SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the Season 3 finale of HBO‘s The White Lotus.

It was carnage at The White Lotus as Mike White went nuclear with a devastating finale that saw a number of the key cast killed as well as a few supplemental characters.

“It’s a classic theme of Greek tragedy, or somebody killing the thing that they love and trying to get some revenge,” says White.

Walton Goggins’ Rick was the instigator, starting off a series of events that eventually saw at least five shot and killed.

Among those dead in the finale were Rick, his girlfriend Chelsea, played by Aimee Lou Wood, who earlier in the episode declared that she and Rick would be “forever together”, White Lotus owner Jim Hollinger, played by Scott Glenn, as well as two of his bodyguards.

As expected, the guests’ final day at the Thailand hotel was wild, although many sailed off into the sunset on their way home, some richer financially, such Natasha Rothwell’s Belinda, and others richer in terms of friendship like the blond blob – Carrie Coon’s Laurie, Leslie Bibb’s Kate and Michelle Monaghan’s Jaclyn and the Ratliff family.

After Rick had seemingly got the monkey off his back in the previous episode, the killing spree begins when Hollinger returns to the hotel and goes after Rick, who steals Hollinger’s gun and shoots him at close range before finding out that Hollinger was indeed his father.

“I remember your mother. I knew she was a drunk and a slut, didn’t know she was a liar to. I don’t want you to think your father was a great man, he was no saint, you didn’t miss out on much and that’s the fucking truth,” Hollinger said to Rick before his death.

Chelsea dies after being shot by one of Hollinger’s bodyguards (as well as the fact that she told Rick not to do “something stupid”) and then again by Gaitok, who also shoots Rick.

“Chelsea has this kind of romantic fatalism about their relationship, and you want to buy into it. She says to him stop fixating on the love you didn’t get. Think about the love that you have,” adds White.

Rick had tried to see Amrita, the spiritual advisor, before the killing spree, something that White says might have prevented the entire situation. “Had Amrita sat with Rick maybe none of us would have happened,” he adds.

Gaitok subsequently drives off with Sritala Hollinger, as one of her new protectors, a move that has seemingly brought him closer to his crush Mook, played by Blackpink’s Lalisa Manobal.

“One of the concepts around Buddhism is non violence. To take a guy that you’re really rooting for and that you understand his sensitive nature and becoming a hero to his girl and a hero to his work, and the only way he can do it is by going against his spiritual beliefs,” says White in a featurette after the episode.

Elsewhere, Belinda does to Pornchai what Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya did to her, running back to America with her son and $5M from Greg/Gary. “Belinda has had a lot of disappointments. Greg makes this offer to her, and I just thought it would be a fun way to have somebody else benefit from this tragedy that befell Tanya,” White says.

The Ratliff family are unharmed, physically, at least, if not financially, after Jason Isaacs’ Timothy changes his mind about them drinking cocktails made from the fruit of the suicide tree. The poisonous tree does ensnare Lochlan, however, who does pass out after drinking a smoothie, but his father saves him.

“Things are about to change; we’ll get through them as a family. We’re a strong family and nothing’s more important than family,” Timothy says as the family are on the boat.

“I had read stories about some aristocratic guy who basically killed his family because he had been blowing through all their money and didn’t have the guts to tell them. The way Tim’s family sees him is so crucial to his sense of self that when that’s at risk, he would rather burn down the whole house than face the music,” White says.

“As far as the Ratliffs, it’s kind of a Bittersweet ending Life goes on to pass this personal valley. But what’s going to happen to them without all their comforts? I don’t think Victoria is somebody who can live in poverty. I’m sure she’s gonna find some other solution,” he adds.