There’s not all praise for “The White Lotus” Season 3 finale.
Fans of the HBO show called out a plot hole involving Rick (Walton Goggins) on social media after the shocking episode aired Sunday night.
Viewers complained about Rick’s decision to return to the hotel after assaulting resort manager Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn) in Bangkok. Later in the episode, Rick murders Jim who turns out to be his father. That leads to a shootout that ends in Rick and Chelsea’s (Aimee Lou Wood) deaths.
“Why the f–k would Rick have gone back to the hotel owned by the guy he just assaulted (and not even try to leave in any hurry)?” one fan wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“Why is Rick still at the hotel?!? He tried to murder the owners husband! Get out of the country! Did that ‘enlightenment’ give him brain damage?” another viewer said.
A third person tweeted, “Rick and his daddy issues was the worst thing this season. He was so dumb as hell to go back to the hotel in the first place. This is all his fault!”
A different viewer said that “Rick returning the hotel, and chilling there, after what he did at the owners’ house” was “nonsense” and “preposterous.”
“It really makes no sense that rick and chelsea were even still at the hotel tbh,” another fan tweeted.
“I think it was pretty stupid of rick to go back to that hotel in first place,” someone else wrote.
In a Reddit thread about the episode, fans similarly bashed the Rick plotline.
“Really the only thing I can’t look past is how impractical it is for Rick to return to the hotel after conning and assaulting its owners,” one viewer wrote.
“I’m sorry but the fact that Rick went back to the hotel instead of just telling Chelsea to check out and meet him in Bangkok was INCREDIBLY stupid to me,” another critic wrote.
There were other plot points that audiences complained about on social media following the finale.
In regards to the moment where Kate (Leslie Bibb) recognizes Victoria (Parker Posey) at the resort earlier in the season, one fan wrote on X, “What was the point of this scene?”
“So they didn’t wanna explain how Kate and Victoria Ratliff knew each other,” a different fan tweeted.
“I did hope & expect that Kate would eventually talk about Victoria again & maybe even spill to others what Tim Ratliff was getting accused of doing back home. She was denied the chance to gossip on this story…such a disappointment,” another person noted.
Others were let down by Mook’s (Lalisa Manobal) storyline after the finale.
“All of those theories about Mook when all that she wanted was a financially stable man,” one X comment read.
A different fan wrote on Reddit, “Aside from Sritala, I didn’t think the other Thai characters like Pornchai, Mook and Gaitok really contributed to the story. It feels a bit of a disservice to use all these Thai cultural elements in the show, but not allow the most Thai element, the actual Thai characters, to have memorable role.”
“Not a great season. You could take the whole Mook/bodyguard out and not much would change,” said another viewer.
On Sunday night, some of the cast — including Wood, Bibb, Jason Isaacs, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sarah Catherine Hook, Sam Nivola and Jon Gries — reunited at the Four Seasons Westlake Village hotel and discussed the finale in a panel.
“We were all crying backstage, we held each other for a long time,” Isaacs, 61, told the crowd, per The Hollywood Reporter. “I don’t know because if it’s this thing is coming to an end or because it’s just such a beautiful story.”
Wood, 31, said preparing to film Chelsea’s death was an “ominous” experience and admitted her character’s fate still hasn’t “soaked in” for her.
