‘The White Lotus’ knows how to mix exotic holiday and murder mystery. The show’s third season took viewers to Koh Samui, Thailand. With myriad characters and a slow-burn drama, the finale was much-anticipated, and there were theories floating around about who would get killed and how. Now, that secret has been revealed. It was a perfect conclusion, albeit very heartbreaking.
The focus of this season had been the Ratcliff family. The finale rounded up the stories of every character. But a particular plotline where Piper loses her virginity was cut from the episode. The idea was to resolve her arc. She was quite disgustingly mocked for her asexual life by her brothers, after all. But who was the guy who would’ve hooked up with Piper? It’s surprising, like many other elements of the story.
Piper Was Supposed To Sleep With A Surprising Character In ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3
The Ratliffs aren’t a good bunch on ‘The White Lotus.’ They are the rich, entitled Americans who can’t stand other cultures, much less their own family. Despite the show they put up, they have a superiority complex, unless they go into a hole of existential crisis. Maybe they loathe themselves at the core.
The mother, Victoria, is a pill-popping snooty lady, the father is Timothy who has caused a financial scandal but can’t take responsibility, the eldest sibling Saxon is a toxic chauvinist who demeans anyone and everyone to inflate his own ego, the younger brother Lochlan is an unbearable people pleaser, and lastly, there is Piper, the naive girl who wants to break out of her family’s hold.
Related: ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 Ending Explained: A Bloody But Beautiful Greek Tragedy
‘The White Lotus’ creator Mike White revealed on The White Lotus Official Season 3 Podcast that Piper almost slept with Belinda’s son Zion. The young man arrived in later episodes of the season and helped his mother milk Gary for his millions in exchange for keeping his sordid history with his dead wife Tanya to themselves.
But how would he have been with Piper? White explained, ”She decides to lose her virginity in the script in the last episode. And she actually has sex with Zion, which is Belinda’s son. So she’s like, you know, there’s a whole scene where she’s like, ‘It’s true. Saxon’s right about this one thing. I need to get this over with.’ And after she leaves the monastery, she’s just, like, ‘I need to have sex.’ And she’s scoping the restaurant in the end.”
However, the scene didn’t make it to air because the finale had too many ingredients already, and it would’ve left a bad taste if other glaring storylines were’t given a closure. “In the end, it was one of these things where it was like, it’s already an hour and a half. It would have added 10 minutes to the thing. And it had a little bit of a rom-com vibe in the middle of trying to kill the family with the pong pong fruits. It just felt like I was trying to do too much narratively,” White added.
Piper Ratliff’s Journey In ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3
Piper is someone who feels out of place in her first-world life. She has ideas to move to a monastery in Thailand, and that’s why she got her family to vacation there, with the pretext of a thesis. Of course, when her parents find out about her scheme, they flip.
It isn’t surprising that the young girl would want to do that. She can’t connect to her mother, her father is mostly self-obsessed, her elder brother taunts her about not having sex, and the younger brother is also bad at understanding what’s inappropriate. Well, the brothers did engage in an incestuous sequence. As for Piper, she decided to solve her sexual curiosity once and for all after having the revelation that she couldn’t leave the life of luxury and remain in Thailand. But, that never came to be.
In case you missed it: ‘The White Lotus’ Cut A Nonbinary Trans Storyline After Trump’s Win And It Altered A Major Character
As for the family’s final fate, thankfully, they all survived Timothy’s murder-suicide attempt to save them the humiliation and hardship of living in poverty back in the United States. White commented on their conclusion, “It’s a bittersweet ending. Life goes on past this personal valley, but what’s going to happen without their comforts? I don’t think Victoria is someone who can live in poverty. I’m sure she can come up with some other solution.”
They all take the boat out in the end, and things remain ambiguous. Whte wanted people to wonder and have conversations. So, the mystery about what will happen to the Ratliffs is intentional. Well, that’s how ‘The White Lotus‘ has always created intrigue. Nonetheless, the conclusion for the characters was endearing.
