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Spoilers follow for The White Lotus season-three finale, “Amor Fati.”

It’s so hard to leave a vacation behind. This is true even if, like the Victory Lap blondes, you are bonded more than ever by surviving a violent shooting that left many people in your vicinity literally dead in the water, and perhaps even truer if, like the Ratliff children, you are returning home to a life in shambles, the luxuries you’ve just discovered you cannot live without about to be stripped from you like your phones on the first day of this “detox.”

Now that we have answered the questions of the body — who will kill and who will be killed? — we must attend to questions of the spirit. Namely: Who bears responsibility for the slaughter of the season? How guilty is this group?

Rick

Well, Rick starts strong: Looking chic as fuck in his rumpled linen as he leaves Frank to the dregs of the party and returns to the waiting arms of his beloved, to whom he is finally ready to devote the rest of his life. Anyway, it’s all downhill from there. I can’t believe that we could all figure out that Sritala’s husband was Rick’s dad but Rick did not even consider the possibility. (Him referring to Rick’s mom as a “slut” was a total giveaway, no?)

How guilty is he? He brought his own death upon himself! Which honestly would be fine and fair — a risk he was evidently willing to take — but his mania brought about the untimely end of our sweet Chelsea’s life, and for that he is the guiltiest of all. Do we think they’ll see each other in the next life?

Chelsea

Chelsea spent the entire episode talking like someone who was 100 percent going to die: Saying she and Rick would be “together forever”; finally getting what she always wanted, commitment from her 50-year-old child; achieving whatever inner peace she could hope to attain; talking about “embracing fate” and “being linked” and how “any bad thing that happens to you [Rick, a man who is marked for death] happens to me.” Her face is the 🥹emoji.

How guilty is she? Innocent as the angel she is now! 😇

Timothy

As an attack on me personally, the first time we see Timothy in this episode he is — once more! Just in case you were wondering if this was his thing or not!! — swallowing a fistful of Lorazepam while wearing a Duke T-shirt (much to the horror of the university). I wrote in my notes, if we have to watch this guy almost kill himself but then back out at the last minute I will RIOT. I know he is zonked out on pills, but what kind of dumb-dumb, after deciding not to slaughter all his loved ones minus Lochlan, leaves the blender half-full of poison?! Also: incredible commitment on his family’s part to never listen to him, even when he is making a toast; personally, I would be concerned if my dad said “we’ve HAD a perfect life” right before trying to force a frozen cocktail down my throat.

How guilty is he? Extremely guilty of all those white-collar crimes he did back home that will certainly land him in prison; also totally guilty of nearly murdering his wife and elder children (on purpose) and youngest son (by accident); let us not forget he is guilty of stealing Victoria’s meds; and perhaps most offensive to me, guilty of doing the same thing over and over and over again for the entire season.

Victoria

The triumphant expression on her face as Piper weeps at breakfast: Just sensational. Victoria says they should enjoy their luxuries: “If we don’t, it’s offensive.” I think that upon returning to North Carolina — land of the eligible gentlemen, allegedly — she will gather her resources, abandon her husband, and find herself a new middle-aged weirdo to keep her in the lifestyle to which she’s become accustomed. And good for her!

Sidebar: I thought we’d get more out of Victoria being off her meds — certainly more than we got from Timothy being on them — but she seemed as before, and he just kept doing his thing of stumbling around and fantasizing about murder-suicide.

How guilty is she? Zero percent. Justice for Victoria.

Piper

Okay I LOVE that Piper hated the monastery and that she has realized, at the worst possible time, she is ready to accept her destiny and turn into her mother. I only wish she had made this revelation earlier because her dialogue, like her wardrobe, instantly improved. “You could tell the food, like, wasn’t organic?” Incredible. I know she’s supposed to scan as a spoiled princess here, but given the way the cast has described the conditions on the ground in Thailand, I too would perish without air conditioning over there.

How guilty is she? She is guilty of not letting her bratty princess flag fly sooner in the season. I would have loved to watch more of this Piper!

Lochlan

Rough day for this one. First he tries to explain to his brother that incest is actually a really nice thing that he was only doing because “I thought you looked a little left out” (!!). And then after proving, through his wide-eyed acceptance of a life without possessions, that he was worthy of surviving his dad’s almost-massacre, Lochy finally sips a shake from Chekhov’s blender, which unfortunately for him is NOT a Big Bro Protein MegaBlast but is, instead, a Suicide Smoothie. On the bright side, at least someone in this family got to see God after all this talk about spirituality. 

How guilty is he? I started to Google “is incest legal in Thailand” and then decided that wasn’t something I needed in my search history. Let’s just say Lochlan is guilty of being … a pleaser.

Saxon

Having died on the hill of “reading is for girls and losers,” Saxon spends much of the finale pretending that he isn’t reading and then acting like, whatever! Who cares! He can read, it’s just a dumb book!!! What an arc. The look in his eyes when Chelsea leaps into Rick’s arms … he knows he is going to have to wait until he is a middle-aged weirdo to find a love like that. Unless the person who loves him the most has been right in front of him, this whole time … worshipping him and worshipping him.

How guilty is he? Shockingly, given his whole deal, he’s an innocent man.

Gaitok

Yet again, Gaitok fails to do the only thing he has been hired to do. He finds out who the burglars are but does not even report them to his higher-up. Despite a brief, glimmering moment of self-awareness — “I’m not meant to be a guard” — Gaitok stays on the job long enough to commit a totally unnecessary homicide. All that hype about Gaitok’s aim and Rick was right there, impossible to miss? Gaitok shot him in the BACK? Ugh. He could have just arrested him! Alas, he finally got that promotion Mook was rooting for, even though the facts of the matter (he is horrible at security) remain. Does not portend well for Sritala’s safety.

Is he guilty? Extremely guilty of murder (Rick); also guilty of not reporting Valentin (at least get that guy banned from the hotel where you work, even if you don’t turn in the friends whose names you don’t know and who would get deported if you snitched); and forever guilty of being terrible at his job.

Mook

PLEASE do not hurt me for saying this, for I love Blackpink and I cherish my life, but: What the hell!? I feel like we are missing some key piece of information as to why Mook is so invested in Gaitok being a tough, violent asshole. She seems to have benefited greatly, friendship-wise, from him being a softie; besides, she’s a bombshell, there are other fish, etc. Her devotion to making him someone he so obviously wasn’t (ambitious, homicidal) felt so … random. No? I kept waiting to find out she was in on it with the Russians. Instead she is just an annoying and delusional girl who will break up with Gaitok within six months of the events of this episode.

Is she guilty? I think Gaitok might have shot Rick even without Mook’s influence — Sritala shrieking at him probably would’ve done the trick — but he would’ve quit this job ages ago if it weren’t for Mook insisting he stick it out and fight for a promotion he did not deserve and barely even wanted.

Kate

Love her cactus print pajamas. Really, A-plus storytelling-through-wardrobe throughout with this bunch, who started out looking totally interchangeable, veered briefly into individuality, and ended the season looking like they’d all gotten dressed out of the same closet. No surprise that Kate is content to leave behind all the “drama” (honest confrontations that revealed deep fractures in their relationships) and go back to being besties. I cracked up at her line reading of, “I’m so glad we did this.”

How guilty is she? Only of marrying a Republican and being an “Independent.”

Jaclyn

Are we to believe that reading Sritala’s memoir made Jaclyn feel genuine remorse and regret? While I completely bought Kate’s desire to return to the status quo, I feel like Jaclyn is not actually interested in being around people who keep her “grounded.”

How guilty is she? You know what? She sponsored this whole trip, she and her single friend got laid, and everyone made it out alive. Point: Jaclyn. She is innocent in my eyes!

Laurie

What do we think brought Laurie back around, in the end? Just a big, bad case of the hangover sads? Watching her two friends take their hot vacation pics in the pool without her and accepting that she’d rather play along than not get to play at all? Realizing that everything she’s ever believed in has let her down and these friendships, such as they are, are the last load-bearing pillar of her crumbling life??

Even in her kindest moment, Laurie still manages to neg them both; “I’m glad you have a beautiful face” is a hilarious thing to offer up as an olive branch to the person you’ve relentlessly mocked for getting work done, and “I’m glad that you have a beautiful life” is an even funnier thing to say to someone whose choices you find morally repugnant. (Not to mention, it really turns “beautiful face” into more of an insult than a compliment.) After reaming her besties out for having not changed at all since their teen years, Laurie reverts back to her adolescent self. I’d bet “I’m just happy to be at the table” is exactly how Laurie felt in the high school cafeteria.

How guilty is she? She’s guilty of lying to herself, but otherwise I’d say her conscience is clear.

Belinda

When she said “$100,000 isn’t enough anyway” I cheered at my screen. That’s what I was saying! Her delivery of “he killed the bitch” was perfection, as was “Can’t I just be rich for five fucking minutes?” Great question! I am always asking this!

I was worried for the duration of their negotiation with Greg-Gary because her hot son seemed like a bit of a B-school himbo. But in the end I’m just happy she got what she wanted and can move on with her life, ideally far away from this franchise. Unless next season is going to be about the White Lotus outpost she finally gets to run …

How guilty is she? I mean, technically she is guilty of letting Greg-Gary go free. But I think she’s really been through enough and I am choosing not to hold that against her. I support women’s wrongs, etc.

Zion

He’s so intent on playing the bigshot during the negotiation that his energy is very three-kids-in-a-trenchcoat: insisting on whiskey, bragging about information he got “according to the internet,”; quoting A Raisin in the Sun while dropping dopey lines like, “all I care about is business and the bottom line.” I am proud of him for pushing for the $5 million, however.

How guilty is he? Like his mom, he is, if we’re being pedantic about it, letting Greg-Gary continue to get away with murder. But the man can really make lemonade out of lemons (NOT to be confused with the fruits of the suicide tree)!

Pornchai

I had been rooting for him earlier in the season but his post-tryst behavior was a huge turnoff. You get to ask Belinda on a second date or to maybe extend her stay in Thailand; I don’t really think jumping from “we had sex one time” to “let’s open a business together” is the stuff green flags are made of.

How guilty is he? Only of falling in love with a woman he couldn’t have. I guess he also declined to turn Greg-Gary into the authorities, but I’m feeling generous and will not be pinning that on loverboy here.

Greg-Gary

What a relief to find that our unfriendly neighborhood wife-killer could be reasonable here. And the look in his eyes at the party during the closing montage suggests that I was wrong re: his kink of choice being something Chloe made up just to mess with Saxon.

How guilty is he? Well, we can’t get him for last season’s murder; feels inadmissible, no? Obviously he’s still evil, but this time around he did the right thing. Even a broken clock, you know?

Chloe

Missed her! I really hope Greg-Gary doesn’t kill her. She probably doesn’t have enough money to be worth killing. Right?

How guilty is she? She is INNOCENT.

Valentin

Valentin confesses to the burglary but swears it’s just that crime is the only option he and his friends have! To this I must ask: Valentin, don’t you … have a job? At the White Lotus? The way he tries to swing by the girls’ table for one last friendly hang KILLED me. Baby you need to know when you have stayed too long at the fair.

How guilty is he? 33.3 percent guilty of armed robbery; 100 percent guilty of being a fuckboy.

Sritala

If I were running the White Lotus — after my first order of business: firing Gaitok — I would simply not allow a man who had lied his way into my home in order to assault my husband who, as I just learned, was also that man’s father, to continue staying at my hotel. Have this dude removed from the premises! Do it before you get back with your still-healing husband in tow! Do I have to do everything around here?!

How guilty is she? I’m going to say, just through carelessness alone, she has blood on her hands for her husband’s death, and she’s almost as guilty as Gaitok in Rick’s death, seeing as there’s no way he’d have the gumption to pull the trigger if she had not been screaming at him to do so.

Mr. Hollinger, a.k.a. Rick’s dad

I don’t mean to victim-blame, but …

How guilty is he? He literally brought the murder weapon into play, not to mention that his failure to just tell Rick the truth — in a straightforward way, not like a rude riddle — really, ahh, escalated things.

Frank

Frank starts his day on a bender, wearing leopard-print underwear and surrounded by beautiful women. Then he does some forward rolls and light parkour in the hallway to keep his friend from bailing on the party. By the next day he is back seeking serenity and wisdom at the monastery. What a journey.

How guilty is he? I actually think he’s innocent in every way? Though he was down to facilitate his friend’s accidental-patricide, he wound up doing nothing except entertaining Sritala (and me) for an hour, and now he’s climbing his way back onto the wagon.

Amrita

The stress manager who Rick NEEDED to see like RIGHT NOW could maybe have prevented all these murders if only she’d allowed Rick an emergency session!!

How guilty is she? I don’t actually think she should feel guilty about that, but I do fear it will haunt her for the rest of her days.

The monk

The monk’s sole purpose in this life is to articulate the subtext of this show, very slowly, just in case somebody missed it after watching this series for literally seven hours. To review: sometimes we wake with anxiety … and so we take action … but there is no resolution to life’s questions. Got it, thanks babe!

How guilty is he? The monk is guilty only of stating the obvious while failing to provide fair Piper with air-conditioned lodgings.

Pam

I know she thought she was helping by telling everyone about the fruit that kills people. But I didn’t realize it was only the seeds of the fruit that kill people. In what world would somebody accidentally eat the seeds, which need to be crushed into an edible paste with a blender? Like, did she really think it was a good idea to advertise that “the locals call it the suicide tree?” Really interesting choices being made by all of the staff here at the White Lotus.

I thought it was only Timothy’s family that was intent on ignoring his evident distress but it turns out everyone was just out here completely missing this man’s obvious psychotic break. How wonderful for you.

How guilty is she? Not not guilty, Pam!

Related

• The White Lotus Season-Finale Recap: The Suicide Tree
• Let’s Read Into That White Lotus Finale
• The White Lotus Didn’t Earn It
• The White Lotus Finale’s Best Reaction Shots

 Now that we’ve answered the questions of the body — who will kill and who will be killed? — we must attend to questions of the spirit.