How ‘The White Lotus’ Creator Kept [Spoiler’s] Death From Being ‘Too Tragic’
In The White Lotus Season 2 finale, fans finally found out who perished in the premiere. The character’s death was shocking and a little sad. But according to creator Mike White, he tried his best to avoid making the scene too tragic.
[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for The White Lotus Season 2 finale.]
Who dies in ‘The White Lotus’ Season 2 finale?
The White Lotus Season 2 premiere set up the season’s riveting mystery by revealing that the bodies of several vacationers were found in the sea. All season, fans tried to guess who had died.
But the riveting finale detailed how Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) and Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) were duped by Quentin (Tom Hollander) and his friends. He was possibly working with Tanya’s husband, Greg (Jon Gries), to get to her fortune. So he planned to have her killed by his mafia friend after she got off his yacht.
But Tanya figures out their plan. And after finding a loaded gun in the mafioso’s bag, she shoots him, Quentin, and their friends.
Tanya tries to escape by jumping into the speed boat tied to the yacht. But she falls, hits her head on the side of the boat, and drowns.
Daphne finds Tanya’s body floating in the sea. And while the other bodies aren’t clearly identified, it’s safe to assume they are Quentin and his cohorts.
How creator Mike White avoided making her death ‘too tragic’
Tanya has become a fan-favorite since the first season of The White Lotus. And as much as he didn’t want to kill her off, White noted that her comment about death being the only “immersive experience” she didn’t try inspired him to write her end.
“I was thinking, it’d be so fun to bring Tanya back because she’s such a great character, but maybe that’s the journey for her, a journey to death,” the writer/director said in the post-episode featurette. “Not that I really wanted to kill Tanya because I love her as a character and obviously love Jennifer.”
“But I just felt like, we’re going to Italy, she’s such a diva — a larger-than-life female archetype — it felt like we could devise our own operatic conclusion to Tanya’s life and her story,” he added.
White didn’t want Tanya to die “at the hands of someone else” because he knew it would feel “too tragic.” So he gave Tanya her “best fight back” so she could have “some kind of victory over whoever was conspiring to get rid of her.”
“It just made me laugh to think she would like take out this cabal of killers,” White explained. “And, after she successfully does that, she just dies this derpy death, and it just felt like that’s just so Tanya.”
Jennifer Coolidge tried to talk Mike White out of killing Tanya in ‘The White Lotus’ Season 2
Coolidge picked up a well-deserved Primetime Emmy for her portrayal of Tanya in The White Lotus Season 1. And she recently received a Golden Globe nomination for her work in season 2.
With all the success the role has given her, Coolidge didn’t want to say goodbye to Tanya just yet. So she tried to get White to change the ending, and keep Tanya alive.
“You can’t talk Mike White out of anything, really,” Coolidge said in a chat with White for The New York Times. “But whenever Mike was in a really good mood, and laughing about something, I’d go, like, ‘I don’t have to die, right?'”
“Even when we were shooting the scene in the ocean where Daphne finds her body,” White added, recalling Coolidge’s attempts to save Tanya. “She was like, ‘Should we just do one take where I pull myself up on the shore? Just one?'”
Mike White may continue Tanya’s story in ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3
Tanya may not be around for the next White Lotus vacation. But as White teased, the issues surrounding her death may be addressed in The White Lotus Season 3.
“I think as far as like, what happens to Greg and the conspiracy of Tanya’s death, it’s possible that I think Portia is scared enough to just leave it alone, but the fact that all of those guys die on the boat, it feels like there’s gotta be somebody who’s gonna track it back down to Greg, ” White teased in the episode’s unpacking featurette. “But maybe you’ll have to wait to find out what happens.”
