Warning: This story contains spoilers from season 2 of The White Lotus.
A killer ending. The White Lotus season 2 finale offered plenty of answers to some of the fans’ biggest questions.
After growing suspicious of Quentin (Tom Hollander), Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) warns Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) that they might be in danger. Tanya kills almost everyone on the yacht with a gun she finds — but ultimately dies after hitting her head while trying to get to the dinghy.
Meanwhile, Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Harper (Aubrey Plaza) are able to get to a better place in their relationship after he confronts Cameron (Theo James). However, a conversation with Daphne (Meghann Fahy) leads to more questions about what actually happened between the foursome during their time in Sicily.
Ahead of the final episode, which aired on Sunday, December 11, several cast members weighed in on the show’s big mystery. Richardson pointed out that every character could be a suspect.
“Isn’t that screwed up, that literally all of the characters could be capable of murder? It’s pretty f—ked up,” the actress said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that same month. “I would believe that any of us could do it, has it in them.”
Richardson previously recalled learning which characters died early in the filming process. “I actually got all seven scripts before we started filming, and so I read them all and knew the ending,” she told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. “We also filmed the show completely out of order. So, all seven episodes were like one giant, 800-page movie or whatever, and we were filming it all over the place. So from start to finish, we all knew what happened in the show.”
Coolidge also hinted at Tanya’s uncertain future, telling TV Insider in October, “This is a dangerous world. [She’s] one person alone trying to take on many complicated things.”
The Legally Blonde star continued: “I had moments on set that I felt the loneliest I have in my life. That really helped. Because Sicily is so big, with the rocks and hills, it’s like you’re a little ant. You can’t control the stuff that’s lurking around you. It’s very hard to protect yourself.”
According to creator Mike White, building up the suspense after showing several dead bodies in the season 2 premiere was part of the fun.
“I realized last season there is so much online chatter and talk about the mystery element of it — which was not my priority as a writer,” he explained to Entertainment Weekly in September. “But I was like, everything is so different this season — the characters are different, the location is different — we need some kind of architecture that is similar to last season. Starting with the mystery and the body and who is it and what happened, carrying that over might lure people in. Because this is like an operatic season, it’s a little wilder as far as the plot. So I felt like we might as well go there. Come for the murder, stay for something else, hopefully.”
Scroll down to see where every White Lotus character ended up in season 2: