So another deadly stay at the White Lotus comes to an end—and not with a whimper but with a bunch of really loud bangs, the very same ones we heard in the first episode of this third, Thailand-set season. As it happens, writer-creator-director Mike White was not shy when it came to foreshadowing, but that didn’t make the shootout at the end of the episode any less thrilling (or heartbreaking, of course).

But before that bloodied fate, “Amor Fati” begins with a new day. It’s the last full one these guests (the ladies, the Ratliffs, Belinda and son, and Chelsea and Rick) will spend at this health-and-wellness retreat. And to quote the renowned monk at the monastery during a morning session: “Sometimes we wake with edgy anxiety.” 

Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) certainly did. Perhaps she’s made a mistake in bringing her entire family along for what’s starting to feel like a fool’s errand. Not that anyone else wakes up in any other kind of better shape: Tim (Jason Isaacs), her father, is anxious about the ticking bomb that is the return of their phones (and the reality they’ll usher, in turn). Rick (Walton Goggins), meanwhile, needs to extricate himself from Frank (Sam Rockwell), who is still high and drunk and ready to continue the party. Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) can’t shake off the lucrative if morally murky proposition she got from Greg/Gary (Jon Gries). And as for the ladies—Laurie (Carrie Coon), Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), and Kate (Leslie Bibb)—the bruising conversation from the night before still hangs heavy over all three.

Which is to say: There’s a lot on everyone’s mind. Giving himself a full 90 minutes to disentangle the many thorny threads he’s unspooled for the entire season, White ended up offering a Shakespearean kind of tragedy. (“Nothing From Nothing,” the song that closes out the episode, echoes the King Lear line “Nothing will come of nothing.”) Which means that the very issue of fate this episode title alludes to has as much to do with, say, Chelsea’s astrology as the narrative machinations of those age-old tragedies.

The monk’s words that open the episode speak to the way quick fixes to ease our everyday anxiety will only create more anxiety. The decisions we have to make in order to rid ourselves of that anxiety require work. And at least one person has no intention of following through with her choice to better herself in Thailand: Piper. Yes, just as her mother Victoria (Parker Posey) had hoped, Piper couldn’t cut it even one night without her AC, her organic vegetarian food, and the other privileges she’s grown accustomed to. Trust mom to further coddle her daughter and even make an argument for why she shouldn’t apologize for her wealth or privilege. It’s no wonder Tim feels he cannot, in good conscience, thrust his family into poverty.

And so, as Victoria buys Piper a new piece of jewelry as reward for seeing the light (in Western, white privilege), Tim begins concocting a plan worthy of a stage tragedy. And yes, it does involve the fruits of the Suicide Tree, whose seeds are, as Pam reminds us, poisonous. Add in our very own Chekhov’s blender and—voila!—we’re looking at Kool-Aid/Jonestown situation. Of course, he’ll spare Lochlan (Sam Nivola). Unlike his wife, his daughter, and his eldest son, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), the senior Ratliff knows that his youngest boy is the best of them. Bashful and curious, kind and open-hearted, Lochlan even tells his father he’d be fine living with little.

It’s the kind of self-reflection that’s all over this episode—most notably among the three blonde BFFs. Yes, after a day spent apart, the three come together at dinner and tidy up their joint vacation in rather saccharine terms that feel equally authentic and contrived. Jaclyn says she feels changed by the week, while Kate talks about seeing the garden that is her life blooming around her. And Laurie? Well, she hasn’t been so happy. She’s been sad. Old friends have a way of showing you not just who you were but who you’ve become. She has no religion. She has no love. Heck, she has no career. “I don’t need religion or God because time gives it meaning,” she says of her life. It’s the line all three needed to put their differences aside and go back to giggling on the couch through the night.

If only Tim could’ve had a similar reckoning with his family. Instead, he can only see how unchanged they remain and how little they can shed of themselves, even in Thailand. Not Loch, of course, who may not be all that changed but who seems so much more introspective. (As he puts it to Saxon, he’s the pleaser in a family of narcissists.) Which is why when Tim blends piña coladas with a dash of suicide seeds later that night back at the villa, he insists Loch just have a Coke. It’s sad how Tim cannot bring himself to imagine a different outcome for his family. He cannot see how they could change, survive, or overcome their own greedy instincts even in the face of bankruptcy. Thankfully, he has a change of heart right at the moment when everyone smells something funny in their drinks (“The coconut milk is oeeufff!”). It’s the first of many red herrings throughout the episode where it looks like White is finally showing his hand only to pull the rug from under us.

We’d already gotten a version of it last week when Rick couldn’t bring himself to kill Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn) even after coming face to face with the man he thinks killed his own father. All that meeting has done, apparently, is give Rick some peace. By the time he’s reunited with Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), they’re both beaming. “You’re free,” she tells him as they have breakfast on their last day. She hopes he can focus on the love he has right in front of him rather than the one he was denied. It’s a question about identity that feels simple and yet nags at him, especially when Sritala (Lek Patravadi) and Jim return to the White Lotus (to get a pic with Jaclyn, of all things). Chelsea can see Rick unraveling, especially after he confronts Jim once more and gets a talking to about his mom, whom Jim calls a liar, before showing the gun he’s brought for his own protection. (And here I thought we’d been left only with Gaitok’s gun to worry about.)  

The next morning, when you think the threat of the suicide seeds has abated, young Loch decides to once more emulate his big brother (who insists they not talk about that, uh, shared intimate moment from a few nights ago) and makes himself a protein shake without bothering to clean the blender. And yes, he ends up face up, staring at the sun as he convulses, with no one around to try and save him. Trust his aloof mom, sister, and brother to not notice anything wrong as they head to breakfast. No sooner was I mourning the loss of this Ratliff princeling (in a poetic scene that imagined him drowning, with four looming figures standing right outside the edge unable to help him) than White takes us to an even more shocking series of events happening at breakfast.

Then again, we should’ve known Rick’s temper would get the best of him. Though he does try: Guided by Chelsea’s calming tone, he races to find Amrita (Shalini Peiris) to help quiet his own rush to anger. Only Amrita is busy and about to start a session with Belinda’s son, Zion (Nicholas Duvernay), who has a lot to be happy about (more on that in a bit). And so, left alone to stew in his own self-destructive thoughts, Rick does what we always knew he’d do: Once he sees Jim’s security guys go lax when the ladies surround him and Sritala for a photo op, he rushes toward him, nabs his gun, and shoots him twice—only to learn, of course, that, in Star Wars/Oedipal-fashion, he was his father. 

The shootout between the security detail and Rick (and Gaitok!) that follows is what had first alerted Zion in episode one that all was not well at the White Lotus. Rick, panicked and realizing he’s killed his own father, shoots both bodyguards and finds himself barricaded against a gong with none other than Chelsea. Ah, sweet Chelsea. She’d been talking about being together forever just a few minutes ago. And perhaps we always knew (Final Destination presaging and all) that she would be the one to die. A stray bullet hits her, killing her and Rick’s will to live almost instantaneously. As he carries her body, it’s Gaitok who, having gotten his gun and intent on proving himself (to Sritala, to Mook, to himself) follows his boss’ order to kill Rick. He falls into the water with his beloved, and the star-crossed lovers float amid the beauty of Thailand.

We were never going to exceed the season-two death count, but I was glad to see that White didn’t go through with the killing of Lochlan. After being found by his father, he pukes some more and seemingly recovers. “I think I saw God,” he says. There may be tragedy ahead for the Ratliffs, but they won’t have to mourn one of their own.

In the end, it is only Belinda who comes through with a happy ending. After all, she and Zion are able to negotiate with Greg into giving her $5 million in exchange for her silence (or her guilt, depending on how you think of it). White may offer us a montage of everyone at the end (the Ratliffs slowly realizing the scandal they’re going back to, Gaitok as Sritala’s new bodyguard, Greg winking at Chloe as she flirts, etc.), but it is Belinda, grinning as she daydreams about what’s ahead for her and her son, whom he leaves us with. It’s almost as if he’s arguing that there’s no way a week away can really change or improve you. It can only reveal you. Which is perhaps as bleak as it is blunt. 

And now we wait to see where White will take us next. 

Stray observations

• • What do we think the shooting will do to Jaclyn and the girls? They were close to Jim when Rick opened fire, and it may well change the way they saw the entire weekend, no? 
• • How relieved was everyone when it was made clear that Mike White wasn’t going three-for-three in the “bury your gays” department? I, for one, sighed in relief since I didn’t really want to dissect what White’s oeuvre might be saying when it came to that trope.
• • Much of the brilliance of this finale is due to the ratcheting up of tension throughout—and a lot of that is owed to composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, whose percussive, hum-driven score remains a highlight of the show. Over three seasons, he’s found ways to make the White Lotus guests’ visceral experiences come alive with his instrumentation. (It’s a pity that he recently exited the series.)
• • How bleak is Mike White’s vision of the world? Did Belinda really compromise her morals and did Gaitok really throw away his nonviolent conviction? Did Saxon really learn anything from Chelsea and has Piper really rebuked her own Buddhist sensibilities? Did anyone come out being a better person than there were before?
• • I’ll admit that I would’ve loved to see more of Fabian (Christian Friedel) throughout the season but that split second moment of him falling into the water was nothing short of sublime.
• • Another brilliant cutaway: the monkey howling following Belinda checking her bank account.
• • It’s always hard to choose a season MVP, but I will say that Aimee Lou Wood’s Chelsea and Carrie Coon’s Laurie proved to be, in my opinion, the most interestingly textured characters this season, a testament to White’s writing, yes, but also these actors’ gifts.