three is very prominent in Buddhism; it can refer to the three marks of existence, the three jewels, or the three schools of Buddhism, among other representations.
The number has been prominent in the season from the beginning, with the three female friends, the three Ratliff children, and of course, the infamous threesome. Notably, it’s Chelsea who calls out the cosmic importance of the number early on. “Things happen in threes,” she warns Rick. Sure enough, at the end of the season, there are three significant deaths: Jim Hollinger, Rick, and Chelsea.
Chelsea’s warning was also a hint that she and Rick would be involved in the season’s major tragedy. She gave her boyfriend the warning after she experienced a robbery and was bitten by a snake, predicting that a third terrible thing would be happening to her. Sadly, she was right to be concerned.
2. Rick’s Sai Sin Thread
When each resort guest arrived in Thailand, they were all given a sai sin thread. These bracelets are blessed by Buddhist monks to grant the wearer protection and good health. Almost everyone put the accessory on, except for Rick. As Chelsea walks toward their room, Rick notably returned his bracelet to the greeters — probably the earliest sign that he would not be protected in the end.
3. Chelsea’s Necklace
Rick’s sai sin thread isn’t the only accessory that indicated doom for the couple. Chelsea also wore her death warrant in plain sight throughout the season. She frequently wore a gold necklace with the phrase “Stay Gold” engraved on it. That’s a reference to the iconic 1967 novel The Outsiders, in which the narrator’s best friend tells him to “Stay gold, Ponyboy.”
It’s a fitting sentiment for Chelsea, since the phrase is meant as encouragement to stay true to oneself, embracing purity and innocence no matter the situation, much like she has done throughout the Thai trip. However, the statement is a main character’s dying words, so it’s also tinged with lethal tragedy.
In the book, the line is also a callback to the Robert Frost poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” So, while Chelsea might have been pure gold, that’s what also sealed her fate from the very beginning.
4. “At This Point We’re Linked”
Throughout the season, Chelsea makes several comments about how she and Rick are forever connected, the most telling coming in the finale when she tells him, “At this point we’re linked. So if a bad thing happens to you, it happens to me.” Now it’s clear that all along, these comments were signaling Rick and Chelsea dying together.
Adding to this cosmic connection, the couple has been constantly depicted as yin and yang, with Chelsea outright comparing them to the philosophical concept in one conversation. It’s no coincidence that the final pose of their dead bodies mirrors the shape of yin and yang.
5. Aimee Lou Wood’s Credits Art
Each season’s opening credits always hit different once you actually know what happens. For Season 3, it’s the artwork associated with Aimee Lou Wood’s name that feels particularly telling. The depiction of a tiger fending off jackals from a dead deer seems to be a direct allusion to Rick’s final moments with Chelsea, as he fought off Jim Hollinger’s bodyguards but couldn’t save his girlfriend from the gunfire.
6. The Opening Credits Theory
There’s one more theory about the opening credits that may have seemed purely incidental at first, but after three seasons of being proven true, it may actually be considered a real pattern now. Namely, the speculation is that each season kills off the character based on the actor whose name appears in the season number’s spot.
So, Season 1 killed Murray Bartlett’s character when his name was first in the credits, Season 2 killed Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya when Coolidge came up second in the credits, and in Season 3, Walton Goggins’ name is the third listed during the opening theme.
It should be noted that the actors’ names always appear in alphabetical order in these themes, so this felt like more of a coincidence at first. But now that it’s been correct three times in a row, keep your eyes peeled for whose name comes up fourth when the Season 4 opening credits start to play.
