I Hated the White Lotus Finale

Plus the underlying misogyny of Mike White

Warning: This essay has spoilers, hot takes and alternate plot suggestions….do not read on if you haven’t finished the season…

I am a person who loves television and also one who no longer watches a lot of television. I’m constantly trying to reconcile these two truths. So when I do watch TV, I need it to be a real banger. I wanted the finale of White Lotus to be a banger, but in the end (for me at least) it was pretty much a bust.

At first I thought I was just disappointed in the finale, but after more careful consideration and marination (I can’t do immediate think pieces any more…things need to settle in my peri-meno brain) I decided that I actually hated it and it felt like a massive cop-out. Too many threads were left unresolved and way too many opportunities missed. Let’s talk about all of them, shall we.

Everything about it felt hurried and hollow, and I’m not alone. The Hollywood Reporter called it “emotionally detached,” and Forbes went so far as to dub it “a crushing disappointment.” Slate pointed out that while Nietzsche’s concept of amor fati was woven into the narrative, its execution was muddled, making the finale feel grim rather than profound. Simply adding a Latin phrase to something does not elevate it to high art.

Let’s start with the Ratliffs. Did I want them all to die in some outrageous murder-suicide? No. But also, yes, kind of. Or maybe just Timothy and Victoria (and I’m only saying Victoria because I really do not want her to have to live an uncomfortable life at her age). Okay, and also Saxon. There was something so deeply unsatisfying about how their storyline fizzled out, despite all the potential for delicious chaos.

Timothy’s half-baked scheme to poison his family with spiked piña coladas (seriously, piña coladas, the most junior varsity of pool drinks) felt expected. We all saw it coming. We all knew that blender was gonna be up to something. But then the entire scene fell flat. They just popped a bottle of wine and went to bed. What if Pam had brought the phones back to all of them then? Would they have gone back for round two of a coconut candy slushie?

As The Independent pointed out, everything remotely interesting about the Ratliffs—their impending financial ruin, the fallout from Saxon and Lochlan’s night together—was left off-camera or ignored entirely. What we got instead was a rushed attempt at shock value that just didn’t land. It was all build up and no pay off.

Timothy Ratliff’s speech in the finale about family being the most important thing also felt oddly out of place, almost like it had been ripped straight from the pages of Project 2025.

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