CN: White Lotus spoilers and lots of ‘em
On this Easter Sunday, we come together to honor the people’s favorite resurrected son—Lochlan Ratliff.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been simultaneously mourning the end of HBO Sundays and delighting in dissecting White Lotus’s third season with everyone from my optometrist to my queer crochet circle. What was up with the lizard stalking Belinda? Was ditching Pornchai as bad as what Tanya did to Belinda in Season 1? Why was everyone allowed to leave the White Lotus before the shooting had been investigated? Why did the hotel have all that lethally-poisonous fruit lying around to begin with? And yeah, we’re all probably a bit sick of White Lotus discourse by now. But I need to get it on record that LOCHLAN SHOULD’VE STAYED DEAD.
Season 3 was, in many ways, inferior to seasons 1 and 2. The characters weren’t as finely drawn, plot threads were left frayed, and Parker Posey was left to shoulder the bulk of the show’s comedic expectations. I frankly did not care what happened to most of the characters (except Chelsea and Belinda). But nevertheless, I’ve already rewatched it thrice, and that’s thanks to America’s most well-adjusted family: the Ratliffs.
What can I say about the Ratliffs that papa Ratliff didn’t say just before trying to murder-suicide them off the face of the earth? Tim is a shady finance guy who reps his alma mater with a dedication almost as concerning as his homicidal fantasies. Victoria is living in an alternate dimension sponsored by Lorazepam. Saxon is a sex-obsessed shady finance guy in training. Piper is a Buddhist whose inner peace depends on her external circumstances being exactly perfect at every moment. And our boy Lochlan is a little lost lamb who will go to any lengths—truly, any lengths 👀—to try to please his family.
The end of our time with the Ratliffs was as disappointing as most of the endings in season 3. There was no substantive character growth. We got a sloppy parallel to the ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ image from episode one with the siblings, except this time it kinda seemed like we were supposed to think Saxon wasn’t a part of it anymore because he read one book and now he’s a totally issues-free guy. But apparently having a near-death experience and seeing god isn’t enough to change your world-view, because Lochlan’s now in the “see no evil” role. And worst of all, we never got to see them find out they’re (whisper it) poor. So here’s what I think should’ve happened.
Scenario #1:
Rick goes after Jim Hollinger because Amrita couldn’t take two minutes of her time to prevent a quintuple homicide. But, Jim takes the gaping window of opportunity while Rick approaches him with murder in his eyes to grab his gun instead of standing there like a pillar of salt and waiting for Rick to take it. Scott probably tells Rick to get lost, but Rick (classic Scorpio) keeps on coming. So Scott fires, maybe catching Rick in the shoulder or something. By this time Carrie Coon has already claimed her Olympic gold and left a Laurie-shaped hole in the resort wall. Everyone’s running around shooting at each other until Gaitok shows up—he still gets to play the hero and tackles Rick, finding a way to show off for Mook without betraying his values. But nobody actually dies in the shootout, especially not my angel Chelsea, and we get a classic White Lotus subversion of how we thought the death was going to happen.
Meanwhile, Chekov’s blender has taken Lochy out for good. Victoria, Saxon and Piper come back from breakfast to find Tim with his head in his hands next to Lochy’s lifeless body. We could still have a ‘see no/hear no/speak no evil’ moment with Tim, Victoria and Piper, while Saxon is the only one who’s not a part of it, showing that he’s the only one who’s no longer in denial and is beginning to see the truth (thanks in large part to Chelsea, who lives a long, happy life in my version). Also, now that he’s becoming un-douche-ified, he’s able to acknowledge his love (eros or philia, I’ll leave you to decide) for Lochlan, and really feel his loss.
For about five minutes we think their grief is going to force them to face up to what genuinely awful people they are, blaming themselves for what’s happened. But then, we see them start to fall back into their old ways: Victoria pops a Lorazepam, Piper turns it into fodder for her pseudo-spiritual journey, and Tim…I don’t know what Tim does. Probably laments the fact that now Lochlan will never go to Duke.
Oh, and that reminds me. In this version, Tim powers up his phone to discover that someone has taken the fall for him. They’re not poor after all, hooray! But also kind of a bummer you MURDERED YOUR CHILD for no reason. Lochlan’s death is chalked up as a tragic accident that I sincerely hope leads to the White Lotus removing all pong-pong trees from resort grounds, and the Ratliffs are home free. Duke gains a Lochlan Ratliff Memorial Scholarship, and instead of changing them, the tragedy has just cemented them further in their wankerliness. Except Saxon, who I think probably has an existential crisis, quits his job, and goes on his own journey of enlightenment (Saxual healing?) with Chelsea who is feeling bereft of needy man-children while Rick is in prison.
Scenario #2:
Everything goes down basically the way I described it in Scenario #1 up to the point where the Ratliffs get their phones back. In this version, Tim doesn’t get away with it, and ends up in white collar prison for…I don’t know how long fraud-embezzelment misdealings that have something to do with the government of Brunei, and also accidentally-on-purpose murdering your son get you, but that long. For a minute the Ratliffs are all like, Oh shit, we’re poor. I bet they have NO FUCKING IDEA what it’s like to actually be poor. It isn’t just doing without your scents and velvet. It’s scraping the mold off your cheese and calling it good enough. It’s showering at the community pool because you’re saving up for a water heater. It’s responding to compliments with ‘Thanks, I found it on the street.’
Piper, meanwhile, has decided to stay in Thailand. I mean, shit, if she’s going to have to eat nonorganic food and sleep on a stained mattress anyway, why not do it in lip service to your white girl ~spirituality~? But this time, she’s not so precious about the no-phone rule and starts a TikTok account about her year living at a Buddhist monastery in the wake of her younger brother’s tragic death. It goes viral, and she ends up in a Tahani Al-Jamil-esque, enlightenment-turned-capitalist arc—book deals, speaking gigs, awards, a lifestyle brand. Probably an Erehwon smoothie (she won’t get the irony). Her profits from all of that will be enough to keep Victoria in velvet, support Tim if/when he gets out of prison, and pay for biannual stints in rehab for Saxon, who has totally lost his shit after Lochy’s death. Of all the Ratliffs, he’s the one I think will be most genuinely affected by it.
To those who’ve told me we would need a whole other spin-off show to wrap up the Ratliffs’ story the way I want, I say, haven’t you ever heard of a montage? And secondly, why not? I’d watch the hell out of it. In any case, I stand by my disappointment about the resurrection. Killing Lochy off would’ve been a great vehicle for character development (or some poignantly failed arcs, as the case may be) and it would’ve shown us that you just can’t run around being that much of a people-pleaser or you’re gonna end up dead. In the immortal words of Ricky Nelson, you can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself. Not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter.
